Coming in 2022!
Weekend of March 18-20, 2022
Mr. Ched Myers and Dr. Elaine Enns, scholars and activists, will speak to our Central Valley interfaith audiences about environmental, social, racial, and economic justice through the lens of the biblical traditions of Sabbath and Jubilee. Please save the dates and return to these Interfaith Scholar Weekend web pages for periodic updates!
ISW 2021 Webinar Series
“Closing Roundtable”
Monday, March 22, 4:00- 5:30 pm PT
Three Guest Scholars
Four Faith Traditions
“Bearing Witness from Fresno’s Mason-Dixon Line”
Come join us!
Meet our 2021 Guest Scholars
Malik Simba, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of History and Africana Studies, California State University, Fresno
“The dialectics of history is driven by race, class, gender, age, and ethnicity. The ideas of equality, individualism, justice, and the rule of law encases the dialectics of history. In the United States these variables are driven by the contradiction between what Gunnar Myrdal says is the strife between the ideas of freedom versus equality and Jim Crow and its legacy of Racism.”
More about Malik Simba, Ph.D.
Nathan K. Hensley, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English, Georgetown University
“At what point does an anecdote begin? Or more abstractly: How to tell the history of a social process, of a racism baked into the very background of life, when the springs and levers of that process — its causes — have been hidden from you and nearly every other white person you know, on purpose, for decades?”
More about Nathan K. Hensley, Ph.D.
Uziel Jimenez
Antiracist Educator, Co-founder, Fresno Ethnic Studies Coalition
“The overwhelming conclusion of my research was that, in general, Fresno was much more discriminatory towards people of color than most residents realize. Specifically, the significant discrimination in both housing and employment created conditions which combined to provoke a riot in 1967 and whose effects can be seen to this day, block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood.”
More about Uziel JimenezSince 1998, the Fresno Interfaith Scholar Weekend has brought a renown scholar from one of the represented religious traditions to Fresno for a weekend of lectures and events on topics of interest to interfaith audiences. Each year, Interfaith Scholar Weekend is a remarkable experience in adult religious education, offering not only the opportunity to hear the lectures, but also to engage in dialogue both with the scholars and other participants.
During the weekend participants also gain spiritual enrichment from learning and worshiping together with people from varied faith communities, for example, joining in Friday evening prayers at the Islamic Cultural Center or Torah study at Temple Beth Israel. The Scholar preaches at one or more of the participating Christian churches on Sunday morning, giving the opportunity for participants to experience that congregation’s worship as well.
Started by Community United Church of Christ and Temple Beth Israel in 1998, the Fresno Interfaith Scholar Weekend now includes sponsors from a wide variety of religious traditions, including Muslim, Sikh, Lutheran, Episcopal, United Methodist, Catholic, and Unitarian faith communities. Still other faith communities and institutions participate as co-sponsors. Read more about Fresno Interfaith Scholar Weekend.
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