Oak Ridge Today

Women’s Interfaith Dialogue hosts free forum on world belief systems on Monday

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Women's Interfaith Dialogue Steering Committee

Members of the Women’s Interfaith Dialogue Steering Steering pictured above are, from left to right, Barbara McCord, Jo Ann Garrett, Eileen Handler, and Cleva Marrow. (Submitted photo)

The Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of Oak Ridge will sponsor a free community forum on different world belief systems at 11 a.m. Monday. The forum, “Tell Us about Your Faith: Learning from Each Other,” will be at the Jewish Congregation of Oak Ridge.

The presentations by a dozen or so local women will be organized from oldest belief system in origin to newest, including Wicca, Hindu, Jewish, Roman Catholic, Islam, many of the major Protestant denominations, Quaker, Universalist and Baha’i.

A question and answer session will follow the presentations. The forum is free and open to the public. Donations are welcome.

The presenters include Nayeema Ahmad, Sharon Annis, Carolyn Dipboye, Margaret Dory, Diane Edwards, Jo Ann Garrett, Kas Gomathinayagam, Barbara McCord, Kathy Olsen, Ruth Prince, Fran Silver, and Toni Stephenson. [Read more…]

Guest minister to speak on Jewish inclusion in Unitarian Universalism

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Marti Keller

Marti Keller

During a Sunday sermon, an Atlanta minister will discuss the experiences of Unitarian Universalists who identify as Jewish and the “rich possibilities that they offer in terms of cultural and religious diversity,” a press release said.

The sermon by Rev. Marti Keller, titled “Outside the Cathedral Walls,” starts at 10 a.m. Sunday at the Oak Ridge Unitarian Universalist Church.

“This topic was the subject of my honors thesis for my master of divinity degree at Emory University, and an area of interest for me as a parish and community minister over the past almost 15 years, serving UU congregations and interfaith agencies in the South,” Keller said.

The press release said Keller is a minister on staff at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, focusing on social justice, denominational work, small group ministry, and adult education. She is the former president of UUs for Jewish Awareness, is a member of the planning committee for the second national gathering of Jewish UUs and their allies scheduled for Winter 2014, and co-editor of the upcoming “Let Us be Counted: Jewish Voices in Unitarian Universalism”, a collection of essays and reflections to be published by Skinner House Press in 2014.

More information on Keller can be found online at www.revmartikeller.com.

For more information on Keller’s visit, call the ORUUC office at (865) 483- 6761. To learn more about the ORUUC visit online at www.oruuc.org.

ORUUC is located at 1500 Oak Ridge Turnpike (traffic light #11) in Oak Ridge.

The release said ORUUC is a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, a denomination that welcomes people of diverse spiritual understanding to gather in community to “stand on the side of love.” Among the ancestors of Unitarian Universalism are this nation’s Puritan founders, whose efforts to affirm freedom of religion included “The Cambridge Platform,” written in 1648, which laid out the democratic principles of congregational self-governance that ORUUC still follows today, in 2012.