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National Interfaith Academies Convene in Kansas City

By Sylvia Maria Gross

Kansas City, MO – The organization Religions for Peace-USA has brought together the very first Interfaith Academies at St. Paul School of Theology on Truman Road. Rapidly changing demographics throughout the United States are requiring religious leaders to relate with faith systems that might be very different, or even conflict with their own.

Religions for Peace-USA, along with Harvard University's Pluralism Project, St. Paul, and the Greater Kansas City Interfaith Council have created two programs, one for established religious leaders and another for emerging leaders, that they hope will be a kind of model for seminaries and other religious-training institutions.

Tarunjit Singh Butalia of the World Sikh Council-America Region, Hartford Seminary Professor Yehezkel Landau and Presbyterian Minister Peggy Thomas discuss the issues that are being raised in the academies. And participants Eireni Sereci, Jonathan Cross and Maneck Bhujwala talk about what they hoped to learn from the Emerging Leaders program.

This story was produced for KC Currents. To listen on your own schedule, subscribe to the KC Currents Podcast .

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