Rumi Forum, Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington, and Washington Theological Consortium present the 5th Interfaith Leadership Forum: “Harnessing our Collective Strength through Interreligious Literacy” on February 29, 2024, at Virginia Theological Seminary. The program features keynote speaker Shaun Casey, an interfaith panel, breakout sessions, and a closing plenary.

About the Event

Interreligious literacy can be a means to promote greater religious understanding and appreciation in the context of our pluralistic democracy. Ideally, by learning about and engaging with the diverse traditions that make up our society, we learn to respect one another, thereby reducing fear, prejudice, discrimination, and misunderstanding. In doing so, we may also enhance our own ethical worldview and advance social cohesion.

Social sectors like Chaplaincy, Healthcare, Education, and Law Enforcement bring people together from various religious and cultural backgrounds. Those who work in and interact with these sectors benefit from the fruits of interreligious literacy when it’s effective at empowering people to be true to their identities and equipping them to engage with diverse perspectives productively.

This program is intended to help participants increase their interreligious knowledge and experience, reflect, and generate ideas for applying this new learning in their own contexts.

Thematic Areas:

• Chaplaincy

Sister Laura Lee Seubert, L.S.J. (Little Sisters of Jesus), is celebrating her ruby jubilee of 40 years in religious life. She was born in Cottonwood, Idaho, where she attended St. Gertrude Academy. She continued her education at Mankato State University (B.S.) in Mankato, Minnesota, the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, and the Institute of Integral Human Formation in Montreal, Quebec. She is a C.P.E. graduate from MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. Sister Laura Lee’s ministry has included inner-city life in Chicago, traveling circus ministry across the United States and Canada; and contemplative presence, friendship, and work in Anchorage, Alaska; Rome, Italy; Gallitzin, Pennsylvania; and Baltimore. She currently serves as a part-time contract chaplain at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. Sister Laura Lee follows the spirituality of Blessed Charles de Foucauld in being a contemplative presence in the heart of the world.

• Healthcare

Dr. Inez Tuck, Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University, had a remarkable career in higher education as a university professor, administrator, and researcher. In her faculty role, she focused on healing individuals, organizations, families, and communities and the spirituality, trauma, and health of individuals with stigmatized illnesses or who have experienced the homicidal death of family members. She has been a faculty/consultant for a leadership development program sponsored by the National League for Nursing. She has served as a nursing educational consultant in the country of Moldova since 2011.

She serves on the Advisory Board for the Institute of Justice Formation and has written several commentaries on the webpage. She was an academic member of the earlier Project BeSTOW at the FBI Academy, which examined law enforcement officers’ wellness and spiritual health. Dr. Tuck has a diverse educational background with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from NC A&T State University, a Master’s degree in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing from the University of Florida, and an MBA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her PhD in Child Development and Family Relations with a minor in Sociology was earned at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. In 2008, Dr. Tuck completed the Master of Divinity degree at Samuel Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University.

• Education

Dr. Kate Soules is an education researcher and independent consultant specializing in religious literacy and religious diversity education. She works with organizations to assess the outcomes and effects of their programs so that they can increase the reach and impact of this work. Her research examines the assessment and evaluation of religious literacy education, teacher professional learning about religion, and the impacts of religious literacy education for both students and educators. Dr. Soules is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Religion and Education Collaborative (REC), an interdisciplinary network of scholars and practitioners working at the intersections of religion and schooling. She was a 2019-2020 recipient of the Religious Literacy Fellowship from the Foundation for Religious Literacy. In 2021, she received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Religious and Education Special Interest Group at the American Education Research Association.

• Law Enforcement

Officer Kevin Johnson, Jr. has been the lead officer over the years in strengthening MPD’s relationship with the Islamic community in the District. This took on renewed urgency in 2019 in the aftermath of the Christchurch shooting, as anti-Islamic incidents spiked across the US. Officer Johnson’s efforts allowed MPD officers to visit and build relationships and trust among all the Islamic mosques and institutions within the District. Leaders in the Muslim and African communities have noted that his work and presence are important and viewed as a significant step towards reducing the community’s fears.

About the Interfaith Leadership Forum

Interfaith Leadership Forum (ILF) is a DMV area learning platform that aims to make the existing expertise, capacity, and scholarship on interfaith engagement available to clergy, educators, public servants, and other interested individuals. The Forum is a partnership of the Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington, Rumi Forum, and Washington Theological Consortium.

ILF aims to promote pluralism by convening leaders of various religious, ethnic, racial, cultural, and gender backgrounds to exchange ideas and generate an action-oriented agenda. It provides a venue where a diverse group of community leaders, scholars, clergy, and public officials can engage in in-depth discussions on shared values and explore ways to harness them for social action. ILF is open to all individuals interested in advancing their interfaith literacy and serving the community as interfaith mobilizers in their professional or individual capacities.

Objectives

Interfaith Leadership Forum aims to strengthen interfaith relationships, literacy, and leadership by;

• Equipping one another with various models of dialogue with distinct ends.
• Experiencing deeper levels of interfaith encounters and dialogue
• Strengthening literacy about other’s faiths and about one’s own
• Overcoming prejudices and misconceptions about other faiths
• Eliciting social action through interfaith engagement.