Progressive Faith Con Blog

Last weekend three folks from the first Progressive Faith Blog Con gathered for a sweet reason — the baptism of PFBC co-founder Thurman’s twin sons. The boys were baptized at an Episcopal church in Secaucus, and for a special twist, they received Jewish and Muslim blessings from Rachel and Hussein. Progressive faith in action!

Thurman wrote about the experience here; Rachel’s post is online here.

Now I’m looking especially forward to the next con — is it summer ‘08 yet?

 

Technorati tags: religion, progfaithblogcon, progressivefaithblogcon.

Hi gang! Long time no blog, I realize; apologies for the lengthy radio silence.

Thurman just posted over at Street Prophets, asking whether there’s general interest in a second annual Prog Faith Blog Con coming to pass (and, as a related query, who out there might be willing to join the planning committee to make it happen, since neither of us is in a position to orchestrate things again.) It would be great if you would weigh in on that question; his post is here.

Hope to see you soon!

 

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

Emily Ronald from The Pluralism Project has posted her post-con write-up. She talks about exploring a new means of communication, defines blogging, and recollects and summarizes the weekend’s events, panels, and conversations.

Well worth a read. Thanks, Emily!

Shanta offered an overview of the weekend, including some good words about hopes for the future.

Michelle posted notes from the Saturday evening roundtable.

And Reverend Bruce posted the text of his remarks from last night — don’t miss this one!

Rabbi Jill Jacobs posted an overview here.

Mata H. posted a beautiful weekend wrapup post that talks some about the worship we experienced together.

Andrew posted three lovely things about the weekend: Live from the Progressive Faith Blog Convention, On Prayer, and Progressive Faith Blog Con: Coda: New York at night.

And here’s a final post from Velveteen Rabbi: Christian worship, and closing remarks.

On an unrelated note, I’m about to go offline for a week — a rabbinic school retreat — so I won’t be able to keep aggregating conference-related posts here. But please enjoy reading each others’ conference posts, leave comments, have conversations…and I’ll talk to y’all when I get home again!

There’s been more liveblogging! Michelle posted Progressive Faith Blog Con, Saturday morning and a writeup of the Faith in politics panel.

Photos are also beginning to appear; here are some of Lorianne’s photos, and here is a photoset I started earlier today. Reverend Bruce offers a photo of the faith and politics panel.

Islamoyankee posts notes on the Muslim worship session that he led. Here’s a response to the Muslim prayer experience at Velveteen Rabbi.

And one more Velveteen Rabbi post: Roundtable: what is progressive religion? 

Lorianne at Hoarded Ordinaries posted a photo-illustrated piece about the weekend, starting with last night’s service and moving into the heart of today: Plugging in.

Islamoyankee at Islamicate posted a hyperlinked list of good stuff from the Talking Tech panel, and some notes on the Faith and politics panel.

Chris at Even the Devils Believe isn’t liveblogging per se — because he’s not here; he’s stuck in Paris! But he weighs in from afar. 

And at Velveteen Rabbi, I posted a writeup of this morning’s meditation (both the learning, and the practice) called Buddhist meditation; a writeup of this afternoon’s "faith and politics" panel at Faith and politics; and a writeup of the International relations breakout, too.

 

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

A bunch of us are liveblogging the conference; here’s an attempt to round up liveblogged posts so far.

Posts at Velveteen Rabbi:

- Friday

- Roots and Branches

- J-blogosphere breakout

- Blogging Scripture

- all conference posts: here

Posts at Islamicate:

- Pluralism

- Beginnings

- Blogging text

Posts at Mainstream Baptist:

- Panel about community

- Faith affiliation breakouts

Posts at Faith in Public Life:

- Blog con on

- Talking About Our World

Posts at Pearlbear’s Blog:

- Blog Con, Day 1.

(She also spent the early part of the morning transcribing everything everyone said for the irc channel — yay and thankyou! We’ll post a link to that soon too.)

If you’re blogging the conference, let us know and we’ll do our best to add your posts to this list in realtime…

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

For the last several weeks we’ve been keeping track of who’s coming to the con here. But I thought I’d post that information here on the main page of the con blog, too, so you can easily see who’s joining us.

The list of bloggers we know will be there includes:

 

• Rachel Barenblat, Velveteen Rabbi

• David Buckley, Faith in Public Life: Blogging Faith

• Jennifer Butler, Faith in Public Life: Blogging Faith

• Barbara, Barbara’s Tchatzkahs

• Jude Nagurney Camwell, Iddybud

• Rep. Mark B. Cohen, Phillyblog

• Thurman Hart, Xpatriate Texan

• Mata H., Time’s Fool

• Debra Hafner, Sexuality and Religion: What’s the Connection?

• Islam O. Yankee, Islamicate

• Rabbi Jill Jacobs, JSpot and Radical Torah

• Jesse Lava, Faithful Democrats

• Mik Moore, JSpot and Jewish Funds for Justice

• Michelle Murrain, Pearlbear’s blog

• Jon Niven, State of Belief

• Shanta Premawardhana, NCC Interfaith Relations

• Rev. Bruce Prescott, Mainstream Baptist

• Stephen Rockwell, Stephen Rockwell’s blog, Crossleft

• Emily Ronald, The Pluralism Project

• Sophia, Seeking Sophia

• Andrew Schamess, Semitism.net

• Lorianne Schaub, Hoarded Ordinaries

• Pastor Dan Schultz, Street Prophets

• Timothy Simpson, Christian Alliance for Progress

• Chris Tessone, Even the Devils Believe

• Jenna Tiltsman, Auburn Theological Seminary

• Chris Walton, Philocrites

• Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center

• Bruce Wilson, Talk 2 Action

• Shereen Zaid, The Interfaith Alliance

• …and others.

 

If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now (if you wait until Friday, it costs more). We can’t wait to see all of you this weekend!

One of next weekend’s panels will be a series of breakout sessions, each centered around a different religious blogosphere. We’ve planned breakout groups for Jewish bloggers, Christian bloggers, Muslim bloggers, Buddhist bloggers and Pagan bloggers. (It’s not clear whether we’ll have enough folks from each of those communities present to make a breakout group, but we’ll do our best!)

 Anyway, the moderator of the Islamosphere group asked me to post a link to a paper he recently presented at Harvard’s Muslims in the West conference. He writes:

While there are several works that address the presence of Islam online – many of them listed in the bibilography of this paper – none truly approaches the presence of Muslims online. By this I mean that there are state and organization sponsored websites that attempt to define what Islam is for the Muslim, as opposed to sites where Muslims are attempting to define what Islam is for themselves and their peers…

You can find that paper here: Moslems on the Internets.

I’d like to offer a similar snapshot of the J-blogosphere, as fodder for discussion in the J-blogosphere group, but I don’t have a single convenient link to share. Rachel Silverman’s article Sermonizing mingles with sex talk as Jewish surfers pick up blogging offers a partial picture; so does Charlie Pottins’ Online but off-message. Maybe when we meet, we can brainstorm a little bit about what defines the J-blogosphere, our differences and our common ground…

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, Islam, progfaithblogcon.

A couple of folks have asked me about hitching/sharing a ride to and from the con. Having seen the registration list, I know we’re coming from all over New England, and though some of us are taking public transport others might prefer to carpool.

So I thought I’d start a thread here. If you’d like to offer a ride, or to ask for a ride, drop a comment on this post. Hopefully this way folks can hook up with others in their neighborhoods (broadly-defined).

Safe travels, gang, and if you have questions let us know. See you soon…

Good news, all: I’m delighted to announce that we’re able to offer some modest scholarship money to folks who want to attend the Progressive Faith Blog Con but aren’t able to afford it comfortably.

Please use your own discretion in deciding whether or not to apply for scholarship funding. Our funds are limited and we’re creating the con on the proverbial shoestring budget, so if you’re able to pay your own way, please do. (You might even consider adding a small donation to help subsidize others!)

By the same token, if finances won’t permit you to join us, please don’t hesitate to put in a request for funds. We’d hate to miss the pleasure of your company just because money is tight. Funding will be disbursed on a first-come, first-served basis, and priority will be given to bloggers whose travel expenses are high and who will benefit greatly from the conference experience. (Yeah, we know, that’s everyone. Use your own discretion, right?)

The scholarship application is available here.

Thanks to everyone who’s registered thus far! It’s really exciting seeing registrations start to roll in.

Almost everyone who’s registered thus far has offered to help with a panel or two, which is awesome. We’re working on the panel distribution — making sure that every panel has at least a few panelists; seeking balance among and between bloggers from different faith-traditions, and so on — and we intend to have a definitive list of who’s on what panel by June 30th.

So if you offered to lead a panel, thank you; we’ll be in touch by the end of the month to let you know where we think you’d be the best fit.

Thanks, too, to all of y’all who’ve mentioned the con on your own blogs. Please keep doing that; we have zero advertising budget, so we’re depending on word-of-blog to get the word out.

Meanwhile, check out the growing attendee list — and if you haven’t registered yet, please do!

Technorati tags: religion, politics, progfaithblogcon.

Drumroll, please: the Progressive Faith Blog Con has a new website!

The site includes a FAQ page, which answers questions like "where is the con again?" (Montclair, NJ) and "where should we stay?" (we have an official con hotel) and "how about bloggers who are shomer Shabbat and can’t drive on Saturdays?" (we’ve arranged for some rooms on-campus for those who need them, and are also looking into homestays with local community members).

Maybe even more exciting, we now have a registration page! When you register, you can choose which aspects of PFBC programming you want to help out with; we’re actively seeking volunteers to help us shape the con, so if you’re interested, let us know. Advance registration costs $25 (which will go up to $45 the weekend of the con — incentive to register early.) The registration fee will cover most of the conference meals, along with conference packets and printed materials. If this poses a genuine hardship, let us know; we need that income to make the con run smoothly, but we don’t want to bar anyone from attendance.

Anyway, registration is now open! We’re maintaining a list of bloggers we know are coming, which we’ll update pretty regularly so y’all can see who you’ll have the pleasure of hanging out with.

The con website describes what we think the weekend will entail:

During the first annual Progressive Faith Blog Con we’ll talk about the intersection of religion and politics; the roots and branches of our faith traditions; ecumenical and interfaith blogging engagement; and the challenges and blesssings of pluralism. We’ll have breakout sessions around faith-tradition, and around meditation, liturgy, and scripture. We’ll talk about justice and poverty, about progressive faith activism, and about the religious right…

The conference will be led by and for our community, and it will be shaped by each of us who attends. Join us!

Technorati tags: religion, politics, progfaithblogcon.

The new Carnival is up at Raising Kaine. Many thanks for Lowell for organizing this week. Next week, the Lo Fi Tribe will take over the Carni.

This week’s edition of the Progressive Faith Blog Carnival is up, hosted by Tiel of Knocking from Inside. It’s fantastic — a ton of terrific links. Poetry, prayer, thoughts on work and institutional dynamics and gender, musings on religious labels, religion and politics and everything in between… good stuff.

 Check it out here. Thanks, Tiel!

Next week the Carnival will be hosted by Raising Kaine. If you have posts to suggest, submit them by email to ProgFaithCarnival @ yahoo.com with "Carnival link" in the title.

Technorati tags: religion, politics, progfaithblogcon.