Progressive Faith Con Blog

Months of radio silence, and suddenly two posts in one day — go figure!  

Consider this a PSA. If you’re interested in keeping abreast of PFBC developments, there are two ways you can do that:

• Obviously you can read this blog, either by visiting the site regularly or subscribing to our RSS feed.

• And/or, you can join the ProgFaithBlogCon google group.

The google group currently has pretty low email traffic, and I expect that will continue to be the case until next spring when we ramp up to PFBC II (Electric Boogaloo!), but it’s a great place for conversations about what we want the next con to be.

This is not the google group for conference planners — so never fear, you won’t be spammed with planning details. (Unless that sounds like fun to you. In which case, have you thought about joining the planning committee? :-) 

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon, progressivefaithblogcon.

Hi, all! After much conversation on the conference-planning email list which was established at the first blog con last summer, we’ve decided that the PBFC will be a biennial event, so we’re planning to hold our second conference in summer of 2008. Those of us who are active in domestic political work will be ramping up to the next Presidential election, and hopefully it will be a great time to gather, share learning and ideas and meals again, and energize ourselves for all of the various forms of progressive religious and political work that we do.

The conference website has been updated to show that the next con will be in ‘08. Meanwhile, if you’re interested in joining the planning committee, let us know! We’ve got a great core group of volunteers, but we’re always happy to have more hands on deck.

Technorati tags: 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.

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.

Pearlbear transcribed the first panel of the morning for us in the irc channel. (Thank you so so much!) We hope to have audio of all of the panels eventually too,  but for now, here’s our first chat transcript of the day…

Jul 15 09:43:15 <pearlbear>    Panel #1 - Roots and Branches. Participants: Rachel Berenblat, introduces herself. Velveteen Rabbi is her blog
<pearlbear>    Emily Ronald - research associate at the Pluralism Project at Harvard. Hussein Rashid (Islamicate) Ph.D. program at Harvard
<pearlbear>    Islamicate, blog of issues related to Islam
<pearlbear>    First, we’ll talk about pluralism, what it is, and isn’t
<pearlbear>    Emily: Pluralism project - studying the diversity in the US. One of the definitions of pluralism - a guiding principle.
<Rachel>    FYI, these quotes about pluralism are online here: http://www.islamicate.com/islamicate/2006/07/pfbc_pluralism.html
<pearlbear>    In her work, Emily looks at the ways that sometimes we fail to come to grips with it - the challenges of pluralism
<pearlbear>    Can also see the blessings of pluralism, such as the Katrina efforts, interfaith dialogue that is new, organizations that take interfaith approaches to the environment, or the workplace, or an art project
<pearlbear>    www.pluralism.org, a lot of research and a directory of religious centers across the US
<pearlbear>    challenges and blessings of pluralism comes from the fact that it is a process, which is ongoing.
<pearlbear>    Rachel: talk about blogging community or communities. Are we one or many? How do we intersect? How are we interested in coming together?
<pearlbear>    Question to audience: where are the different connections between our faith communities, and where do we want them to be?
<pearlbear>    Hussein: Islamicate started in 2003. One of the first two substantive commenters on the blog - an episcopalian, and Rachel
<pearlbear>    As they were trying to figure out who they were, and why they were different, they learned that they could be in a place to build bridges between different faiths
<pearlbear>    Emphasis on the everyday interactions to keep conversations keeping.
<pearlbear>    We read blogs of different traditions, so we are already building connections with each other
<pearlbear>    Arthur: History of the connections are around, but we are in a new situation. Perhaps like 12th century Andalucia with a depth of connection.
<pearlbear>    different religious traditions on the planet are like organs in a body. What are the connections?
<pearlbear>    Two levels of connection: organs communicate directly with each other. The second: they all have their same DNA.
<pearlbear>    What is it that’s the same DNA at the heart of all of our traditions. How does it unfolds in to difference?
<pearlbear>    Chris Walton: Whether people interact with people who hold different theological views within their own traditions?
<pearlbear>    Most people raised their hands
<pearlbear>    How do we connect both between and within traditions
<pearlbear>    Tim: It’s easier to talk across faith lines than to conservative Presbyterians, for instance because of the vitriol and conflict that is happening now
<Xpatriated>    crucify them
<Xpatriated>    ok, not really
<pearlbear>    Thalia: Deep fracture inside Christianity. We struggle with what to do with the conservative Christians.
<pearlbear>    Radical right: plague and scourge and heartbreak as a Christian
<pearlbear>    Mik: Blogs tend to attract people of opposite views - to cause trouble and troll. Not terribly productive. On the other hand, how do we create forums that people who have different understandings can come together. Have folks had a good experience with that?
<pearlbear>    At JSpot, there has been a good experience, more space to have that. In other places it seems that it is rarely a civil conversation.
<pearlbear>    Chris Walton: Grew up a Mormon, now a Unitarian. Follows timesandseasons.org - largest Mormon blog in the world. Grew out of online conversations of 4 law students - conservative and center/left
<pearlbear>    attracts very broad range of Mormon opinion. 4 original bloggers were committed to civil conservative engagement - so that the blog conversation stays civil
<pearlbear>    In the Unitarian blogging community - some conversation between conservatives and others. Mormon blog is a good example.
<pearlbear>    Steve Rockwell: Less concerned about having cross-political spectrum conversations right now. The left doesn’t have a well set agenda. We know what we are against, but not what we are for.
<pearlbear>    Alot have pushed us to do the cross-political boundary stuff. We need to get together ourselves first, to figure out what we stand for, and then have these conversations.
<pearlbear>    The emphasis, time spent should be on redefining the policies that we stand for, what are they now?
<pearlbear>    Tim: He disagrees because there are so many evangelical conservative Chrisitans, some have never heard Christian ministers who have never affirmed a woman’s choice for an abortion, or equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
<pearlbear>    They have been talking in their own echo chamber for so long, that they haven’t heard other voices.
<pearlbear>    They haven’t had people from their own religious tradition speak back.
<pearlbear>    We need those kinds of conversations.
<pearlbear>    There is chaos within progressives about our message, but there are those who have never heard people speak against tax cuts, or the war - having that contact can be transformational
<pearlbear>    Tim: Christian Alliance for Progress
<pearlbear>    http://blog01.kintera.com/christianalliance/
<pearlbear>    Lorianne: Are we talking about going to radical right blog and attracting notice, or are we relying on Google? How much are we going out, how much are we letting people find us?
<pearlbear>    Thurman: He has suggested to people not to engage the religious right - it will attract hard right commenters
<pearlbear>    There are 10 to 20 readers to each commenters. There are people on the right we will never convince. But there is a large middle part of america we can reach
<pearlbear>    Bruce Prescott: Never had to invite the right to my site - they just come. Like electronic graffiti - try to refute everything you said.
<pearlbear>    Dialogue between the readers. We are first trying to just find each other. Progressives of a variety of traditions.
<pearlbear>    the other side has taken over the public domain, and we don’t have a voice.
<pearlbear>    They dominate the airwaves, there is not enough $ in the progressive community to buy up the communications abilities they have
<pearlbear>    What kind of a nation are we going to be? Are we going to be pluralistic?  Only way is to work on the internet. We have to find each other first, then find a way to communicate that message more carefully and thoughtfully.
<pearlbear>    Thalia: Beliefnet - a place where a lot of people discuss that. Can the progressive community make a liason with a place like Beliefnet - why not make a connection to that instead of reinventing the wheel
<pearlbear>    How many have posted on Beliefnet? A few raised their hands.
<pearlbear>    Nathan: progressive statesman. There is a good agenda on economic justice. Someone who is in the unchurched nonfaith community. Hear too much about tolerance. Not recruiting.
<pearlbear>    The religious right recruits, the religious left does not.
<pearlbear>    People who go to church most often didn’t used to vote right wing
<pearlbear>    Who is talking to them? When you have a conversation - what is the arguments that connect people, and will draw people in?
<pearlbear>    Engaging the hard right is diverting you from your goal. How do you gain people from the margins?
<pearlbear>    Omar Sayed: Muslimwakeup.com progressivemeetup.com(?)
<pearlbear>    First - organize amongst ourselves and come up with a strategy.
<pearlbear>    Then, once we are know how to approach it, make conversations. Start with moderates.
<pearlbear>    Two issues: gender - Mixed gender prayer lead by a woman. Lots of press, death threats, demonstrators. And the gay rights issue.
<pearlbear>    Demonstrators are too radical to engage.
<pearlbear>    Hussein: Within each community, issues are a little different
<pearlbear>    conversation is happening with moderates
<pearlbear>    Extremism in the Muslim tradition both left and right - what does it mean to be liberal? Where do we situate the text, and how do we use the text to move forward?
<pearlbear>    Arguments put forward are textually based. Progressive label is a contentious issue among Muslims right now - fracturing this community, like it is fracturing many communities
<pearlbear>    Rachel: this conversation must continue - at lunch, on our blogs - the friendships we make here can help sustain this conversation.
<pearlbear>    What are our roots, and where can our branches grow?
 

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.

The New Jersey Jewish News ran an article about our con!

Religion, liberalism, and Web savvy are the watchwords of the first Progressive Faith Blog Con, a convention to be held over the July 14 weekend in the Conference Center at Montclair State University.

Jews and Christians, Buddhists and Muslims, and at least one self-proclaimed pagan will gather to continue in person the kinds of conversations they wage on-line as authors of blogs, the Web diaries that range from the queasily personal to the politically influential…

You can read the article here: On-line religious liberals plan meeting for Montclair. [x-posted from Velveteen Rabbi]

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

Hello from the beautiful conference center at Montclair State University!

The blog con has begun: tonight Thurman made some beautiful opening remarks (which I hope he’ll post here eventually) and then I led an erev Shabbat (Sabbath eve) service with Harriet’s exquisite melodic help.

I posted the siddur (prayerbook) from that service, with a few explanatory notes, here at my blog.

We’ll try to update this blog regularly throughout the weekend with links to people’s posts; if you’re liveblogging the conference, let us know!

I smiled to see Thurman’s post here this morning about what led to the creation of this gathering, since I made my own post over at Velveteen Rabbi about that last night ("The night before blog con.")

The folks on the planning committee have delightfully complementary interests in the broad realms of faith and politics. I suspect the same will be true of the broader group that’s gathering this weekend.

Some of us may be more passionate about creating conversations between and among people of faith; others may be more passionate about social action and working in the political sphere. May the interplay between these two conversations be fruitful for all of us.

Travel safely, gang. See you soon!

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!

We’ve made progress in finding folks to transcribe Saturday’s panels for the irc channel so that non-local folks can "listen in." Michelle (from Pearlbear’s Blog) has graciously agreed to transcribe the morning’s first panel, "Roots and Branches;" Alex (from Faith in Public Life) has graciously offered to transcribe the afternoon panel "Faith and Politics." If we can find one more transcriber, that person will do "Talking Tech" after lunch, though even if not I think we’re in good shape.

(The other sessions during the day will be breakout groups. Since we’ll be in multiple groups simultaneously, there’s no way to transcribe everything that’s said during those times. We’ll just have to hope that some of the participants choose to liveblog them, or to take notes and blog them afterwards.)

Anyway, if you’re not able to join us in person and you’d like to listen in via irc, here’s what you do:

 

IRC Online Chat

(Instructions nicked from this Global Voices Online page, and slightly modified.)

1. Download & install an IRC client for your computer. This is the program that will let you access IRC, just like a web browser is the program that lets you access web pages. Here are links to IRC clients for Windows users and for Mac users.

(I use Ircle, which was made for Macs and which you can download here; many people recommend Chatzilla, which works easily as a plugin with Mozilla Firefox browsers. Download it here.)

2. Connect to irc.freenode.net. How exactly you do this will depend on which client you install, but you should be able to find support pages online for any good client program.

(In Chatzilla, all you do is type irc://irc.freenode.net into your Firefox browser window - but this only works after you’ve downloaded the Chatzilla plugin.)

3. Once you are connected to irc.freenode.net, create a username for yourself. This will identify you to the other people in the IRC channels you join.

4. Join the channel "#progfaithblogcon" - again, how you do this will depend on which client you’re using.

(In chatzilla, all you need to do is type irc://irc.freenode.net/#progfaithblogcon into your Firefox browser window.)

5. Once you’ve joined the channel, you’ll be able to see everything anyone else in that channel says, and you can say things to the rest of the channel.

For more resources see this IRC tutorial and the Freenode info page.

 

It’s probably worth downloading the client and fiddling with it a little bit in advance, to make Saturday easier. But don’t expect the #progfaithblogcon channel to be open until Saturday morning shortly before the first session. We’ll open it then, and it will remain open all day. Feel free to drop in and out, or to hang out all day and natter with whoever else is there.

During the open sessions, we’ll keep an eye on the channel, and will relay questions from remote folks to the general gathering as best we can.

Just a few more days now…! 

The blog con will be upon us soon — startlingly soon! Here’s a quick update on a few logistical matters. 

Thing the first:

We’ve only had a couple of applications for our scholarships, and we still have some funds. So if you’d like to apply for funding to attend the blog con, please do so!

Thing the second:

We have high hopes of making the conference accessible to those who can’t be there in person. First of all, we encourage everyone who’s attending to blog as much as they want; hopefully somebody will liveblog many of the sessions. We’re looking into recording many of the sessions and posting those recordings as podcasts afterwards. And we’ve talked about opening an irc channel where remote folks can hang out and join the conversation on Saturday.

In order for the irc idea to work, we’d need someone at the con who’s willing to transcribe panels, in realtime, into the irc window (and occasionally pipe up to say, "the folks in irc have a question," and so on.) Any volunteers?

And thing the third:

If anyone out there wants to take advantage of the special housing for shomer Shabbat folks, we need to know that by tomorrow so we can tell the university. If you’re planning to stay on-campus to ensure that everything is walkable for you, please let us know today!

 

Technorati tags: progfaithblogcon.

At long last, here’s the official schedule for the Prog Faith Blog Con! Naturally conference attendees will get copies of this when the con rolls around, but we wanted to make it available beforehand, to give folks a foretaste of just how terrific this is going to be.

If you’d like to download it, it’s available in .pdf format here.

Our deepest thanks go to everyone who helped us wrangle this schedule into shape, and especially to everyone who volunteered to lead worship or serve on a panel! We couldn’t do this without you.

If you haven’t registered, do register now to ensure a place at this fabulous gathering.With no further ado…the schedule!

Schedule for the First Annual Progressive Faith Blog Con, 2006! 

FRIDAY 7/14	What’s happening?	Led by:
Afternoon	Check-in	Volunteers
7pm	Welcome	The planning committee
7:15pm	Jewish worship	Rachel Barenblat (Velveteen Rabbi), Andrew Schamess ( Semitism.net), and Harriet Goren
8:15pm	Blogger dinner & social gathering	(Meal included in conference registration fee; vegetarian options available)

SATURDAY, 7/14	What’s happening?	Led by:
8am	Buddhist meditation	Lorianne DiSabato of Hoarded Ordinaries
9am	Kick off the morning’s events!	The planning committee
9:15-10:30am	Panel 1: Roots and Branches: The Nature of Our Community. * Ecumenical and interfaith blogging engagement * Challenges and blessings of pluralism * Engaging those more conservative than we	Rachel Barenblat ( Velveteen Rabbi, Chris Tessone ( Even the Devils Believe), Emily Ronald ( The Pluralism Project, Hussein Rashid (Islamicate)
10:45-11:30am	First Breakout Session: Faith Affiliation/Interest * Jewish blogosphere * Christian blogosphere * Buddhist blogosphere * Islamic blogosphere * Pagan blogosphere (if there’s sufficient interest)	Judaism: Rachel Barenblat ( Velveteen Rabbi, Christianity: Chris Walton ( Philocrites), Buddhism: Lorianne DiSabato ( Hoarded Ordinaries, Islam: Hussein Rashid (Islamicate), Paganism: Emily Ronald
11:30am-12:15pm	Second Breakout Session: Topical Interest * Blogging scripture * Blogging ritual * Blogging meditation	Scripture: Rabbi Jill Jacobs (JSpot and Radical Torah), Ritual: Chris Tessone ( Even the Devils Believe), Meditation: Lorianne DiSabato ( Hoarded Ordinaries.)
12:15-1pm	Lunch break!	(Lunch is covered by registration fees; vegetarian options will again be available.)
1-2pm	Panel 2: Talking Tech * Increasing site traffic * CSS, podcasting, and new software * Building our internal network	Chris Walton (Philocrites), Steve Rockwell (CrossLeft, Michelle Murrain (Pearlbear’s Blog).
2:15-3:45pm	Panel 3: Faith and Politics: A Path to Engagement * Relating faith and political action * Blogging and its place in the history of progressive faith activism * Faith is bigger than partisan affiliation	Thurman Hart ( XPatriated Texan), Mik Moore ( JSpot), Bruce Wilson ( Talk 2 Action
4-5:30pm	Breakout Sessions 3 & 4 Two rotations of 45 minutes each, with the same 3 topics each rotation. Attendees get to do two of the three. * International relations / war on terror / peace * Poverty and hunger in the US * Responding to the religious right	Int’l relations: RJ ( Huffington Post, Andrew Schamess (Semitism.net); Poverty: Nathan Newman Progressive States Network; Religious right: Bruce Wilson (Talk 2 Action), the Interfaith Alliance, and Jennifer Butler (Faith in Public Life.)
5:30-6:30pm	Free time!	Enjoy yourself!
6:30-8:15pm	Dinner break	(Dinner is on our own)
8:30pm	Muslim zhikr (prayer), followed by discussion/Q-and-A	Hussein Rashid (Islamicate)
9pm	Roundtable: What Does Progressive Faith Mean?	Don’t miss the roundtable, featuring three fabulous speakers: Reverend Bruce Prescott of Mainstream Baptist, Pastor Dan Schultz of Street Prophets, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow of The Shalom Center. You can read all three of their bios here.
10pm on	Latenight gathering (open-mike/music/storytelling - tell the panel organizers if you want to join in!)	Emily Ronald, Bruce Wilson (Talk 2 Action)

SUNDAY 7/16	What’s happening?	Led by:
Early	Brunch	(This meal comes free with a stay at the conference hotel)
10:30am	Christian worship	Chris Tessone (Even the Devils Believe, Mata H. ( Time’s Fool), Michelle Murrain ( Pearlbear’s Blog.)
11:30am	Brainstorming session: Where do we go from here?	The planning committee
12:15am	Closing circle and goodbyes	The planning committee again

Technorati tags: religion, politics, progfaithblogcon.

I just made a fairly lengthy post over at my own blog about the process of planning the Friday evening erev Shabbat service for the blog con (which is coming up pretty soon — just three weeks away!)

Among other things, I wrote:

Ideally the service ought to be inclusive enough to make outsiders comfortable, traditional enough to make insiders comfortable, ordinary enough to make regular shul-goers happy, unusual enough to keep people interested, enough of a teaching tool to give people some understanding of Jewish worship and liturgy, and enough of a "real service" to let the Jews (and others) in attendance feel they’ve fulfilled the obligation to pray.

Read the whole thing here, and please chime in if you have thoughts on this!

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.

We’re working on a FAQ ("frequently asked questions") page for the Progressive Faith Blog Con. The FAQ will answer questions like "what is this thing again?" and "where do we stay?" and "how about bloggers who are shomer Shabbos?" and so on.

That FAQ is here. Feel free to check it out and weigh in with suggestions and questions, if you’ve got ‘em.

Behind the scenes, we’re making a few final adjustments, and we plan to open up registration very, very soon. Stay tuned; we’ll keep you posted!

A while back when I posted the most recent draft of the schedule for the Progressive Faith Blog Con, I promised that I would post some explanatory words about "ecumenical worship." Here goes!

The Wikipedia entry on Ecumenism says that "in its broadest meaning ecumenism is the religious initiative towards world-wide unity. A more limited goal of ecumenism is the promotion of co-operation and improved understanding between distinct religious groups or denominations within the same religion." My interest in ecumenism and interfaith work stems in part from quotations like this one: 

How do we engage with fellow seekers in a way that does not water down differences, but treasures them? How do we share our history, celebrations, and spiritual experiences with members of other faiths in a way that is real and deep, rather than just a ‘You bring the Easter eggs; I’ll bring the matzah’ affair?"

(That comes from Jewish With Feeling, a book by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi which I reviewed on my own blog a while back.)

I think one way that we can engage in deep ecumenical work at this conference is by entering into meditation and prayer together. So we’re planning to hold four ecumenical worship/meditation experiences over the course of the weekend. Each will be rooted in a particular religious tradition; each will be an authentic service, not an amalgam of traditions. But each will also be created with mindfulness that the community coming together is a multi-faith community, and each is meant to be user-friendly to insiders and outsiders alike.

The folks planning and leading each experience will need to balance, on the one hand, the need to create something meaningful and valid and recognizable to adherents of that tradition, not watered-down or distorted by the multifaith crowd — and, on the other hand, the need to create something which is intelligible to outsiders, welcoming, and non-triumphalist in tone. It’s going to be a real challenge, but one I think is well worth the work.

As things stand now, the schedule calls for a Friday night Jewish Shabbat (Sabbath) service, led by Rachel of Velveteen Rabbi (that’s me!), with help from other Jewish bloggers including Andrew of Semitism.net; a Saturday morning Buddhist meditation sit, led by Lorianne of Hoarded Ordinaries; a Saturday evening Muslim maghrib prayer/salaat/namaz (leader TBA; suggestions and volunteers welcome!); and a Sunday morning Christian Sabbath service led by Chris of Even the Devils Believe among others. (Chris recently posted some thoughts on institutional ecumenism, incidentally.)

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Let us know your thoughts. (And if you’d like to lend a hand with one or more of these ecumenical prayer/meditation experiences, tell us that too!)

Technorati tags: religion, ecumenism.

Montclair State University is the second largest public university in the state of New Jersey. It’s located in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

For those who will be flying, the nearest airport is Newark International, which is also known as Newark Liberty. The airline abbreviation is EWR.

The campus is serviced by NJ Transit for public transportation. There is a train line and bus system that services the area. It’s a little tricky to get from the airport to MSU. It’s also time consuming because you must change trains.

From the airport, you will need to take either the Northeast Corridor Line (NEC) or the New Jersey Coast Line (NJCL) to Secaucus Junction. From there, you will take the Montclair-Boontown Line (BNTNM) to the MSU station. Depending on how long you have to wait at Secaucus, the trip can take anywhere from an hour to three hours.

You can plan your train trip online and see how long it would take.

Be advised that the MSU station leaves you a

very long

walk from any hotel.

Even though there is a bus system, my suggestion is that you rent a car - and be wary of the crazy, crazy, crazy drivers. You can find directions from the airport to the campus here. There is a mapquest link at the top of the page - put in “Newark Liberty International Airport” for your starting place and “Montclair State University” as your destination.

The best visitor parking is in the Red Hawk Parking Deck. You should figure approximately $10 for parking for the whole day (8 hours). You can find the Red Hawk by turning into the University entrance on Normal Rd.

That brings us to where you will stay. Here are some hotels in the area and the contact numbers for reservations:

Name	Address	Phone
Fairfield Executive Inn	216 Rt. 46 East, Fairfield, NJ	973-575-7700
Georgian Inn	37 N. Mountain Ave. Montclair, NJ	973-746-7156
Hampton Inn and Suites	118-124 Rt. 46 East, Fairfield, NJ	973-575-5777
Holiday Inn	Rt. 46 West, Totowa, NJ	973-785-9000
Holiday Inn	334 Rt. 46, Wayne, NJ	973-256-7000
Howard Johnson	680 Rt. 3, Clifton, NJ	973-471-3800
Kings Inn Hotel	Rt. 23, Rt. 46 Wayne, NJ	973-256-7500
Meadowlands Plaza Hotel	286 Rt. 46 East, Fairfield, NJ	973-227-4333
Radisson Hotel	690 Rt. 46, Fairfield, NJ	973-227-9200
Ramada Inn Clifton Hotel	265 Rt. 3 East, Clifton, NJ	973-778-6500

I’ll be contacting them in the near future and get back to you with prices. Of course, if you want to schedule a vacation in the area, I thought you might appreciate the info.