We're planning a Saturday night roundtable at the Prog Faith Blog Con, which will feature Dr. Bruce Prescott, Pastor Dan Schultz, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow.
Dr. Bruce Prescott has been Executive Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists for the past seven years. Before coming to Oklahoma, he received his Master of Divinity (1978) and Ph.D. (1986) from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. During the 1980's, he taught Philosophy and Religion courses at both Tarrant County Junior College and at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. For twelve years he pastored Easthaven Baptist Church in Houston, Texas. He has served on the Executive Board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and on the National Coordinating Council of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Currently, Dr. Prescott is chair of the Faith and Order Committee of the Oklahoma Conference of Churches, is President of the Oklahoma Chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and serves on the Executive Board of the national organization of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. He is the founding organizer of the "Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection" that has been held at the Oklahoma State Capital on the first Thursday of May for the past three years. He also hosts a weekly call-in talk radio program, "Religious Talk" which airs from 11:00-Noon each Sunday on KREF radio (1400am) in Norman, Moore, and Oklahoma City. His daily weblog, Mainstream Baptist, is profiled as an "Agent of Change" in a recently released book by Melissa Rossi entitled What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World, published by Plume Books, a division of the Penguin Group.
Pastor Dan Schultz blogs at Street Prophets. His bio is coming soon!
Since 1969, Rabbi Arthur Waskow has been one of the creators and leaders of Jewish renewal and of several important interfaith projects addressing issues of peace, justice, and healing of the earth. He founded The Shalom Center in 1983 and has been its director since then. He blogs at the Shalom Center site.
His Freedom Seder (1969) seeded a generation of Passover seders that addressed the issues of our time. His book Seasons of Our Joy has become a classic guide to the history, practice, and spiritual meaning of the festival cycle. Godwrestling and Godwrestling -- Round 2 reconnected the community with Torah-study in new forms and with new content. Down-to-Earth Judaism explored the everyday lives of Jews from biblical times till now and into the future, in regard to food, money, sex, and restfulness.
Most recently, he and his wife Rabbi Phyllis Berman have brought new spiritual depth to celebration of the Jewish life-spiral as co-authors of A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven (Farrar Straus & Giroux).
Since 1983, The Shalom Center has addressed the intertwined issues of healing the earth and preventing war. Rabbi Waskow pioneered in developing Eco-Judaism, in seeking peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and in applying Jewish wisdom to issues of the nuclear arms race and world peace. Through The Shalom Center he and Rabbi Berman helped bring into being The Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah, and initiated the effort at multireligious observance of the confluence of sacred seasons in October 2005, continuing as “The Peace of Abraham” in 2006 and 2007.
In 1995 he was named by the United Nations one of forty Wisdom-Keepers from around the world in connection with the Habitat II conference, and in 1996 he was presented with the Abraham Joshua Heschel Peacemaker Award. In 2005 he was named by the Forward, the leading Jewish weekly in North America, as one of its Forward Fifty.
Sister Joan Chittister, Murshid Saadi Shakur Chisti (Neil Douglas-Klotz), and Rabbi Waskow are co-authors of a forthcoming book from the Beacon Press (July 2006),The Tent of Abraham: Stories of Hope and Peace for Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
He has explored new approaches to Jewish and interfaith celebration that embody healing of the world in prayer itsåçelf -- for instance, through the use of "YHWH," one of the Names of God, as a form of conscious interrelational breathing that connects all life-forms.