The Interfaith Center Academy 

        The Interfaith Center Academy

Seed Funding for a New Academy 

  The Interfaith Center at the Presidio secured seed funding in 2002 to plan an interfaith academy in partnership with the Graduate Theological Union and the United Religions Initiative. The new Academy will offer professional and graduate offerings for seminarians and religious leaders focused on building respect, friendship and collaborative relationship among multiple faith communities in local neighborhoods. Its initial academic course on interfaith literacy and ministry will be offered at Pacific School of Religion, a member of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

History & Goals

  The academy is a program of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio, a nonprofit agency dedicated to welcoming, serving, and celebrating the diverse faith traditions and spiritual wisdom of the Bay Area. Since 1995 the Center has sponsored concerts, broadcasts, conferences, and programs ranging from airport chaplaincy and landmine eradication to healing religious wounds and comparative hospitality practices. For years leaders at the Interfaith Center have had a dream. In 2002 the vision of an 'academy' was reaffirmed, initial funding was secured, and a workgroup assembled to plan the effort. Participants represent Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Mormon, Muslim, Sikh, Taoist, Unitarian, and Wiccan traditions, all committed to meeting interfaith needs in local congregations and public ministries. The long-term goal of the Interfaith Center is to promote healthy, educated interfaith relations, starting in our own neighborhoods. Succeeding here is foundational in developing a vision to include burgeoning mutual respect among religious, spiritual traditions and an end to religiously motivated violence.

Our Colleagues

  Two religious institutions stepped forward to support the formation of this academy - Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley and United Religions Initiative (URI), an international network of grassroots interfaith groups chartered in 2000. GTU is a multi-faith, multi-institutional religious consortium that many consider without par in the world. Its nine seminaries are Catholic, Protestant, and Unitarian Universalist. It is also affiliated with eleven institutes or centers, including ones that focus on Jewish studies and Buddhist studies. 

  The new academy offerings for the theological community will be designed to add value to existing field education programs in GTU's nine seminaries. The Interfaith Center at the Presidio is a founding "Cooperation Circle" in URI's 200 (and growing) confirmed circles in 46 countries. Each circle must have at least seven members representing at least three religious, spiritual, or indigenous traditions, all committed to the URI's Charter, which says, in essence, "The purpose of the United Religions Initiative is to promote daily, enduring interfaith cooperation, to end religiously motivated violence, and to create cultures of peace, justice, and healing for the Earth and all living beings."

Our Approach

  The academy, like its institutional parent, approaches anything interfaith as collaborative. It exists to improve relations among religious, spiritual, and indigenous traditions. The core curriculum will inquire into high-quality grassroots interfaith relationships in their manifold expressions, with a focus on interfaith literacy and relations. The Interfaith Center Academy will develop a certificate of practical interfaith studies, but will never offer a Masters of Divinity degree in interfaith ministry, nor confer ordination.

  The Interfaith Center’s close relationship with the United Religions Initiative as both were being developed, and the influence of Appreciative Inquiry on both, give leaders on the Academy Workgroup an “appreciative” bias. Being appreciative in this sense means creating learning environments where every participant’s voice is sought out and respected. This approach tends to begin and move from students sharing best experiences, deepest values, and highest hopes for the future, whatever the specific context and subject-matter.

  Deficit-based language explaining what is wrong is replaced and reframed with asset-based language identifying what is right, what we value, and what we hope to generate. We tend to think beyond difficulties and their causes (e.g., understanding how religions can fuel violence) in order to discern, study, and empower the positive values we want to embody (e.g., creating effective interfaith peacemaking teams). Tough issues are not ignored but reframed in a new perspective emphasizing best possibilities for the future.