Religion in a World of Violence: Virus or Vaccine?


A Dinner, Public Address, and Book Signing on Tuesday, June 26 with Dr. M.Thomas Thangaraj at 660 Great Pond Road, North Andover.
 
Religion, in recent years, has been linked to various instances of violence in today's world. While religion is not the virus that causes violence in all these instances, religion has been justifiably implicated in most of these. At the same time, history proves that religion is the most fitted and well-equipped resource to prevent and remove such violence if it begins to function as a vaccine. What are the shifts demanded of religions today that they begin to function more as a vaccine that prevents violent irruptions rather than as a virus that causes it?

Dr. M. Thomas Thangaraj is the Visiting Professor of Global Christianity at Boston University School of Theology following retirement after 20 years as the Professor of World Christianity at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA. A native of South India, he was a pastor and seminary teacher before moving to Atlanta in 1988. He earned a Doctor of Theology degree from Harvard University. He has been actively involved in programs of inter-religious dialogue at the national and internal level. He has published widely in English and Tamil, including the Crucified Guru: An Experiment in Cross-Cultural Christology and Relating to people of Other Religions: What Every Christian Needs to Know. He worked for ten years with the World Council of Churches program on Inter-Religious Relations. He is working on a new book in English on “Journeying through Diversity: Crossing Boundaries as a Spiritual Practice.”

DINNER with Dr. Thangaraj at 6 p.m.; Reservations: $20. Public Address at 7:30 p.m. (no charge) with book signing to follow. For DINNER reservations: CALL 978-682-8815 OR BOOK ONLINE AT www.rollingridge.org.