Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice — Update on #GivingTuesday

Greetings, from the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice!

 

As it has been more than half a year since IRPJ launched back in June, the purpose of this note is to update you on what IRPJ has been doing lately and to ask that you please consider three actions for us as you read through the list of our recent activities:

1. Spread the word about our online university accredited Certificate program and encourage folks you know who might be interested to apply: www.irpj.org/apply

 

2. Try to think of a few people you know who might be interested in supporting IRPJ financially and send this email to them with an encouragement that they give to us on this Giving Tuesday: www.irpj.org/donate

 

3. And please consider giving a donation of any amount to IRPJ yourself on this Giving Tuesday.

Here’s some of what we’ve been up to:

• Core faculty member, Dr. Brad Jersak, is busily developing his three courses — RS 3180: Peace and Violence in the New Testament, RS 3182: Peace and Violence in the Old Testament, and RS 3384: Wrath and the Problem of Evil — so that our online Certificate will be ready to receive students for fall 2018. 

• Director and core faculty member, Dr. Andrew Klager, is also developing two remaining courses — RS 3482: The Inner Transformation of a Peacemaker and Hist/RS 3582: Peace and Violence in Religious History — to fill out the rest of the Certificate along with the three courses he has already developed and currently teaches on peace theology and social justice; religion, peace and conflict; and practical nonviolence and peacebuilding.

• Along with its ongoing partnerships with the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, MARK Centre, and the School of Peace Theology, IRPJ has forged a new partnership with Holy Land Trust in Bethlehem and with Christian Peacemaker Teams. We are also in preliminary talks with Travis Reed of The Work of the People about a partnership that will allow us to make use of their expansive video library at a reduced subscription rate and produce new videos that are purpose-specific to IRPJ’s initiatives and curriculum.

• IRPJ is now ready to receive applications for the fall 2018 semester, with the entrance point for student applications here: www.irpj.org/apply

• As a supplement to the online presence of Clarion Journal of Spirituality and Justice, we are also developing a print-on-demand hardcopy format of this same journal that will include the best-of-the-best from the website and a few new articles exclusive to the hardcopy journal. The goal is to make sure this hardcopy journal has a distinctive front-cover design, an innovative and aesthetically pleasing layout and just feels good in the hands for those who prefer physical rather than online reading material. You can see more of what we're doing here: www.irpj.org/clarion-journal

• We are in the midst of planning our Podcast (yet to be named), which will be co-hosted by Andrew Klager and Jarrod McKenna. If you don’t know Jarrod, he is a wonderful human being and courageous peacemaker who is currently fighting for justice on behalf of refugees on Manus Island — You can read more about what he’s been up to here, here, here, and here. The format of the podcast will be that of an interview and will focus on the much neglected but vitally needed inner transformation of a peacemaker and how this translates into real-world conflicts, violence, and trauma.

• IRPJ has steadily increased its blogging presence through regular contributions on the IRPJ Blog. If you haven’t already, please visit this blog here, and learn what makes our blog different here.

• Along with our referral program that will give students who refer other students to us a discount on their tuition, we are also in the midst of developing a Coffee Club Discussion Group concept wherein enrolled students can enlist their local friends to audit our courses so that they can meet together to discuss the course material face-to-face with the help of an IRPJ workbook that we put together for them.

• Although not much planning has taken place yet, we have decided that our first 5-day symposium / retreat will take place in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia in partnership with the Orthodox Peace Fellowship in summer 2019.

• Since the launch of the Institute for Religion, Peace and Justice back in June, we have added a few more wonderful and experienced Guest Lecturers whom you can check out here: www.irpj.org/guest-lecturers

• And finally, IRPJ has assembled a wonderful group of people from different walks of life and experiences who now make up our Board of Advisors, which you can learn more about here: www.irpj.org/board-of-advisors 

Thank you everyone for supporting us with your finances, with your encouraging words, with you time, and with your prayers — We really appreciate it! To keep up with other IRPJ news as it develops, please visit here: https://www.irpj.org/news

 

And we’d love to hear from any of you, so please drop us a line (www.irpj.org/contact)!

 

Sincerely,

 

–Andrew P. Klager, PhD (Director of IRPJ)