10th Annual Worldviews Seminar Kicks Off

This past Sunday CASL's Center for the Study of Religion and Society hosted the kickoff dinner for the 10th annual Worldviews Seminar.  The Worldviews Seminar is a six day course designed to acquaint students with the foundations and cultural identities of the world's religions. 

The Worldviews Seminar was created in the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001 and in response to a growing cultural and religious divide that followed those tragic events.  The idea was spawned by the leadership of the Episcopal Church in Metropolitan Detroit.  They contacted UM-Dearborn Anthropology Professor Claude Jacobs who also directs the Center for the Study of Religion and Society and the seminar was collaboratively developed.  

Over the six day course students will carry on discussions with religious experts and one another, and will embark aon a series of site visits to major places of worship throughout Metro Detroit. The seminar helps students understand the foundations of diverse religions that are found in the metropolitan area, to engage in intelligent dialogue with members of those religions, to understand the role of religion in American life, and to develop skills that will help students function in a multi-religion country and region.

The Worldviews Seminar kickoff dinner featured musical entertainment and short presentation from four former Worldviews students.  The students' accounts of their seminar experiences highlighted four discoveries resulting from seminar participation.  First, many students experience a self discovery as they reconnect with the religious traditions of their childhoods or consider a new religious tradition.  Second, students also experience an other discovery in that they gain a greater understanding of world religions and shared and different experiences of the practitioners of those religious.  Third, seminar students experience a world discovery as they explore the interdependence of world religions and their followers.  Fourth, students experience a dialogic discovery and are able to discuss the underpinnings, similarities, and differences of world religions in an atmosphere of mutual respect without contentious rhetoric or debate. 

The kickoff event included a chance to meet seminar students from each of the ten Worldviews Seminars UM-Dearborn has held.  The event underscored the importance of Worldviews and of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society to the University of Michigan-Dearborn's Metropolitan Vision and our outreach to Metropolitan Detroit.