Online Zoom Forum: The Parliament of the World’s Religions: Some Highlights from Past Parliament Convenings.
Date: Wednesday 22 October 2025.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be six talks, each of 12 minutes, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
The Revd Bonnie Evans-Hills:
Bio: Bonnie Evans-Hills is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church and has considerable experience in inter-religious dialogue, working with organisations such as the EU Commission on Foreign Affairs & Security, the World Council of Churches, Churches Together in Britain & Ireland, the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Mission organisation USPG (United Society for Partners in the Gospel). Bonnie has been involved in contributing to the UN Office for the Prevention of Genocide’s Global Plan of Action for Religious Leaders & Actors. She was recently awarded the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Speakers:
Rebekah Coffman:
Title: Reimagining Religious Representation: Legacies of the Parliament of the World’s Religions of 1893.
Description: This talk explores the legacy of the Parliament of the World’s Religions not only as a globally significant moment for interfaith dialogue but also as a distinctly Chicago-based event, shaped by the cultural and political backdrop of the United States at the turn of the 20th century. This will be considered through the lens of how cultural institutions contend with the complex legacies of the Parliament through confronting reductive frameworks of religious and cultural traditions. Through more inclusive approaches to collecting, curation, participation, and outreach, it will describe how institutions can re-evaluate their role in both stewarding and actively reshaping how global religious communities, including those represented by the Parliament and those notably absent, are represented in public memory.
Bio: Rebekah Coffman is a historian, preservationist, and curator currently serving as curator of religion and community history at the Chicago History Museum where she leads the Chicago Sacred initiative. Her interdisciplinary work is at the intersection of religious identity and the built environment and explores themes of tangible and intangible heritages in material and visual culture through place-based, community-centered approaches.
She has been a contributing curator to the Religion, Art, and Technology Lab, curating the 2021 digital exhibition Tangible/Intangible, and founded the Sacred Shift Project in 2019, an ongoing research project surveying religious buildings adaptively reused by different faith traditions.
Her research has been recognized, including NYU’s Gavin Stamp Award in Adaptive Reuse in 2019, a commendation by the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain in 2020, and Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum’s 2023 Lindsey Jones Memorial Research award.
Prof Richard Roberts:
Title: Golden Sarcophagus - or Fecund Womb? - The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Historical Perspective.
Description: Attendance at the 1993 Chicago Parliament was one of the most remarkable religious and spiritual experiences of my life. In ‘Globalised religion? The Parliament of the World’s Religion ((Chicago, 1993) in theoretical perspective’ (Ch. 9 of Religion, Theology and the Human Sciences, CUP 2002), I sought to make sense of this complex gathering held in a privileged environment and at a time of relative optimism. My deployment of globalisation theory was recognised as innovative, but the degree to which I ascribed ‘reality’ to the event was regarded as reprehensible by some influential practitioners of the ‘Religious Studies’ field. In this brief contribution I shall enumerate and summarise key points and highlight how these have changed over the past three decades.
Bio: Richard H. Roberts (né Vodvárka) is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies (Lancaster University), and a sometime Professor of Divinity at the University of St Andrews. He is currently an Honorary Fellow at New College, University of Edinburgh. His research interests include: ‘managerial modernity’; the interface between music, performance and ritual; shamanism and altered states of consciousness; Slavic spiritualities; critical interrogation of the polarisation between theology and religious studies; and the existential and theological issues concerned with the present world crisis. Roberts is currently collaborating as regards the latter with his friend and former colleague the anthropologist and Tibetologist Professor Geoffrey Samuel.
Ravinder Kaur Nijjar:
Title: Guru Nanak, Langar and Interfaith Dialogue.
Description: The Langar or free community kitchen is a hallmark of the Sikh religion. It was established by the first Guru and founder of the Sikh religion, Guru Nanak. When was it started at the Parliament of the World’s Religions? How did the giving of langar promote interfaith dialogue?
Bio: Ravinder Kaur Nijjar is the Sikh Representative on the Scottish Religious Leaders Forum, Chair of Sikhs in Scotland Interreligious Dialogue Committee, Chair of Religions for Peace UK Women of Faith Network, and Vice-Chair, Religions for Peace UK. For over 35 years she has initiated many projects to promote interfaith dialogue, respect, and peace between communities nationally and internationally.
As an interfaith activist and consultant her current focus is on the empowerment of women, challenging gender-based violence, the leadership role of women of faith, promoting religious literacy through interfaith dialogue, and protecting the Earth through multifaith action and collaboration.
As Co-Chair from 2006-2014 Ravinder Kaur was a founding member of Religions for Peace European Women of Faith Network developing and forming national women of faith networks across Europe and is currently a member of the Executive Board. She is a former member of RfP International Women's Coordinating Committee for the Global Women of Faith Network and serves on the Standing Commission on Advancing Gender Equality.
Ravinder has served on the Scottish Interfaith Council, currently known as Interfaith Scotland since its inception in 1999 and as Convener from 2002-04 was key in initiating Inter Faith Week in Scotland. She also served as a member of the Executive Committee of the UK Interfaith Network from 2000-2015 and was instrumental in establishing Inter Faith week in England and Wales in 2009. She serves as the honorary Sikh Chaplain at Glasgow University.
She is an experienced educationalist and has a Bachelor of Education (Hons) degree (London University), ATQ Primary Qualification (Strathclyde University) and a post-graduate Diploma in Religious Education from the University of Glasgow.
Ravinder Kaur has received numerous awards and was honoured with the Religions for Peace Lifetime Service Award for Multi-Religious Peacebuilding in 2023, the Lifetime Achievement Award from Scottish Asian Women’s Association (2013) and in January 2024 was awarded the Coronation Medal.
Dr MaryCatherine Burgess:
Title: How the Parliament of the World's Religions Played a Key Role in the University of Edinburgh's Multifaith Chaplaincy Team in 2009, 2018, and Beyond.
Description: This will be a reflection on how the University of Edinburgh's Multifaith Chaplaincy experience impacted a team of students and staff who co-created a documentary film about their experience; presented it, along with a workshop, at the 2009 PWR in Melbourne, Australia; and graduated, but years later, collaborated to reflect on how those experiences had made a difference in their lives, work, and friendships - sharing that in a PWR presentation in 2018. This presentation will end with further reflections on how the two PWR experiences helped deepen and expand the meaning and importance of multifaith respect, learning, and collaboration.
Bio: As Associate Chaplain for Spirituality and Multifaith at the University of Edinburgh from 2007 - 2011 (part-time chaplain from 2004 - 2007), MaryCatherine Burgess was actively involved in working with students, staff, and community people interested in multifaith initiatives. That included providing support to students and staff, as they worked with Film Director Amy Hardie and Editor Patricia Delso Lucas to co-create their film and prepare their workshop for presentation at the 2009 PWR. After all of the team had graduated and/or left Chaplaincy, she coordinated their subsequent re-connecting and preparation for presenting at the 2018 PWR in Toronto. Since 2009, MaryCatherine has been an Honorary Fellow in the School of Health in Social Sciences, where she serves as second supervisor for PhD/doctoral students in Counselling who are exploring the interface between spirituality and counselling.
Prof Kusumita P. Pedersen:
Title: Some Highlights from Past Parliament Convenings.
Bio: Kusumita P. Pedersen is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at St. Francis College. She is a Trustee the Parliament of the World's Religions and a founding member of the Parliament's Climate Action Task Force (CATF), Co-Chair of the Climate Working Group of the Committee of Religious NGOs at the UN and a board member of the Interfaith Center of New York. Kusumita is co-author of Global Ethics in Practice: Historical Backgrounds, Current Issues and Future Prospects (Edinburgh University Press, 2016) and Faith for Earth: A Call for Action (UN Environment Programme and Parliament of the World’s Religions, 2020). She has been a student of Sri Chinmoy (1931-2007) since 1971 and is the author of The Philosophy of Sri Chinmoy: Love and Transformation (Lexington Books, 2021) and Sri Chinmoy: Aspects of His Work (Aśvattha Press, 2022).
Professor Emerita of Religious Studies
St. Francis College
Secretary and Trustee
Member, Climate Action Task Force
Parliament of the World’s Religions
Co-Chair, Board of Advisors
Center for Earth Ethics
Co-Chair
Climate Working Group
Committee of Religious NGOs at the UN
Board of Directors
Interfaith Center of New York
Trustee
American Teilhard Association
Advisory Council
Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement, Seattle University
Advisory Group
Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology
Prof Katherine Marshall:
Title: Balancing Religious Responsibilities and Action to Fight Poverty and Climate Change.
Description: Concern for vulnerable people and communities is both an ancient and very modern calling of virtually all religious traditions. While harmony with nature has ancient roots, with contemporary climate change the challenges take on new significance. Each Parliament convening has focused on both, generally as distinct and also central topics, but possible tensions do enter the arena. This was especially evident at the Melbourne Australia Parliament but the core questions are woven through both advocacy and dialogue. How can the two rich strands of teachings and calls to action mesh in today's complex and demanding environment, at the most global and the most local levels?
Bio: Katherine Marshall, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, leads the center’s work on religion and global development. She is also a professor of the practice of development, conflict, and religion in the Walsh School of Foreign Service, teaching diverse courses on the ethics of development work and mentoring students at many levels. She helped to create and now serves as the executive director of the World Faiths Development Dialogue, an NGO that works to enhance bridges between different sectors and institutions. In September 2022, she was appointed as a member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid at the U.S. Agency for International Development. Marshall has five decades of experience on a variety of development issues in Africa, Latin America, East Asia, and the Middle East, particularly those facing the world’s poorest countries; one way she shares her expertise is through her blog Faith in Action. She was a World Bank officer from 1971 to 2006, and she led the World Bank’s faith and ethics initiative between 2000 and 2006.
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Booking: By Paypal.
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Account Name: Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace
Bank: Bank of Scotland
Bank Address: Edinburgh Royal Mile Branch
Account Number: 06131159
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