9mm Golden Calves

by James E. Atwood

BACK IN 1990, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) issued this warning: “The religious community must … take seriously the risk of idolatry that could result from an unwarranted fascination with guns, which overlooks or ignores the social consequences of their misuse.” Two decades later, about 660,000 more Americans have been killed by guns, with a million more injured.

These figures convince me that what was a risk in 1990 has become our reality today: For too many, guns have become idols. They claim divine status; make promises of safety and security they cannot keep; transform people and neighborhoods; create enemies; and require human sacrifice.  Read more...

Call for Papers: International Conference on Leadership and Management through Spiritual Wisdom

The School of Management Sciences, Varanasi and Centre for Spiritualism and Human Enrichment (C-SHE), in partnership with California State University San Bernardino (USA) and PHD Chamber of Commerce & Industry (India), is organizing a three day International Conference on “Leadership and Management through Spiritual Wisdom” from 22nd February to 24th February, 2013.

Conference objectives:
• Highlighting the challenges of leadership and management in globalized era.
• Exploring causes of leadership success and failures.
• Role of Spiritual wisdom in leadership and management.
• Developing insights into the dimensions of spiritual wisdom.
• Understanding means and methods for inculcating and practicing spiritual wisdom in leadership and management.
• Developing a path where an individual become free, actualized and emancipated so as to become an enlightened leader and to find out the basic alchemy for this kind of leadership who can bridge the chasm between the opposites & spiritual view of life. 
• Highlighting importance of inter-disciplinary approach to various professional disciplines for bringing synergy and unified approach for solving management problems.
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Book Announcement: The Coming Interspiritual Age

Advancing the work of former CPWR Board Member, Bro. Wayne Teasdale,  The Coming Interspiritual Age, by Dr. Kurt Johnson and David Robert Ord [released January 8] explores themes of oneness, unity, and diversity on a world-wide scale.   Forecasting a global shift toward spiritual consciousness,  the authors unwrap an evolving makeup of religious communities to showcase how new forms of personal identity and scientific contexts in religion are creating a collective interspirituality.

Endorsing figures comprise Ken Wilber, Pir Zia Inayat Khan, Matthew Fox, Richard Rohr,  Paul F. Knitter, Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, Andrew Harvey Ashok Gangadean, Yasuhiko Kimura, Charles Gibbs, Nancy Roof, Aster Patel, and more than forty more.  Read more...