Progressive Faith Blog Carnival...
Tuesday January 24, 2006
I’m pleased to say that thinkBuddha will be hosting the latest Progressive Faith Blog Conference Carnival this coming weekend. That may sound like a bit of a mouthful, so let me explain…
The Progressive Faith Blog Conference is an attempt to bring together bloggers of various religious affiliations who share an agenda that could more or less be called “progressive”. Here’s something from their website, which puts it much more succinctly than I can myself:
Faith and politics have the capacity to profoundly divide, or to profoundly connect. Progressive Faith BlogCon is a chance for progressive bloggers of faith to meet one another, talk with one another, and learn from one another.
Our progressive politics are rooted in our theologies, and our theological stances inform our politics; why not celebrate them together? During this weekend gathering we’ll break bread together, talk about the subjects that fire our passions, and put faces with the names on our blogrolls.
Although I incline more towards science than towards religion, am not sure that I have a theology (although I probably do, some might claim, but am just in denial), and don’t regard my way of going about Buddhism as particularly religious, I do believe strongly that the attempt to draw together a wide range of different and thought-provoking perspectives from across different religious communities can only be a good thing, so I’m all in favour of the conference and its aims. Sadly, however, the thinkBuddha budget doesn’t exactly stretch to a trip to the States to join in the fun and games (hey, it doesn’t even stretch to biscuits, but who needs biscuits anyway?), so when Thurman who is organising the event suggested that I should host the next “carnival” I was all too delighted.
What’s a carnival? you ask… Well it’s pretty much just a kind of merry-go-round of all kinds of folks whose interest has been sparked in the conference, with an eclectic mix of links to articles of interest on their various online homes. It should be as diverse as it should be inspiring, and as with any carnival, if you don’t like one sideshow, you can always try your luck at the next in line. It’s pretty much like the thing that Tom does on his admirable Blogmandu, except he somehow manages to find the energy to do this every fortnight, rather than just as a once-off, and the remit for the Carnival is a bit wider, taking in a whole range of religious (and perhaps irreligious) perspectives…
We’ll see how it goes.
Main image: Kenn Kiser
