It was a delight to be invited to the Michael Oak Waldorf School on Friday 27 February to talk to the matric religious studies class. Teacher Roy Davids curated the space very well and this “ad-hoc” (non YIIP) schools encounter follows on from CTII our presentation to Springfield Convent last year.
The CTII provides a service to schools who want to deepen the interfaith awareness in their own environments. Sarah Oliver, Veli Ntsume and myself attended, together with Veli’s daughter Sam, a theology graduate from Stellenbosch university.
Roy’s brief was for the CTII to address:
* A history of the CTII, why, when and by whom it was formed?
* The activities that it was and is currently involved in?
* The people that make up the CTII and how people can become more involved in the organisation?
The presentation flowed well, and we gave background and history of the CTII referring to its birth out of the Parliament of the World’s Religions after the 1999 meeting in Cape Town. We spoke of the international networks such as URI and the Charter for Compassion.
Interesting questions were raised by the matrics, concerning the place of atheists in interfaith, and the challenges faced by interfaith activists. We mentioned political fragmentation and the absence of religious leaders in interfaith as 2 examples. And as we so often do said that at the CTII “all faiths, and none” are welcome.
