Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have Jay T. Rock (Coordinator for Interfaith Relations for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.) as the speaker who will talk about “A Common Word Between Us and You: Are love of God and love of neighbor sufficient basis for Christian-Muslim relations?”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Jay T. Rock

For the weekly Wednesday Forum held on February 10, 2010, a schedule originally arranged for Prof. Mark Woodward, Mr. Roy Allan B. Tolentino, an ICRS student, discussed the “Levinasian Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue” instead. Mr. Ali Amin, MA, acted as moderator. Mr. Tolentino talked about the works of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) which poses as a challenge to traditional ethical systems, in its radical reorientation of subjectivity. The presentation aimed to introduce Levinas and show his ethics that can inform inter-religious dialogue.

The guest speaker for the weekly Wednesday Forum on February 17, 2010 was Jay Rock who discussed “The Common Word between Us and You: Are love of God and love of neighbour sufficient basis for Christian-Muslim relations?” while Prof. Dr. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, ICRS-Yogya Director, acted as moderator who made the discussion atmosphere more exciting. Mr. Rock questioned how did Christians respond the concept of Common Word and its relationship with Islam? Can this term affirm a basis for relationship, and also see the importance of attending to our differences?

Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have Jimmy Marcos Immanuel as the speaker who will talk about “Marapu, Nature and Natural Disaster”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Jimmy Marcos Immanuel, S.Si-Teol.

It has just been realized that CRCS has already run two periods of Competitive Research Grant Projects with a theme “Interpretations and Responses on Natural Disaster: The Integrative Studies of Science, Religion and Culture.”

The first period started at the end of 2008, and now the successful research grantees are going to report their researches. The second period is going to hold another workshop and selection for the 10 best proposals.

This grant has involved academicians, researchers, and NGO activists from every corner of Indonesia. Some of their proposals are done individually while the other proposals are done by groups.

Ms. Karen Bryner, a PhD candidate from Columbia University, presented her field research during the first Wednesday Forum for the semester and of the year which was held on February 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, while Nina M. Noor, a PhD student, acted as moderator.

In the forum, Ms. Bryner perceived the combination of Islamic revival and the growing middle class in generating a new market for Islamic education which is the elite urban Islamic schools. This combination happened in the 1990s when many middle-class Muslims spend their money in educating their children by sending them to a very expensive elementary school which charged much than that of a state university. These Islamic elementary schools, unlike many of the traditional Islamic education institutions, are not largely directly connected to the long established Islamic organizations such as NU and Muhammadiyah, but rather to independent foundations or franchises. Yet tensions between Islamic organizations are being played out, particularly among NU, Muhammadiyah and PKS, as individuals are fighting for real estate for this new market.