Written by Jay Moore
An online talk given by Brian Carwana, Executive Director of Encounter World Religions
Offered by Interfaith Grand River as a contribution to the United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week, February 1 – 7, 2025.
Brian Carwana brought us a jam-packed presentation, full of new ideas about how we in the west have been influenced by the dominance of Christianity and European culture which colours our opinions and feelings about other cultures and religions. For instance, I didn’t know that many languages within other cultures don’t even have a word for “religion.” The word, or the concept, is primarily a European invention! His thirty minute talk had many mind-opening revelations like this.
We heard Brian speak for about thirty minutes, then had small group discussion in breakout rooms and, finally, had a few minutes of wrap up. A great deal of appreciation of Brian’s teaching was expressed at the end and it was well deserved.
It’s such a pleasure to be working with Brian Carwana of Encounter World Religions on this event that provided important education to people who have an interest in the principles of interfaith in Waterloo Region. Brian had presented this talk to a few members of IGR a few months ago and Sandy Milne, a long-time leader in IGR and now our Membership Co-ordinator, came up with a plan to repeat the talk to a wider audience online. Sandy co-ordinated and chaired the event for thirty-three people on Wednesday evening, February 5th.
This was a very successful model of what we might do in the future to provide interfaith education, to build relationships and to raise our visibility in the community. We hope to bring other resource people like Brian Carwana to audiences and create more opportunities for more interfaith learning.