Author: Timothy Knepper

 

Join us on Sunday, July 2nd between 12:30 – 4:00 pm for the next open house in our Meet My Religious Neighbor series. This open house will be held at Tu Vien Hong Duc, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple at 5906 SW 9th Street in Des Moines.

The open house begins at 12:30 with a Vietnamese meal. After that, we will have an opportunity to tour the temple and its statue park and to talk to the temple’s head monk. Participants are then invited to remain for the dharma talk (“sermon”) at 2:00 and chanting meditation at 3:00.

 

Below you will find supplementary resources for The Comparison Project’s 2015-2017 theme of Theologies of Death and Rituals of Dying. These resources come from students in Prof. Knepper’s Fall 2015 Comparative Religions course, Spring 2016 Philosophy of Religion course, Fall 2016 Comparative Religions course, and Spring 2017 Philosophy of Religion course.

The Fall 2015 Comparative Religions course examined theologies of death and rituals of dying in Tibetan Buddhism, the “cult” of Santa Muerte, and Christianity.

The Spring 2016 Philosophy of Religion course also examined Tibetan Buddhism and Catholic Christianity, but also studied Jainism and Secular Humanism.

Join us on Saturday, June 3rd at 8:30 pm for the next open house in our Meet My Religious Neighbor series. This open house will be held at Ezan: Islamic & Education Center, a Bosnian mosque at 6202 Douglas Ave in Des Moines.
Participants can watch the congregants of Ezan perform their sunset prayer (maghrib) around 8:30pm and their night prayer (isha’a) around 11:00pm. In between, we are invited to join the congregation in their Ramadan break-of-the-fast (iftar).

Parking at the mosque is limited. Participants should instead park across the street in the Merle Hay Mall’s SW lot.

—–

For the final event of its 2015-2017 series on death and dying, four scholars will offer their comparative philosophical reflections about death and dying in the religions of the world, especially with regard to the influence of the medicalization of death on traditional theologies and rituals.

• Timothy Knepper is a professor of philosophy at Drake University, where he directs The Comparison Project, a public program in global, comparative religion and local, lived religion.
• Lucy Bregman is a profess of religion at Temple University and is the author of several books on death and dying, including Death in the Midst of Life, Beyond Silence and Denial, and Preaching Death.
• Mary Gottschalk has served as an adjunct instructor at Drake University for the last two years, teaching courses on death and dying.
• Dr. Allen Zagoren is Associate Professor of Public Administration in the College of Business and Public Administration at Drake University, where he teaches in the areas of health education in health policy and bio-ethics.