Our Programming

Religions of Des Moines Initiative

Our Religions of Des Moines Initiatives seek to bring greater awareness and understanding of the diverse religious communities of greater Des Moines. This is achieved through several different means:

  • “Religions of Des Moines” courses
  • Online guides to local religious communities
  • Student-facilitated digital stories about local practitioners’ faith experiences
  • A student-written photo narrative about fifteen religious communities in greater Des Moines (A Spectrum of Faith), and
  • An ongoing series of “Meet My Religious Neighbor” open houses at local religious communities.

Lecture & Dialogue Series

Our Lecture and Dialogue Series in comparative philosophy of religion explores a different religious theme every two years through scholar lectures, practitioner dialogues, and comparative conclusions. Each series’ lectures and conclusions are published through a book-series publishing contract with the international publisher Springer. Each semester a Drake University course in Comparative Religion accompanies the series.

We also now cultivate Interfaith Literacy and Leadership with college and high-school students through a Drake University student group, a class in interfaith understanding and engagement, and a yearly interfaith youth camp. Soon we hope to establish a minor in interfaith studies.

Publications

In 2017 we released our first two publications: Spectrum of Faith, a student-written photo-narrative about religion in Des Moines; and Ineffability, the first academic publication from our lecture and dialogue series. Click below for more info.

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