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Read the most recent news about the Jay Phillips Center.
Fostering understanding, cooperation and friendship
Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies
About the Jay Phillips Center
The Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at the University of St. Thomas promotes critical, normative and civic approaches to interreligious encounter.
The center is dedicated to a scholar-practitioner approach to cultivating interfaith leadership that promotes basic (inter)religious literacy through lived encounter with people, communities and ideas, and provides opportunities to wrestle constructively with our growing religious diversity. The center recognizes that communities can be healthier when differences are engaged in a sophisticated manner by informed citizens, rather than ignored.
The center partners with the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John's University. It shares the common mission to foster understanding, cooperation and friendship among people of diverse religious, spiritual, and secular identities, worldviews and lifeways through academic study and civic engagement.
Upcoming Public Events
"Visual Prayer" virtual interfaith art exhibit
The exhibition Visual Prayer, curated by David Jordan Harris and Deborah Kim Ultan, draws together the artistic and spiritual practices of the Interfaith Artist Circle, a group of nineteen Twin Cities-based artists who understand and experience prayer through multiple paths. Their work reinforces the deep connection between art, healing and spirituality at a moment when our community faces a global pandemic, climate change and acute political and economic unrest. Steeped in traditional theological texts, original poetry, familiar iconography as well as silence and abstraction, Visual Prayer opens a dialogue among faiths while offering space for meditation and reflection. Sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies at the University of St. Thomas, the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning at Saint John's University, and the University of Minnesota-Libraries.
Interreligious Encounter in a Virtual Covid-19 World
As the world migrated online in the spring of 2020, interreligious learning and encounter moved with it. For students completing their interreligious engagement experience for THEO468 in Summer and Fall 2020 at St. Thomas, this meant a pivot to encountering religious diversity across the globe in virtual spaces. Their experiences culminated in several short public narratives and stories with video, pictures, and audio published in a single online StoryMap that documents their insights gained. Visit the StoryMap at the link below to read their narratives about interfaith leadership and virtues, appreciative knowledge and (inter)religious literacy, and global dialogue.
Programs and Resources
Engagement
The Jay Phillips Center engages campus and community in many ways.
Public Events
We serve the campus community and the public by hosting events that promote the public understanding of religion and interreligious relations.
Conferences and Symposia
We host conferences and symposia organized around timely questions, relevant events, and innovative ideas in the area of interreligious studies, interfaith leadership and civic pluralism.
Bridge Building
The Jay Phillips Center promotes interfaith community relations by bringing together people of different religious, spiritual, and secular identities to learn from, and serve alongside, each other.
Seminars and Lecture Series
Our seminars and lecture series invite scholars, leaders, practitioners, and community members with various religious, spiritual, and secular identities together for conversation around important topics and issues. Past seminars and lectures have focused on topics such as Muslim identities in Minnesota and North America, Hindu-Christian encounters in India, and interfaith leadership in business education.
Interreligious Micro Grant for Guest Speakers in Classrooms
This program provides micro grants to faculty to enhance their courses with an interreligious component by inviting guest speakers to their class to offer views from religious minority traditions or on topics that relate to interreligious studies and interfaith relations. Click here to read more about the Interreligious Micro Grant program for Guest Speakers in Classrooms.
Engagement
The center sponsors programs and conversations, often focused on books, films or current events, among groups of students, faculty, and people from the wider community.
Research Resources
The Jay Phillips Center offers a variety of resources that support research and scholarship in the field of interreligious studies, including the Jan Phillips Database.
Engagement
The Jay Phillips Center engages campus and community in many ways.
Public Events
We serve the campus community and the public by hosting events that promote the public understanding of religion and interreligious relations.
Conferences and Symposia
We host conferences and symposia organized around timely questions, relevant events, and innovative ideas in the area of interreligious studies, interfaith leadership and civic pluralism.
Bridge Building
The Jay Phillips Center promotes interfaith community relations by bringing together people of different religious, spiritual, and secular identities to learn from, and serve alongside, each other.
Seminars and Lecture Series
Our seminars and lecture series invite scholars, leaders, practitioners, and community members with various religious, spiritual, and secular identities together for conversation around important topics and issues. Past seminars and lectures have focused on topics such as Muslim identities in Minnesota and North America, Hindu-Christian encounters in India, and interfaith leadership in business education.
Interreligious Micro Grant for Guest Speakers in Classrooms
This program provides micro grants to faculty to enhance their courses with an interreligious component by inviting guest speakers to their class to offer views from religious minority traditions or on topics that relate to interreligious studies and interfaith relations. Click here to read more about the Interreligious Micro Grant program for Guest Speakers in Classrooms.
Engagement
The center sponsors programs and conversations, often focused on books, films or current events, among groups of students, faculty, and people from the wider community.
Research Resources
The Jay Phillips Center offers a variety of resources that support research and scholarship in the field of interreligious studies, including the Jan Phillips Database.
Student Interreligious Research & Interfaith Leadership Programs
The Jay Phillips Center offers two robust programs for students to study interreligious relations and engage with religious diversity while building their skillset to lead in a world growing in religious diversity.
Contact Hans Gustafson for more information.
Right image: Dominique Stewart ’21, Interreligious Research Fellow (2019-2020, 2020-2021), Interreligious Cohort Leader (2019-2020)
Affiliations
The Jay Phillips Center is affiliated with the following external organizations to foster local, regional, and (inter)national engagement in the areas of interreligious studies and relations.
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Our Staff
Dr. Hans Gustafson
Director
Dr. Gustafson is the Director of the Jay Phillips Center and teaches courses in (inter)religious studies and theology.
Lois E. Dament
Administrative Assistant
Lois is an administrative assistant and has worked in a variety of academic and administrative departments at St. Thomas since 1984.
Contact Information
Please feel free to contact us if you have questions about the Jay Phillips Center.
Tel: (651) 962-5780
Email: jpc@stthomas.edu
Mailing Address
Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies
University of St. Thomas
2115 Summit Ave. MAIL 57P
St. Paul, MN 55105
Campus Location
Our address is 2057 Portland Avenue