Between the 7th and the 13th of November, we continued with what has become a tradition at RCN: World Religion Week. This week we offered many different sessions, such as formal, philosophical lectures, open classroom Q&As, and student-led workshops and discussion groups. Some of the highlights included a panel discussion on faith in the face of tremendous evil like the holocaust, an online class visit from Mr. Huge Rice (who has attended all World Religion Weeks since it became a regular part of our programme), and an interfaith prayer for peace as the conclusion of our week.

In previous years we have been able to welcome fantastic speakers and this year was not an exception since we had the privilege of listening to two online lectures with subsequent Q&As. On Wednesday the 9th, we welcomed Swami Medhananda. He is a monk of the Ramakrishna Order as well as appointed as both Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Vedanta Society of Southern California and as Hindu Religious Director at the University of Southern California. Swami Medhananda delivered a fantastic lecture on the religious pluralism of Sri Ramakrishna and contrasted these thoughts with the pluralism of John Hick. The session developed into a stimulating discussion. We recorded this session and it will soon be available on the Youtube-channel of the John Hick Centenary Conference, a channel with several recordings from the conference that was organized by our teacher Dan Silfwerin to celebrate the 100th year jubilee of John Hick in March this year.

On Friday the 11th, we were privileged to welcome Dr. Mohammad Saleh Zarepour, Lecturer at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Manchester. His topic was the Persian philosopher Avicenna and one of his arguments for God’s existence. This lecture was also followed by a great discussion and gave our students a rare insight into Islamic philosophy of religion and the real force and originality of Avicenna’s thoughts on God and God’s attributes. We extend a massive thank you to both of these speakers! You can see more details on our special Hick Centenary website and in the recordings on the YouTube channel.

We also want to thank the student organizing team (Sean Zhang, Sandy Tan, and Ismail Ismail) and the organizing teacher, Dan Silfwerin, for putting all of this together.