Hear Rabbi Michael Lerner Speak Feb. 16 on Reclaiming America from the Religious Right

The man who the Washington Post once called “The guru of the Clinton White House” is coming to the Veteran’s Hall in Santa Cruz February 16 to inspire us to reclaim America from the Religious Right. He’ll introduce his new book, The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country form the Religious Right, to be released just days before. This spiritual manifesto will help ignite a new kind of social change movement that will challenge the globalization of selfishness and speak to our highest human need to connect to a life of higher purpose than the materialism and me-firstism of the competitive marketplace.

His visit will also inaugurate the newly-formed Santa Cruz County chapter of the Network of Spiritual Progressives, the national interfaith movement co-chaired by Lerner with Princeton author/professor Cornel West and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister. The NSP works to unite Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and spiritual activists of broadly diverse practices/faiths, in social and political action that expresses the core values of justice, peace, nonviolence and environmental health found in all religions. His Santa Cruz visit is cosponsored by the Resource Center for Nonviolence, now in its 30th year working for these same values and commitments, and Inner Light Ministries.

Michael Lerner is an internationally renowned social theorist, theologian, psychotherapist, and the editor of Tikkun magazine. Utne named him one of its 100 American Visionaries. He is a powerful speaker with deep insight into the spiritual, cultural and political situation in our country.

We hope you will join with members of many progressive and faith communities throughout Santa Cruz County to welcome Rabbi Michael Lerner and consider Rabbi Lerner’s vision of a spiritual progressive movement and our invitation to participate in the local NSP chapter.

We invite you to attend the public talk by Rabbi Lerner, 8:00 PM, Thursday, February 16, at the Veterans’ Hall in Santa Cruz, donation $5-$20. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.

We also invite you to a reception to meet Rabbi Lerner, following the talk, at 9:30. The reception donation of $35-$100 includes a copy of Lerner’s new book, The Left Hand of God, and admission to the preceding public talk at 8:00 PM.

Purchase tickets in advance from the Resource Center for Nonviolence (RCNV), 423-1626. Receive a free ticket to the public talk when you purchase The Left Hand of God from RCNV or Bookshop Santa Cruz. Tickets and books will also be available at the door. You may call Lenore Spalaris at 479-9255 for more information about these events and the Network of Spiritual Progressives. Please forward this email to your friends, associates and email lists.


Peace,
[signed by:]


Rev. Karla Norton
Marsha Hudson, PhD.
Annie Kelley
Rick Meyer
Cara Lamb
For the Network of Spiritual Progressives

Scott Kennedy
Peter Klotz-Chamberlin

for the Resource Center for Nonviolence

More information:
Network of Spiritual Progressives (national) http://www.spiritualprogressives.org.
Network of Spiritual Progressives (S.C. chapter) http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/nspsc
Rabbi Michael Lerner http://www.tikkun.org
Resource Center for Nonviolence http://www.rcnv.org.
Inner Light Ministries http://www.innerlightministries.com

Praise for Rabbi Lerner

“Michael Lerner is one of America’s most important spiritual teachers, a contemporary prophet whose insightful and visionary thinking has already had a profound impact on American culture and thought.” – Jim Wallis, New York Times bestselling author of God’s Politics.

“Michael Lerner is a rare voice of sanity and intelligence in a nation where our moral values have been corrupted by the greed of the market and the ambitions of empire. He gives eloquent voice to our yearning for a union of the spiritual and the rational in the quest for peace and justice.” – Howard Zinn, author of A Peoples’ History of the United States.

"Michael Lerner is the most prophetic intellectual and spiritual leader of our generation. We ignore his wisdom at our peril!" – Cornell West, Princeton professor and author

More about The Left Hand of God

Lerner’s eight-point progressive Spiritual Covenant with America in The Left Hand of God is a blueprint for how the Democratic Party and liberal social change movements can effectively challenge the Right by calling for a New Bottom Line that gives priority to our spiritual needs in all our economic, political and social institutions. The book shows what it would mean for the media, the liberals, and secular intellectuals to take spiritual needs seriously, shows what a progressive alliance between religious, secular, and the growing sector of “spiritual but not religious” Americans could look like, and offers a new social theory that could be the foundation for fundamental transformation and healing in American society.