We are excited to invite you to our March meeting, 4pm, Sunday 10th. Our meeting will be held in Urban Junction, 42 Main St, Blackrock, Co. Dublin. A94 Y3X7. Please join us for a time of prayer and worship, and please stay for refreshments after the service. All welcome
This month we are delighted to welcome Dr. Jude Lal Fernando, who is Associate Professor and Coordinator of M.Phil Programme in Contextual Theologies and Interfaith Relations at the Irish School of Ecumenics, School of Religion, Theology, and Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin. He is the Director of Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice and brings praxis-based experience to the academic context in the fields of liberation theology, interreligious studies, and international peace studies. His main research interests are decolonising the interplay of religion, peace, and conflict, and the correlation between ethno-nationalisms and geopolitics, focusing on Sri Lanka in particular, and Asia more generally.He lays emphasis on the geopolitics of conflict and peace and on the political interpretations of ethno-religious identities while recognising the liberative potential in diverse faiths for just peace. He has authored two books, edited two collections of papers on faith and resistance to empire and militarization. His research has been published as journal articles and book chapters, presented at international conferences in Asia, Latin America, USA and Europe. Some of these have been translated into German, French, Italian, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Sinhala and Tamil. He is a founding member and an associate editor of the editorial board of International Journal of Asian Christianity.
Prior to his arrival in Ireland he has been a member of Tulana, the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue and Research in Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and has been involved in Buddhist-Hindu-Christian-Muslim dialogue under the mentorship of Asian indologist and theologian, Professor Aloysius Pieris. Fernando was a founding member of two peace-building community-based journals, Kithusara (in Sinhala) and Oliyai Nokki (in Tamil) which explored liberative potential in faiths for a just peace. He was the national coordinator of the All-Ceylon Fisherfolk Trade Union, and a member of the Hiru Group, raising public awareness in Sri Lanka regarding the need for a negotiated political settlement to the ethno-nationalist conflict. In Ireland, as a human rights and peace campaigner Dr. Fernando coordinates the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka, which explores the lessons of the Irish peace process for Sri Lanka. He was also co-coordinator of the three sessions of the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka, held in Dublin in January 2010, in Bremen in December 2013 and in Berlin in May 2022.
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