Monday, October 17 at Calvary Episcopal Church
The Rules of the Game: Scripture and Tradition
Aaron Bisno and Harold T. Lewis

Monday, December 12 at Rodef Shalom Congregation
Capital Punishment: An Eye for an Eye?
Marshall Dayan

Monday, February 20 at Calvary Episcopal Church
Politics and Religion: Strange Bedfellows?
Dan Simpson

Monday, April 16 at Rodef Shalom Congregation
End of Life: Who Says ‘When’?
Moni McIntyre

How do thoughtful people of good faith go about making decisions on matters of great significance? What if the issues at hand are matters of life and death? How do we weigh in on issues of leadership, representation and fairness? From whence do we derive our understanding of ethics? Of justice? Is the way we approach these questions predetermined by religious expectations?

Building on a tradition that began more than ten years ago, Rodef Shalom and Calvary will come together again to discuss issues that are important to our faith communities, and will be guided in our deliberations by some of Pittsburgh’s most knowledgeable thinkers. In the year ahead, we will explore what we mean in our respective traditions by “the word of the Lord,” and how these ancient biblical truths guide our thinking. Further, we will consider what our own relationship to these issues might be.

Some of the questions with which we will grapple:

Will our answers to these questions necessarily be different, given that as Christians and Jews we share many of the earliest sacred texts? How do the understandings of authority of our respective text-based traditions guide our thinking? Are these texts the word of an unchanging or revealing God? Are they still relevant today? And perhaps, most meaningfully, what does it mean to make these decisions . . . and who decides?

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Rabbi Aaron Benjamin Bisno is the senior spiritual leader of Rodef Shalom Congregation. Founded in 1856, the congregation is Pittsburgh’s largest Jewish house of worship.

In addition to meeting the needs of Rodef Shalom’s nearly 1100 households, Rabbi Bisno has prioritized interfaith relations and dialogue. For these efforts, Pope Benedict XVI, in 2011, awarded Rabbi Bisno the Benemerenti Medal in recognition of “outstanding contributions to interfaith relations” for the many ways he has enriched interfaith dialogue and respect between the Jewish and Christian communities. The medal was presented during a special mass at St Paul’s Cathedral, only months after Rabbi Bisno and Bishop David Zubik led 28 Jews and Catholics on an unprecedented interfaith pilgrimage to Rome and Israel.

In 2007, Rabbi Bisno was recognized as a “40 under 40” honoree by Pittsburgh Magazine and Pittsburgh Urban Magnet Project (PUMP). The award honors those under the age of 40 who are making a positive impact on the region.

Prior to his arrival in Pittsburgh, Rabbi Bisno served as Associate Rabbi of Congregation Rodeph Shalom in Philadelphia from 1998–2005, and for the two years prior was the executive director of the Hillel Jewish Canter at the University of Virginia. A graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, he was ordained from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1996, with a master’s in Hebrew Letters, and went on to earn a master’s in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Marshall Dayan has been actively involved in the anti-death penalty movement since 1981. He has been staff attorney with the North Carolina Resource Center, an assistant appellate defender for the State of North Carolina, and assistant professor of law at North Carolina Central University School of Law, where he taught constitutional law, trial advocacy, appellate advocacy, and a seminar on the death penalty. In June 2006 Dayan became State Strategies Coordinator of the national ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. He has since joined the Capital Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender’s Office in Pittsburgh, where he serves as an Assistant Federal Public Defender.

Dayan has served as chair of the board of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, as president of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, and as vice-chair on the Commission on Social Action for Reform Judaism. He currently serves as co-chair of the board of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and is incoming president of the board of the Pittsburgh Area Jewish Committee. He is a member of the board of trustees of Adat Shalom Synagogue in Cheswick. He is a graduate of the University of Georgia and the Antioch School of Law.

The Rev. Dr. Moni McIntyre is assistant professor in the Graduate Center of Social and Public Policy at Duquesne University where she also teaches in the Center for Health Care Ethics. She is Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Holy Cross in Homewood. A retired Navy Captain (0-6) she teaches ethics to senior US Navy physicians and dentists in the Advanced Medical Department Officer Course as well as to dental residents in the Navy Postgraduate School in Bethesda, Maryland. In her capacity as Ethics Consultant to the Navy Surgeon General, she represented the Navy on the Department of Defense Ethics Committee. Moni, who has written numerous articles and book chapters, is also the author of Social Ethics and the Return to Cosmology. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

The Rev. Dr. Harold T. Lewis, since 1996, has been rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Shadyside. Since its founding in 1855, Calvary, the largest congregation in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, has striven to be a welcoming and inclusive community. A graduate of McGill University and Yale Divinity School, Lewis holds a Ph.D. in theology from the University of Birmingham (UK). He has taught at several seminaries, and is currently adjunct professor of church and society at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. His books, including A Church for the Future: South Africa as a Crucible for Anglicanism in a New Century; Yet With a Steady Beat: The African American Struggle for Recognition in the Episcopal Church; and Christian Social Witness all address the theme of social justice and the extent to which church has carried out the Biblically-mandated ministry of justice within its own life and in the communities that it serves.

It was in recognition of his commitment to justice that Dr. Lewis received the Dean’s Cross for Servant Ministry from Virginia Theological Seminary in 2009. By appointment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, he is a member and former chair of the Advisory Council to the Anglican Observer to the United Nations, one of whose aims is to aid in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals in developing countries.

Dan Simpson has had three careers, all involving international affairs. He taught in rural Nigeria and then Libya before beginning a State Department career. As a Foreign Service Officer he served at American Embassies in Burundi, South Africa, Bulgaria, Iceland, Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and was U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was Deputy Commandant to the U.S. Army War College and the National Defense University. He is currently an associate editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Toledo Blade, writing daily editorials and a weekly column on foreign affairs, U.S. domestic politics and economics. He is a graduate of Yale University and Northwestern University.

Calvary–Rodef Shalom 2011-2012 Community Forum

Price per session: $20

Please phone in your reservations:

Contact Calvary at 412.661.0120, ext. 40 for October 17, 2011 and February 20, 2012.

Contact Rodef Shalom at 412.621.6566 for December 12, 2011 and April 16, 2012.

Payment will be received at the door.

Forum Schedule:
6:00 p.m. Wine and Cheese
6:15 – 7 p.m. Dinner
7:15 – 8:15 p.m. Program with Q&A
8:30 End