The Multifaith Campus Alliance at Sinclair has many events planned for the fall semester that will spread their message of celebrating religious and spiritual diversity.
The first of these is the showing of “Locked in a Box,” a documentary directed by David Barnhart that details the realities of immigrant detention centers in the United States.
The film looks through the point of view of immigrants that cross the border and are put into detention centers.
Barnhart is touring the country promoting the film and will be in the Dayton area during the first week of October. The film will be shown Oct. 4 in the Tartan Marketplace. There will be refreshments, the screening of the film and a half hour discussion afterwards. The event starts at 5:30 p.m.
The second event will occur in conjunction with the Building 14 open house happening this weekend. It’s called “Spiritual Health for Individuals and Families.”
The event runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and will begin with a talk looking at the relationship between different faiths such as Christianity, Buddhism and Judaism. Guests will have their knowledge tested on these religions and will have an opportunity to ask questions about them.
They will have small group discussions about big events in their life, and will reflect on how their faith (or lack thereof) affected their response and reaction to them.
The groups will then have breakout sessions that will allow participants to explore and express their journey through their spiritual life through multiple individual creative outlets such as music, theater, visual art and spoken word demonstrations.
Lunch will be available for all participants. The event will end with a short reflection on the creative demonstrations.
Chaplain Larry Lindstrom stresses that the event is open to Sinclair students as well as their families, and invites them to attend.
The event will take place in the stage area of Building 8 on Saturday, Oct. 7.
Also being held in October is an event titled “Who is My Neighbor? Seeing the Beauty in Everyone.”
Who is my neighbor is a question that comes up in the bible, and has been debated on by the church. The bible answers that question in Luke 10:25-37 as “anybody and everybody.”
Professors Kara Brown and Jerry Eddy as well as Lindstrom will share their perspectives on LGBTQ persons in faith communities.
“We’re gonna to explore that in terms of, ‘if someone who happens to be LGBTQ… are those folks my neighbor,’ and we’re gonna argue that yes, they are,” Lindstrom said. “I’m going to try and make the case from a christian point of view that as people of the cross, we ought to embrace our LGBTQ brothers and sisters.”
This event will take place on Wednesday Oct. 11 from 11 a.m. to noon in the Library loggia area.
The final event is a Sinclair Talks in November called “How Are You Weird?” The Ombudsman Amy Hartman and Lindstrom will share the benefits of realizing that each one of us is “weird.”
They will then talk about how these traits can be a positive element for others as well as themselves.
The event takes place in the stage area of Building 8 on Wednesday, Nov. 8 from 11 a.m. to noon.
The Multifaith Campus Alliance envisions a future where people of all spiritual backgrounds find a welcoming place at Sinclair Community College to celebrate religious diversity and multifaith dialogue. They can be found in Building 10 room 310.
Henry Wolski
Executive Editor