Source: The Star Tribune
MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA, June 8, 2002: Anant Rambachan, professor of religion at St. Olaf College, is one of ten religious experts worldwide invited to the Vatican to discuss religious tolerance. Rambachan wants to find constructive solutions to the world’s violence by encouraging the world’s major religions to find common ground, common voices and common values. When genuine interreligious dialogue begins to happen, he says, then much of the religious rationale for hatred and violence will end. Seven major religious traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Sikhism and indigenous religions have been invited by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue to gather at the Vatican. Rambachan is active in the World Council of Churches. Born in Trinidad, he has been a member of the St. Olaf faculty since 1985. According to its mission statement, “St. Olaf, a four-year college of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, provides an education committed to the liberal arts, rooted in the Christian Gospel, and incorporating a global perspective.”