Jun 30 2010
Patrick McCollum to speak at world conference
Cherry Hill Seminary instructor and director of chaplaincy, Patrick McCollum, has been invited to participate in the World Forum of Spiritual Culture October 18 – 20, 2010. McCollum, a longtime Pagan minister, advocate, and participant in international interreligious affairs, will present an inclusive spiritual framework for a sustainable world, based on the The Noospheric Ethical Ecological Constitution for Mankind.
Others invited to the event include theologian Hans Kung, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Charles, Prince of Wales, former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore, the Reverend Canon Andrew White, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Special Representative to the Middle East, Nobel laureate Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, former President of the Republic of South Africa Nelson Mandela, and former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The World Forum of Spiritual Culture is hosted by the Kazakh government, the International Association of Peace Through Culture, the Congress of Spiritual Concord, and other other Kazakhstan, European and Russian organizations. McCollum will become the first Pagan leader to address the World Forum of Spiritual Culture, his remarks becoming part of the international journal published following the event.
The World Forum hopes “to find a solution to the systemic crisis of the modern civilization by realizing the priority of spirituality and culture above all other public values.” The Kazakh President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, will address the group during the conference.
McCollum, who teaches chaplaincy for Cherry Hill Seminary, has a long history of spiritual service. Following the 1997 settlement of a case involving a Wiccan inmate, McCollum became the first government-recognized Wiccan chaplain. He is a member of the American Correctional Chaplain Association, the Program Chair for the National Correctional Chaplaincy Directors Association, and the Chaplaincy Liaison for the American Academy of Religion.
