The Center for Religion, Culture, and Community (CRCC), which is housed in the Department of Religious Studies, is focused on creating sustainable bridges between individuals and communities associated with different religious cultures.
The CRCC hosts multiple events and forums that reflect our religiously pluralistic world. These events are designed both to promote critical thinking about religion as a social, political, cultural, artistic, economic and spiritual phenomenon as well as to help address some of the most pressing social issues of our day. Events and forums commonly include the following:
- a recurring set of lecture series that focus on a wide variety of topics, including Religion and Science, Religion and Art, Meditation, New Religious Movements, Religions of the Americas, Latinx Religion, Ecological Sustainability, Peacemaking, and Interreligious Dialogue;
- deep meditation and other participatory events that feature practitioners from different religious traditions who share their insights and practice with audience members;
- film screenings and discussions that are led by directors, actors, faculty, and/or community members;
- community forums that feature students, faculty, staff, visiting scholars, and/or community members who share their diverse experiences of religious thought and practice.
In addition to efforts like these, the CRCC also serves as a community-engaged connection point for students, faculty, and community leaders who are interested in addressing some of the most pressing social issues of our day. Toward this end, the CRCC collaborates with a number of socially-engaged units at DePaul, including the Irwin D. Steans Center for Community-based Service Learning and the Council for Community Engagement. Through collaborations like these, the CRCC strives to support meaningful initiatives, both inside and outside of the university, that have bearings on the intersection between religion and social justice.