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Book Launch

 
Fethullah Gulen: A Life of Hizmet: 

Why a Muslim Scholar in Pennsylvania Matters to the World

with Jon Pahl
* Simultaneous interpretation will be available in French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Turkish.
Registration
Date: February 22, 2021 Monday
Time: 19:00 - 20:30
 
You are cordially invited to the Book Launch event "Fethullah Gulen: A Life of Hizmet" organised by six partner organisations throughout Europe. You will have the opportunity to meet the author Jon Pahl and ask him questions. The event will be moderated by Johan Leman, broadcast online and simultaneously interpreted in five languages.  

Book

In this first critical biography of Fethullah Gulen in English, historian Jon Pahl takes us on a journey where we discover wisdom and controversy, from 1940's Turkey to the U.S. in the twenty-first century. Pahl tells the story of a pious Muslim boy from a tiny and remote Turkish village who on the one hand has inspired a global movement of millions of individuals dedicated to literacy, social enterprise, and interreligious dialogue, but who on the other hand has been monitored by Turkish police, seen as a threat by autocrats, and recently declared number one enemy by the current Turkish autocratic president. With lively prose and extensive research, Pahl traces Fethullah Gulen's life and thought in its contexts, states clearly his own positions, and then lets readers draw their own conclusions from the evidence about this undeniably significant historical figure.

You can purchase the book online from Amazon.




Author

 
Jon Pahl is a historian, author, teacher, pastor, researcher, business-planner, and community activist.

Dr Pahl received his BA in history and theology from Valparaiso University, MTS from Trinity Lutheran Seminary (Columbus, OH), and PhD from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Jon has published numerous articles and reviews and seven books, most recently the first critical biography in English of the Turkish Muslim preacher Fethullah Gülen. 

“JP,” as he is known by many of his students, has spoken with audiences from Accra, Ghana to Anaheim, California, including at Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, and many other colleges, universities, churches, bookstores, mosques, libraries and other public settings all over the globe. Jon lives on a lake in Clintonville, Wisconsin with his wife, Lisa, dog, Theo, and two cats (Layla and Izzy). Jon and Lisa enjoy spending time with their extended family, gardening, kayaking, and Jon likes sitting in on the saxophone with various bands and gospel choirs. 

In addition to his academic work, Dr Pahl is the Minister of Faith Formation and Community Engagement at Union Congregational United Church of Christ, Green Bay, WI. Union is the longest-continually worshipping Protestant church in the state of Wisconsin, dating back to 1836.  The church was a stop on the Underground Railroad, has been Open and Affirming for twenty years, has a vital new jazz ministry, and is a beacon of progressive Christianity in Green Bay. 

Dr Pahl is completing a book with the title A Coming Religious Peace, focusing on the emergence of religious peacebuilding as a potent force for positive change in cultures around the globe.




Moderator

 
Johan Leman (°1946), PhD in social and cultural anthropology, Drs in philosophy, Drs in exegesis O.T. (theology), MA in Eastern philology and history, BA in biblical philology, (KU Leuven).

1981-89: director of regional Integration centre Foyer, a regional minority centre in Brussels (www.foyer.be)
1982-2003: professor at KU Leuven, social and cultural anthropology, IMMRC, part-time 
1989-93: chief of cabinet of Royal Commissioner for Migrant Policy in Belgium 
1993-2003: director of the federal Centre for equal opportunities and fight against racism. Competences: anti-racism, fight against organized trafficking of human beings. 2003-2012: professor at K.U. Leuven, social and cultural anthropology, IMMRC, full-time
1995-1999: chair of the mediation commission at the Flemish Education council in the Flemish Community.
1989 - today: chair of Foyer vzw in Molenbeek
2010-2015 first chairholder of CGIS, Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies at KU Leuven. 

Publications in the field of human trafficking-related at his mandate in 1993-2003, and on issues of the anthropology of religion and of migration c.q. inclusion.

 

Jon Pahl explaining: Why did he write this book?

Registration
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