Thursday, May 2
7:30-9:00 a.m.
"How to Honor the Holiness of the Religious Other"
Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia
The United Religious Community of St. Joseph County has hosted the local interfaith observance of the National Day of Prayer for many years. For 2024, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Tarunjit Singh Butalia, who will give a talk called, How to Honor the Holiness of the Religious Other
Dr. Butalia is the Executive Director of Religions for Peace USA, and a founding member of the Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Global Sikh Council.
Tarunjit has been a servant-leader in the interfaith movement for over 2 decades. He has been a member of Board of Trustees of Parliament of the World’s Religions for 12 years as well as North American Interfaith Network. He is also a founding trustee of Sikh Council for Interfaith Relations and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Global Sikh Council. He currently also serves on the Board of Faith in Public Life and the Interfaith Association of Central Ohio. He is former advisory board member of the Journal of Interreligious Studies.
Tarunjit has served on board of National Religious Coalition Against Torture as well as World Sikh Council – America Region. In 2016 he was awarded Luminosa Award for Unity by Focolare Movement and in 2020 he was honored by the National Council of Churches in the USA with its 2020 Gwynne Guibord Award for Excellence in Interreligious Leadership. Locally he has worked with Interfaith Association for Central Ohio for over 20 years and is co-editor of landmark Ohio Bicentennial book Religion in Ohio: Profiles of Faith Communities.
In 2021, he published a book My Journey Home: Going Back to Lehnda Punjab based on a visit to his ancestral home in Pakistan more than 70 years after his grandparents left it in 1947. He is Research Associate Professor at The Ohio State University and serves a Director of the OSU Coal Combustion Products Program. He is an Affiliated Faculty with OSU Sustainability Institute. He is recipient of the David C. McCarthy Engineering Teaching Award (2020), Award for Distinguished Outreach Achievements (2020), Charles Ellison McQuigg Award for Outstanding Teaching (2019), Lumley Research Award (2001, 2007, 2012), USEPA University Research Award (2008), and Senior Research Associateship Award by National Research Council of The National Academies (2005).
