“The Sundance of the Sacred.” That’s what famed theologian Richard Rohr called Louisville’s Festival of Faiths. When the Huffington Post published a list of America’s eight top spiritual sites for travel, the Festival of Faiths ranked No. 6. This year’s festival – five days of music, poetry, film, art and dialogue with some of the world’s most compelling thought leaders and spiritual thinkers addressing violence – will be May 17-21.

The 2016 Festival, “Sacred Wisdom: Pathways to Nonviolence,” will offer highly provocative and engaging discourse on the most contentious issues of the day, “conversations on meaning” in a time of multiple crises of meaning. Panels will include Black Lives Matter, Islamophobia, Media and the Public Trust and the Environment.

Meeting concurrently with this year’s Festival of Faiths on nonviolence in Louisville, KY, is the national convention of the National Rifle Association. These two gatherings are set in a city that has received recognition for four successive years as a model compassionate city, and the keynote speaker at the Festival of Faiths will be the author of the Compassionate Cities Charter, Karen Armstrong.

Among the other internationally renowned speakers and panelists at this year’s Festival are:
Karen Armstrong;, best-selling author of books on religion and creator of the Charter for Compassion
Arun Gandhi;, non-violence advocate and grandson of the Indian patriot Mohandas K. Gandhi
Joan Brown Campbell; interfaith and civil rights leader and associate of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; one of America’s best-read authors on Judaism and regular commentator on NPR
Linda Sarsour; leading advocate for Muslim women and executive director of the Arab-American Association of New York
Jim Wallis; Founder of Sojourners Christian community and New York Times bestselling author, public theologian and speaker

Louisville’s Center for Interfaith Relations, which organizes the annual Festival of Faiths, will be pleased to provide help with press credentials, interviews, hi-res images, etc. For detailed information on the Festival schedule, please go to www.festivaloffaiths.org.