IRCICA Director General Prof. Dr. Mahmud Erol Kılıç has joined, upon the nomination of the chairman of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama, the Board of the R20, the G20’s Religion Forum. Established with the purpose of ensuring the function of religion as a genuine and dynamic source of solutions rather than problems in the 21st century, the hope for the R20 is that it facilitates the emergence of a global movement to bring the world’s geopolitical and economic power structures into alignment with the highest moral and spiritual values. Headquartered in the Center for Shared Civilizational Values, the R20 was founded by the Nahdlatul Ulama, one of the world’s largest Muslim organizations. The goal for the R20 is for it to provide a global platform through which significant religious leaders of every faith and nation may unite to express their concerns and give voice to shared civilizational values.
Seven priority areas have been identified for the R20’s engagement: identifying shared values and establishing reciprocity among the world’s diverse peoples, cultures, and religions; historical grievances, truth-telling, compassion, reconciliation, and forgiveness; recontextualization of obsolete and problematic tenets of religious orthodoxy; ethics of technology and business, including AI; restoring balance to nature and society through the understanding and practice of spiritual ecology; reviving the traditional role of art and culture as “windows to the transcendent” that serve to elevate the human spirit and inculcate ethical and spiritual values within society; and finally, political engagement and strategic communications.
Looking particularly at the priority area of reviving the traditional role of art and culture as “windows to the transcendent,” the R20 invited IRCICA Director General Prof. Mahmud Erol Kılıç to be part of the R20 Board as the leader of an organization that has done much for the past four decades in the fields of Islamic culture, art, and history and working to foster intercivilizational dialogue.
