Paul-Gordon Chandler

Paul-Gordon Chandler
Born 1964
Occupation Author, Interfaith Advocate, Social Entrepreneur, Episcopal Priest, Arts Patron

Paul-Gordon Chandler (born 1964) is an author,[1] interfaith advocate, social entrepreneur and a U.S. Episcopal priest who has lived and worked extensively in the Middle East. He has also ventured into the field of feature film production. Paul-Gordon Chandler grew up in Muslim West Africa (Senegal), and has lived and worked throughout the Islamic world with churches, religious publishing and Christian relief and development agencies. His acclaimed book on Muslim/Christian relations is Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road: Exploring a New Path Between Two Faiths.

Life

Cover of Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road

He is currently the Founder and President of CARAVAN,[2] an international interfaith Arts initiative that seeks to build bridges through the Arts between the creeds and cultures of the East and West. From 2003-2013, for ten years, he was the Rector of the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist/Maadi in Cairo, Egypt, within the Anglican / Episcopal Diocese of Egypt & North Africa. St. John’s Church/Maadi is the international English-speaking Episcopal/Anglican church in southern Cairo with an international congregation of over 25 nationalities from many denominations and faith traditions.

Immediately prior to this role, he served as the President/CEO of Partners International (PI), an international and ecumenical development organization that exists to assist and empower indigenous faith-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over 70 countries. Before serving with PI, he was the U.S. Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IBS Publishing (now Biblica), a publishing and distribution non-profit that works in over 500 languages, and the sponsor of the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible.

Prior to that he worked with the Anglican Church for five years. From 1995-1997, he worked with SPCK in London, England as the Director of SPCK Worldwide, an international publishing agency of the Church of England involved in publishing and communications in the UK and throughout the Two-Thirds World. Before this he served in Tunisia, North Africa, as the Rector of St. George's Episcopal/Anglican Church in Tunis/Carthage and Chaplain to the British Embassy. St. George’s Church was the only English-speaking church in Tunisia, a Muslim majority country, and served as the international church congregation to internationals from over 30 nationalities living and working in Tunisia. Prior to that, he worked with IBS Publishing as Director of International Programs and served for several years directing translation, publishing and distribution projects throughout the world, in over 100 countries.

He is actively engaged in exploring and encouraging the interplay between “Faith and the Arts” within the context of interfaith. In 2009 in Cairo, Egypt he started CARAVAN, as an interfaith arts festival, which has since grown into a movement that encourages the creeds and cultures of the East and West to journey together through the Arts. He is also the founder of Nisibis Arts LLC,[3] that exists to develop commercially successful creative initiatives (i.e. films) that both entertain and have as their deeper purpose the building of bridges across creeds and cultures.

He studied at Wheaton College, where he majored in Biblical and Theological Studies (B.A. 1986), and also at Chichester Theological College (a Church of England institution) in England.

Books

Cover of God's Global Mosaic

Paul-Gordon Chandler’s acclaimed book on Muslim/Christian relations, titled Pilgrims of Christ on the Muslim Road: Exploring a New Path Between Two Faiths (published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2008) focuses on what we can be learned from the life and thought of Mazhar Mallouhi, the well known Syrian Arab novelist and “Sufi Muslim follower of Christ”. His first book was God’s Global Mosaic, What We Can Learn from Christians Around the World, published by InterVarsity Press (IVP) in January 2000. His most recent book is titled Songs In Waiting: Spiritual Reflections on Christ's Birth...A Celebration of Middle Eastern Canticles, published by Morehouse Publishing in July 2009. He has begun work on another book which will focus on the spiritual journey of Kahlil Gibran, the early 20th century Lebanese writer and mystic of Christian background (best known in the West for his book "The Prophet"). Additionally he has written numerous articles in various publications.

Listing

Film

Paul-Gordon Chandler is the founding producer of a feature film being developed (in partnership with Ron Senkowski and Symply Entertainment, LLC)[4] of the best-selling novel Ports of Call (Les Echelles Du Levant) written by Amin Maalouf, the award-winning Lebanese-French novelist (considered the most prominent Arab writer in the world today and a member of the prestigious Académie française). He founded Nisibis Arts, LLC for the development of Ports of Call.

References

  1. ↑ "Author Rev Paul-Gordon Chandler". Spokesman-Review. September 7, 2007. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
  2. ↑ "Founder and President of CARAVAN Arts". Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  3. ↑ "Paul-Gordon Chandler - Nisibis Arts". Retrieved 13 March 2014.
  4. ↑ "About | Symply Entertainment". Retrieved 13 March 2014.

External links