Terry Taylor
Terry Taylor is the Executive Director of a Louisville-based inter-religious non-profit organization called Interfaith Paths to Peace (IPP). In February of 2010 Terry was selected by Leadership Louisville from among more than 19,000 nominees as one of the city’s top 128 ‘Connectors.’ He was also a participant in the 2010 Leadership Louisville Bingham Fellows Program. In March of 2012, Terry received a Community Service Recognition Award from APPKI, a Louisville-based Pakistani philanthropic group. In September of 2011, Louisville’s Center for Women and Families honored Terry as its “2011 Man of Distinction.” Terry is the author of the book, A Spirituality for Brokenness*, published in March of 2009 by Skylight Paths Publishing. Follow Terry on Facebook and on Twitter @interfaithterry.
In recent years Terry has embarked on extensive travel in support of positive interfaith interaction. In April of 2011 he was invited to take part in an interfaith conference in Erfud, Morocco. In November of 2010, he visited Iran as a member of a 10-person "Citizen Diplomacy" delegation sponsored by the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation. In 2009 Terry was a guest of the Emirate of Qatar for the 7th Doha International Conference on Interfaith Dialogue in October and visited Turkey in July as part of a seven-person interfaith delegation hosted by the Rumi Foundation. Terry was one of six interfaith leaders from around the US who were selected to be part of an interfaith delegation that traveled to Egypt and Syria June 19-30, 2008 as a guest of the National Peace Foundation and the Islamic Society of North America. The trip was funded by a major grant from the U.S. State Department and was called “Religion and Society: a Dialogue Tour.” Also in 2008, Terry took part in an intensive, graduate school-level study of Islam at Dar al Islam Mosque in New Mexico. In 2007 he traveled (along with a Jewish and a Muslim friend) to Israel and the occupied West Bank on a fact finding, peacemaking mission.
His recent international travel has also included two visits to Hiroshima, Japan. In 2006 at the invitation of that city’s mayor, Terry attended the commemoration ceremony marking the anniversary of the atomic bombing in 1945. In 2011, Terry visited Hiroshima in support of an Interfaith Paths to Peace “Peace Postcards” exhibit at a museum that is related to Hiroshima’s Peace Culture Foundation.
Terry maintains an active membership in the Fellowship of Reconciliation and serves on the Board of Fons Vitae Press. He is also a member of the US Religion Communicators Council. He collaborates on projects and events with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville; the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Louisville; the Episcopal Diocese of Kentucky; the Islamic Cultural Center of Louisville; the Baha’is of the Kentuckiana Area; the Drepung Gomang Institute (supporting three Tibetan monks who live and teach in Louisville); the Ten Thousand Buddhas Summit Monastery of Corydon, Indiana; the Hindu Temple of Kentucky, and Kentuckiana American Indian Advocates.
Terry holds a baccalaureate degree, Magna Cum Laude, in English and Philosophy from the University of Indianapolis (1973), a master’s degree in Journalism from Ball State University (1976), and a Master of Fine Arts degree in the Book Arts from the University of Alabama (1993).
