Article of Faith
If You Go
Portraits in Faith Book Launch
Dec. 4, 6 p.m.
Summit Hotel, 5345 Medpace Way
with performances by Neshama Carlebach, a Portraits of Faith subject and an award-winning singer, songwriter, and activist
Purchase tickets for the book launch.
For more information on the Portraits of Faith, visit portraitsinfaith.org.
While traveling the globe as a marketing director for Procter & Gamble, Daniel Epstein made time to interview and photograph 500 people across 27 countries documenting the power of faith and spirituality. His eighteen-year exploration, Portraits in Faith, is the world’s most extensive oral history project about faith conducted by a single person.
Epstein founded the non-profit Portraits in Faith Foundation and has now compiled over a hundred of his inspirational portraits into a new book.
Portraits in Faith documents the role of spiritual experience inside and outside of formal religion, expected and unexpected, told in people’s own words. The multi-media project has been praised by documentarian Ken Burns, television personality Dr. Oz, and many Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders.
Motivated by his own search to fill the “God-sized hole” in his life, Epstein set out on a journey. He felt that if he did not develop some type of spiritual faith, he would die. This led him to interview people of all backgrounds and from all walks of life representing over 50 religions, denominations, and spiritual followings.
Portraits in Faith is raw, personal stories of spiritual healing. Each account is a new perspective: Steve, a gay man in Cincinnati with chemical and sex addictions, finds hope in the simple sign of peace Catholics give to each other at the end of Mass. Anna, the mother of post-modern dance, reveals how dance and movement are deeply authentic forms of spirituality. Danny, an Israeli injured by a terror attack, believes that we must thank God even for bad things and work out what they mean in our lives. Alakananda is a mystic who lives “beyond religion where all traditions shine” in the realm of universal light. Every story is unique, but they are all threaded together by the power of faith.
Epstein is a marketing and innovation consultant based in Cincinnati, Ohio and a former Harley Procter Marketing Director for Procter & Gamble, the highest distinction and title given to marketers at Procter & Gamble (only 20 in company history). Outside of work, he is dedicated to building bridges across cultures and faith. In 1994, Epstein co-founded and then co-led the Cincinnati African American-Jewish community dialogue. Following the race riots in Cincinnati in 2001, Daniel co-led “Open the Space, Cincinnati!” a unique large group race relations dialogue program.