Older IRENICA (Archived)

Articles in this category were in Latest IRENICA but are now no longer current news.

In Indonesia, church runs afoul of Islamic street name

September 12, 2011
By

David Crampton, ENInews, Sep.6, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5129

In a test case of religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, an Indonesian mayor is defying court rulings by pushing for a decree to block Christians from opening churches on streets with Islamic names.

Members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church in the West Java town of Bogor are, after three years, still forced to worship on the sidewalk outside their building, protected by police. Although a verdict from Indonesia’s highest court in December, backed by the National Ombudsman Commission, favoured the church, Bogor has defied the order.

Read the complete article here.

Christian-Jewish relations still a source of debate

September 12, 2011
By

Philip A. Cunningham and Eric J. Greenberg — ENInews/RNS, Sep.1,  www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5122

A fascinating exchange recently took place in the pages of the Vatican’s newspaper between the chief rabbi of Rome and the Vatican’s chief representative to the Jewish people. Their conversation reflected just how far we’ve come in Christian-Jewish relations — but also how far we have yet to go, Religion News Service reports.

It started when L’Osservatore Romano published an article by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. Writing about the upcoming interfaith gathering at Assisi, Italy, on 27 October, Koch noted two key changes since the first Assisi summit 25 years ago: the collapse of communism and the rise in terrorism.

After arguing that “peace is the common effort of all religions,” Koch concluded that from a Christian perspective, “the cross of Jesus erases any desire for vengeance and calls everyone to reconciliation, it rises above us as the permanent and universal Yom Kippur,” referring to the Jewish Day of Atonement.

The cross is “not an obstacle to interreligious dialogue,” he wrote, “but rather, it indicates the decisive way that especially Jews and Christians, but also Muslims and followers of other religions, should welcome with a deep inner reconciliation, becoming the leaven of peace and justice in the world.”

Read the complete article here.

Dalai Lama joins Muslim scholar at 9/11 forum

September 12, 2011
By

Karen Seidman, National Post, Sep.6, www.nationalpost.com/arts/books/Dalai+Lama+joins+Muslim+scholar+forum/5357429/story.html

The Dalai Lama will join controversial Muslim scholar Tariq Ramadan in Montreal on Wednesday for a conference on world religions and peace in the aftermath of 9/11.

But rather than promising inspiration in a world plagued by religious tumult, the conference has already stirred up controversy and dissension as critics charge that the Dalai Lama is being duped into promoting Islamic fundamentalism.

The Second Global Conference on World’s Religions After Sept. 11 is being organized by McGill University and the Universite de Montreal; organizer Arvind Sharma, a professor of comparative religion at McGill, says the goal is to debate how religions can contribute to peace in the world.

Read the complete article here.

Don’t blame religion for 9/11

September 12, 2011
By

Sister Anne Flanagan, Chicago Tribune, Sep.11, newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/religion_theseeker/2011/09/dont-blame-religion-for-911.html

Since the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. were made in the name of religion, it has become rather common for critics of organized religion to take that at face value—and to claim that such violence in the name of a supernatural good is the sorry, but inevitable, fruit of religion (a convenient way of assuming for one’s own cause all the positive contributions brought to our society by people of faith).

No, the Sept. 11 attacks were not the beginning or even the expression of a new and terrifying “war of religion.” Even the historic “wars of religion” were not about religion! Instead, an ancient faith, one that has given the world masterful contributions of philosophy, mathematics, and, yes, holiness of life, was hypocritically co-opted for purely political ends. Those who insist that the real motive of the attacks was religious are simply buying in to something Osama bin Laden himself didn’t believe for a minute.

Read the complete article here.

Did 9/11 Make Us Morally ‘Better’?

September 12, 2011
By

Mirislav Volf, Huffington Post, Sep.7, www.huffingtonpost.com/miroslav-volf/christianity-911_b_944153.html

When the first plane smashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center I was in the delegates’ dining room of the United Nations finishing a talk at the Annual International Prayer Breakfast. My theme was reconciliation.

Only hours later, New York was a ghost city, abandoned in a hurry by people in shock. The whole nation, wounded and humiliated, was soon gripped by fear, which gave birth to anger and determination to “kick some ass” internationally, as one of our eloquent political leaders put it. That was then, immediately after the attack. Where are we today, 10 years later?

Read the complete article here.

Imam Feisal: The Future of Muslim and Christian Relations in the West

September 12, 2011
By

Vimeo, Sep.7, vimeo.com/28716668

Tensions between Muslims and Christians have skyrocketed in recent months. A Florida pastor is accused of inciting violence after he publicly burned a Quran, and CNN aired a special report on Murfreesboro, Tennessee Muslims who clashed with residents over plans to expand their Islamic Center. In a moment of such tension, misunderstandings between Muslims and Christians run rampant and caricatures abound. How can the world’s two largest religions co-exist and even cooperate in such a contentious time? Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative and Gabe Lyons discuss the future for faith relations in the West.

Watch the video here.

 

Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America

August 26, 2011
By

Wajahat Ali, Eli Clifton, Matthew Duss, Lee Fang , Scott Keyes & Faiz Shakir, Centre for American Progress, Aug. 26, www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/08/islamophobia.html

According to extensive analysis, here are the top seven contributors to promoting Islamophobia in the US:

  • Donors Capital Fund
  • Richard Mellon Scaife foundations
  • Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
  • Newton D. & Rochelle F. Becker foundations and charitable trust
  • Russell Berrie Foundation
  • Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald Family Fund
  • Fairbrook Foundation

Altogether, these seven charitable groups provided $42.6 million to Islamophobia think tanks between 2001 and 2009—funding that supports the scholars and experts that are the subject of our next chapter as well as some of the grassroots groups that are the subject of Chapter 3 of our report.

And what does this money fund? Well, here’s one of many cases in point: Last July, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned a conservative audience at the American Enterprise Institute that the Islamic practice of Sharia was “a mortal threat to the survival of freedom in the United States and in the world as we know it.” Gingrich went on to claim that “Sharia in its natural form has principles and punishments totally abhorrent to the Western world.”

Sharia, or Muslim religious code, includes practices such as charitable giving, prayer, and honoring one’s parents—precepts virtually identical to those of Christianity and Judaism. But Gingrich and other conservatives promote alarmist notions about a nearly 1,500-year-old religion for a variety of sinister political, financial, and ideological motives. In his remarks that day, Gingrich mimicked the language of conservative analyst Andrew McCarthy, who co-wrote a report calling Sharia “the preeminent totalitarian threat of our time.” Such similarities in language are no accident. Look no further than the organization that released McCarthy’s anti-Sharia report: the aforementioned Center for Security Policy, which is a central hub of the anti-Muslim network and an active promoter of anti- Sharia messaging and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

Read the complete article here.

Creating Integral Prayers and Meditations

August 25, 2011
By

Charles Burack, Interreligious Insight, July 2011, www.interreligiousinsight.org/July 2011/July11BURACK.pdf

I started writing prayers and meditations for the interfaith gatherings I was already participating in. My intention was to create a shared spiritual experience for individuals of diverse religious heritages.

In all nearly all of my prayers and meditations I try to create an awareness of the Oneness that composes, unites, and transcends all beings. And many of my prayers call for the Holy One to heal, bless and uplift all beings. Indeed, one prayer written in 2003 begins “Always pray for the good of all!”

 

Read the complete paper as a pdf here.

Muslims, Modernity, and the Prospects of Christian-Muslim Dialogue

August 25, 2011
By

Robert Hunt, Inter-religious Dialogue, Aug.15, irdialogue.org/journal/muslims-modernity-and-the-prospects-of-christian-muslim-dialogue-by-robert-hunt/

This paper seeks to understand contemporary Islam in such a way as to suggest new approaches to Christian-Muslim dialogue. However, the general approach it offers is equally useful in the pursuit of other forms of engagement with Muslims and the Muslim community. It is the thesis of this paper that understanding Muslim (and Christian) identity in terms of narrative will provide a more illuminating and fruitful basis for engaging in interfaith dialogue, or at least a better understanding of those with whom we as Christians are in dialogue. A focus on Muslim narratives will also provide an alternative taxonomy of Islamic movements in the hope that this will provide indications of how future dialogue most usefully can be pursued.

Read the complete paper as a pdf  here.

Karen Leslie Hernandez (Wanted: More than Dialogue), Kari Aanestad (I am so much more than Lutheran) and Benjamin B DeVan (Dialogue Hard?) have written papers responding to Hunt’s original paper.

Interfaith Storytelling for a More Perfect Union

August 25, 2011
By

Ralph Singh, Huffington Post, Aug.25, www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-singh/toward-a-more-perfect-uni_b_934225.html

As we approach the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, a day that called on all Americans to dig deep in their hearts and come together as one nation, it would do well for “we the people” to take an annual checkup on the state of our more perfect union.

When our Founding Fathers penned the words, “in order to form a more perfect union,” they laid a framework for democracy that would depend on an active citizenry. We had overthrown the injustice of a monarchy, and set the course for a nation that would be the city on the hill, the beacon for the tired and poor and the hope of liberty for a world buried under injustice. These were our ideals.

Read the complete article here.