This semester I had the honor and pleasure to work as the educational assistant for a course, “Religious Pluralism” at McCormick Theological Seminary under the leadership of Dr. Robert Cathey and Janaan Hashim, Esq.

The core of this class exposed seminary students to five different faith traditions. Each week students read a chapter and supplemental materials on the differing faith traditions and then the following week as a class we took field trips to the differing temples of worship that corresponded with the previous week’s readings.

“Religious Pluralism” is a religious and cultural immersion experience for McCormick seminary students. As a sociologist and mother, I think that immersion and exposure is one of the best teaching methods for students and children to truly learn, thus I promote it in the classroom, as well as my own personal life.

As I visited the Synagogue, the Mosque, the Sikh temple, the Buddhist temple and finally the Hindu temple I learned more completely how not to judge other peoples faith and worship as lower than my own. I do not feel challenged about my own faith by being respectful of other people’s faith traditions. I do not feel compelled to “make” other people believe my religion is better or more right.

Read the complete article here.

Read the complete article here.

Both Christmas lights and Hanukkah dreidels (spinning tops) are appearing as decorations as the northern Israeli port city of Haifa throws a multi-faith party on December weekends.

Now in its 18th year, the Holiday of Holidays — which also includes the recently-celebrated Muslim Eid al-Adha — is meant “to share the differences and honor them,” said Assaf Ron, director of the Beit Hageffen Jewish-Arab Center which organizes the festival along with the Haifa municipality.

This year, Israeli-Arab singer Mira Awad will share a music stage with Israeli-Jewish singer Rami Fortis as well as with other Arab and Jewish bands. “There will be a real European holiday feel to it with lights and Santa Claus and spinning tops. That is the spirit of Haifa,” said Ron in a telephone interview. Police estimated some 60,000 people attended the festival over the 17-18 December weekend.

“We want to show Jews, Christians, and Muslims that we can celebrate our holidays together, we can be together in a big open venue, mix together, and not feel strange or fearful,” Ron said.

Read the complete article here.

The Arab Spring has increased pressure on Egypt’s Coptic Christians, with attacks on churches and bloody clashes with Muslims and the military. Many foreign Christians feel driven to help.

Pope Benedict, Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams and other church leaders have spoken out in defence of the Copts, indigenous Christians who make up 10 percent of Egypt’s mostly Muslim population of 80 million.

In Europe and North America, governments have denounced the violence and called on Egypt’s armed forces to guarantee equal rights for all citizens, especially religious minorities. Church groups have collected funds to send to Egyptian parishes.

Worried Christians in Egypt say attacks on them have multiplied in recent years, starting even before former President Hosni Mubarak – seen as a defender of their rights – was swept from power in February by the Tahrir Square protests.

But they are wary about getting too much support from abroad, fearing a backlash from Muslims who could resent special attention to a minority at a time when all Egyptians are suffering economic hardship and political uncertainty.

“We’re not afraid of anybody. We don’t want help from anyone,” Rev. Antonius Michael declared as he handed out blessed bread after Mass in a Coptic Orthodox church in Old Cairo.

“It’s not to our benefit to have loud voices overseas talking about Christians,” said Ramez Atallah, general secretary of the Bible Society of Egypt.  “It’s a great benefit to us to have loud voices abroad talking about a more universal bill of rights for all Egyptians.”

Read the complete article here.

Even though listed officially as a “minor” Jewish holiday, Hanukkah has turned into the most celebrated Jewish holiday in the U.S. There’s nothing minor about Hanukkah anymore.

Rabbi Kerry M. Olitzky, executive director of the Jewish Outreach Institute in New York City, says the notion of calling Hanukkah “minor” really presents a misnomer and it is only a term used when discussing holidays that impart major restrictions on people’s behavior.

Major holidays include Passover, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, and require restrictions on eating and other behavior, giving them titles of major holidays. But just because Hanukkah offers a festival void of the restrictions, it doesn’t make it any less important, Olitzky says. “Outside of the technical framework of Jewish law, Hanukkah is a major Jewish holiday,” he says. “We have really done ourselves a disservice by using the term minor.”

(LIST: Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Hanukkah)

Hanukkah means rededication, and it and offers Jews a reminder of three distinct points regarding light, freedom and dedication. The lack of strict rules make the holiday easy — and fun — to celebrate, which may be why research now shows Hanukkah is more celebrated — whether through the lighting of candles, gift giving, attending a party or a full celebration of the festival in Jewish practice — than even Passover.

Read the complete article here.

Most of the points you make in your recent HuffPo piece, “8 Reasons My Interfaith Family Celebrates Hanukkah and Christmas,”make so little sense, from where I sit as a Jewish mother, that I feel compelled to respond. I am aware that by doing so I am wading into the roiling waters of touchy issues around intermarriage and the choices interfaith families make.

At this time of year, a blizzard of articles about the so-called December Dilemma swirls up like snowflakes rising from the floor of a snowglobe. Every year, I take calls from journalists looking to, perhaps, shake things up: to dramatize what they are sure must be a conflict between Christmas and Hanukkah, and between interfaith parents. And yet, having chosen to fully educate our children about both family religions, the dilemma essentially disappears and December becomes primarily a delight. We celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas, with all of the trimmings, and seek to help our children to understand the religious meanings of both holidays.

Our pathway is controversial: not every interfaith couple can or should choose both religions for their children. For many families, choosing one religion makes sense, and there is a vast literature out there to help these families negotiate the holiday season. But in our local community of more than 100 interfaith families, we believe that both Christian and Jewish stories and rituals can be inspirational, are essential to literacy in Western culture, and are part of the heritage of our children.

Read the complete article here.

CBS News Religion & Culture looks at the history of the interfaith movement and what interreligious cooperation looks like in Reading, Pennsylvania.

This link will take you to a very interesting 27 minute video clip.  Well worth watching!

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and high-profile conservative intellectual, announced yesterday that he is officially in the running for the Republican nomination for president. Along the way he’s been playing the politics of religion.

In the speeches and media appearances he did in preparation for his run, he has emphasized two things. The first is the importance of God and morality in the public square, referencing his own conversion to Catholicism to give him credibility. The second is to rail against the dangers of Islam in America.

This two-pronged approach underscores just how far we have come in America on issues of religious tolerance, and also how far we have to go.

Read the complete article here.

Sean Tallon was nearing the end of his probationary training as a New York City firefighter when the two hijacked planes hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Tallon, 26, ran up the North Tower to save others.

His family would never see him again.

“As my mom and dad said, `This isn’t it,’” said his older sister, Rosaleen. “God has promised us an eternal life. That gave us the only comfort that could help us at that time.”

Tallon and her parents, all faithful Catholics before 9/11, began going to Mass every day, sometimes more than once a day. They rebuilt a grotto at St. Barnabas Church in the Bronx to memorialize Sean. They composed a prayer in his honor.

“I don’t know how people could get through this without faith,” Tallon said.

Ruth Green also knows something about faith and 9/11.

Green said it would be easier to cope with faith, but her religious faith disappeared that awful September day along with her son, 29-year-old Josh Aron, a newly married equities trader for Cantor Fitzgerald.

“My faith is shaken? Earthquake is a better word,” said Green, who is Jewish. “In the end, I found myself saying, `What kind of God would allow this?’”

Read the complete article here.