The Big Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland: Faithfully Engaging the 99%

November 20, 2011
By

Laura Rose, Huffington Post, Nov.18, www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-laura-rose/interfaith-occupy-oakland_b_1101997.html?ref=religion

Fourteen members of the Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland locked arms in front of the tent and were arrested early Monday morning as the police raided the encampment. It is not surprising that our words and actions have been reduced to a few sound bites and fleeting images by the mainstream media, but there is a deeper, better story to be told.

Our Interfaith Tent is Big — spatially and spiritually. The tent has been a sacred space of solace at the encampment, but it has also provided a spiritual canopy for an interfaith coalition of Indigenous Elders, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and Jews in solidarity with the Occupy Movement, locally and globally.

One sure sign that people of faith are called to create a sacred space is that after the police raid on the Oakland encampment, the only tent standing was the Interfaith Tent. It stayed until noon, the hardest to tear down.

Read the complete article here.

Pakistani parliament criticizes murders of Hindus

November 20, 2011
By

Anto Akkara, ENInews, Nov.16, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5286

Pakistan’s parliament on 15 November condemned the killing of three Hindu brothers at a medical clinic in what observers said was an unusual show of support for religious minorities.

The National Assembly observed a minute’s silence in solidarity with the families of Ajeet Kumar, Naresh Kumar and Ashok Kumar, who were shot dead by unidentified gunmen on motorbikes in Shikarpur in Sindh province on 8 November.

“It is a positive development that all the political parties have condemned this shocking killing in one voice,” Michelle Chaudhry of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), told ENInews on 16 November. “The demand for a parliamentary inquiry into this massacre shows that atrocities on minorities have reached alarming levels,” said Chaudhry, spokesperson for the organization founded by Shahbaz Bhatti, the minister for religious minorities who was assassinated last March.

“Non-Muslims are citizens of Pakistan and any form of violence against them is absolutely not acceptable … We are Pakistanis; our religion is a personal matter,” said the APMA. Nearly 95 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people are Muslims while Christians, Hindus and other minorities account for five percent.

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Why the world needs faiths

November 20, 2011
By

Tony Blair, Washington Post, Nov.17, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/why-the-world-needs-faith/2011/11/17/gIQAf0d5UN_blog.html

There will be no peace in our world without an understanding of the place of religion within it. The past decade has seen many convenient myths which disguised the importance of religion, stripped away. Many thought: as society progressed, religion would decline. It hasn’t happened.

Then there are those that insisted that as the Arab Revolution knocked over long established regimes and created movements for democracy, so those societies’ religiosity would take second place to the new politics. It hasn’t happened. Religion is fundamental to those societies and if anything, in the foreseeable future, will become more so. And do we seriously think the issue of Jerusalem can be resolved without at least some discussion of its religious significance to all three Abrahamic faiths?

The virus of terror based on a perversion of the proper faith of Islam, shows no signs of abating. But it is not only the acts of terror that should alarm us. It is the extremism that promotes persecution of religious minorities too. The challenge is that much greater where human dignity is not respected and freedom of religion denied. This results in a general oppression of people of faith. It means we must support Muslims in Gujarat, India; non-Orthodox Christians in Moldova; Bahai’s in Iran; Ahmadis in Pakistan; all Christians in North Africa; Hindus in Sri Lanka; Shi’a in several Sunni majority countries, and other places.

The basic point is this: On every side, in every quarter, wherever we look and analyze, religion is a powerful, motivating, determining force shaping the world around us.

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Interreligious University

November 20, 2011
By

Tim Dalrymple, World Magazine, Nov.19, www.worldmag.com/articles/18836

The liberalization of American seminaries is an old story. The inauguration of “the world’s first interreligious university” is not.

The Claremont School of Theology is collaborating with the Academy for Jewish Religion in California and the Islamic Center of Southern California to produce Claremont Lincoln University, an ambitious endeavor to train religious leaders for a multi-religious world. The member institutions of the consortium will still ordain the pastors, priests, rabbis, and imams, but the university will offer a concentration on interreligious studies as well as master’s and doctoral degrees.

As Philip Clayton, provost of the new university, explained in a symposium on the future of seminaries, “We are in the midst of the biggest change in American religiosity since the founding of this country.” Interreligious tensions are many and strong. So we can remain “ensconced” in the old forms of academia and ecclesia, or we can become “change agents” to “educate the next-generation leaders for an emerging church.”

Read the complete article here.

Interfaith gathering for world peace at Assisi

November 1, 2011
By

Eric Lyman, ENInews, Oct.27, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=5244

In the Vatican’s most wide-scale effort yet to reach out to other faiths, Pope Benedict XVI today welcomed Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, African tribal faiths, and even atheists and agnostics to call for world peace.

Benedict presided over a meeting of more than 300 religious leaders in the Umbrian hilltop town of Assisi, the birthplace of Saint Francis, timed to commemorate the 25th anniversary of a one-day prayer for peace that took place at the same spot, called by Pope John Paul II amid the tensions of the cold war.

The meeting had more participants and was more inclusive than the earlier event; the participation of monks from mainland China and four non-believers was part of Benedict’s effort to reach out to atheists and agnostics. But it featured fewer recognizable faces than the 1986 gathering, during which the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa joined John Paul in prayer.

Read the complete article here.

Interfaith group seeks help from banks in housing crisis

November 1, 2011
By

Jeremy Borden, Washington Post, Oct.31, www.washingtonpost.com/local/interfaith-group-seeks-help-from-banks-in-housing-crisis/2011/10/30/gIQAhPAzZM_story.html

Members from more than 40 religious institutions across Northern Virginia are asking some of the country’s largest banks to commit to helping rebuild neighborhoods that have been devastated by housing foreclosures.

Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (VOICE) drew a crowd of about 900 congregants, political leaders and representatives of two major financial institutions — Bank of America and J.P. Morgan Chase — to Freedom High School in Woodbridge on Sunday to discuss the issue.

Leaders of the two-year-old interfaith group — representing every major religion — say they hope that pressure on banks from area congregations helps struggling homeowners and assists in rebuilding neighborhoods.

Venus Miller, a VOICE leader who attends Mount Olive Baptist Church in Woodbridge, said she hopes the banks agree to help because it is the right thing to do. “But wouldn’t that be great to put the fear of God in them?”

Read the complete article here.

Speed-faithing: speed-dating from a religious point of view

November 1, 2011
By

Manya A. Brachear, Chicago Tribune, Nov.1, www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-speed-faithing-20111101,0,5799441.story

For those who want to hook up with a Hindu, there is speed-dating at an Old Town neighborhood lounge on Wednesday.

But for those who want to meet a Muslim, Buddhist, Christian or Hindu and get to know a little about their faith, there will be a speed-faithing event Tuesday at Dominican University in River Forest.

Designed by students, the event which follows a public lecture by Interfaith Youth Core founder Eboo Patel, will rotate participants through five-minute conversations about their beliefs. Long enough to establish common ground, short enough to avoid offense, said Cassie Meyer, director of content for the Interfaith Youth Core who co-teaches a course on interfaith literacy with Patel.

“You’re not trying to say everything about your religion before you switch,” she said.

Nor should you, she said. Just like speed-dating, talking about religion can be scary.

“The stereotype of speed-dating is you have two minutes to judge someone,” she said. “There’s something to be said for speaking really quickly off the cuff about something. You’ll have a chance to be thoughtful, but you don’t have a chance to obsess about it.”

Instead of seeking particulars, participants will be urged to ask more general questions: Do you think interfaith cooperation is important? What compels you to serve others? How and when do you pray, reflect or meditate?

Read the complete article here.

Shining Light on the Festival of Lights

October 23, 2011
By

Padma Kuppa, Patheos, Oct.20, www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Shining-Light-on-the-Festival-of-Lights-Padma-Kuppa-10-21-2011.html

We all look the same in the dark. But it’s better to shine light on our nation of glorious differences.

My neighbor’s daughter always knows when Diwali is: it’s when my Christmas lights go up. Diwali is also known by other names, such as Deepavali, or in English, the Festival of Lights. It is a holy day for Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, with a different religious significance for each faith tradition. For ethnic Hindus, the various stories associated with it depend largely on their respective regional and cultural customs. It is celebrated across the land where it originated by almost everyone—similar to how Christmas is celebrated here in America.

Deepavali means a row of lights. Traditionally, deepa or diya, small clay lamps filled with oil, were lined up in rows in front of one’s home. Informational articles abound, such as this one from Hinduism Today. Many do not cover the myriad of stories and traditions surrounding Diwali—or only focus on one way of celebrating it, such as the understanding that the Hindu New Year is celebrated the day after Diwali, which is true only for a segment of the Hindu population. A popular story centers around the story of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu and successful hero of the epic the Ramayana, who is said to have returned from exile on this no-moon night. The light of the lamps illuminated the way for the virtuous hero to return home after he vanquished Ravana, the evil king who abducted Rama’s equally virtuous wife Sita. Rama is the Prince of Ayodhya and is perceived as the embodiment of all that is dharmic. Lighting the lamps is a metaphor for the victory of all that is good and just over all that is evil and unjust. Light is also knowledge, shining so that there is no room for the darkness of ignorance.

Read the complete article here.

Report exposes Iran’s media campaign to demonize Baha’is

October 23, 2011
By

Baha’i World News Service, Oct.21, news.bahai.org/story/861

In a wide-ranging media campaign that has gone largely unnoticed outside of Iran, hatred and discrimination are being systematically stirred up against the country’s 300,000-member Baha’i minority.

In a report released today, the Baha’i International Community documents and analyzes more than 400 press and media items over a 16-month period, that typify an insidious state-sponsored effort to demonize and vilify Baha’is, using false accusations, inflammatory terminology, and repugnant imagery.

Read the complete article here.

What place do people of faith have at Occupy Everywhere?

October 23, 2011
By

Jonathan Oskins, State of Formation, Oct.23, www.stateofformation.org/2011/10/what-place-do-people-of-faith-have-at-occupy-everywhere/

News agencies were already slow to cover the movement in New York, so it is no surprise that reporting on the involvement of religious people at Occupy Together took even longer. But the wait was worth it, with fellow State of Formation contributors having written on their personal participation: Mary Ann Kaiser wrote a great piece on her hands-on work as part of Occupy Austin and Anna DeWeese posted on her experience at Occupy Wall Street. Faith & Reason also has terrific summaries of the reasons why different faiths have become involved, including a great link to a HuffPost Religion post on an Occupy Wall Street Yom Kippur. Another HuffPost Religion post does a good job of highlighting the variety of religious groups at Occupy Wall Street, including Jumah at #OccupyDC, Occupy Torah, Occupy Judaism and Occupy Sukkot.

 

Read the complete article here.

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