Posts Tagged ‘ Faith ’

A Buddhist Example of Interfaith Dialogue

September 19, 2011
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Paul Knitter, Huffington Post, Sep.15, www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-paul-f-knitter/a-buddhist-response-to-christian-fanaticism_b_964072.html

Earlier this year, my wife Cathy and I spent eight days being gently rushed around the South Korean peninsula as part of a project aimed at promoting a more fruitful dialogue between Buddhists and Christians.  So there I was, in the midst of this Christian violence, a septuagenarian Christian scholar from New York arrives in Korea to talk about the value and need of Buddhist-Christian dialogue and to speak about my recent book “Without Buddha I Could Not Be a Christian.” To talk about dialogue and academia in the midst of such conflict had the semblance of urging relaxation in the midst of an earthquake. Still quaking, the Chogye Order of Korean Seon (Zen) Buddhists held to their invitation and asked this foreign Christian to come and talk.

Read the complete article here.

After 9/11, four tasks for religion

September 12, 2011
By

Eric Yoffie, Washington Post, Sep.10, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/after-sept-11-four-tasks-for-religion/2011/09/10/gIQA9h4kHK_blog.html

Ten years ago this weekend, a terror attack changed the world and changed America forever. It left Americans frightened and dismayed, and filled American hearts with bewilderment and enduring rage.

We stand here today as representatives of America’s great religious traditions. What has been our role in healing our nation?

I suggest that we have had, and still have, four major tasks.

Our first task is to help America remember the victims and to offer their families comfort and healing.  Our second task is to educate about the meaning of 9/11.  Our third task is to resist with all of our might the view that the extremist fringe that carried out and supported this violent act is the voice of Islam in America or in the world.   And  our fourth and final task is to offer hope, and faith.

So I end with the hope – that is our common hope – that Muslims, Jews, and Christians will not permit fanaticism to grow or prejudice to harden; that as the sacred day of 9/11 approaches, we will honor the memory of those who died by teaching our children to honor life; and that here, in America, as seekers of God and children of Abraham, we will refuse to grant a victory to those who work to divide us; that here in America, we will reclaim our common heritage and find a common path.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie is president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

Read the complete article here.

What have we learned about religion post-9/11?

September 12, 2011
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Elizabeth Tenety, Washington Post, Sep.8, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/under-god/post/what-have-we-learned-about-religion-post-911/2011/09/08/gIQALgZPCK_blog.html

As the tenth anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks approached, On Faith reached out to some of the world’s most influential religious leaders and thinkers to ask about faith in a post-attack world.

On Faith asks:

What have we learned about religion in the past 10 years? What was the spiritual impact of 9/11?

Below are excerpts from our expert roundtable. Click through to read the individual essays.  (Other contributions can be accessed via the Washington Post article here)

‘Ground Zero Mosque’ moving forward

September 12, 2011
By

Heather M. Higgins, CNN, Sep.10, religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/10/ground-zero-mosque-moving-forward/

While all eyes are on lower Manhattan, nearly 200 people gathered more than 100 blocks north of Ground Zero on Friday night to honor 9/11 families and to recognize a decade of interfaith work at the Interchurch Center.

“Tonight we want to commemorate the event and we are going to honor 10 families who lost victims on 9/11. Five are Muslim, five are not Muslim, to show that we share the pain, we share the hope, we share the prayer,” said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf.

He hosted the event, In Good Faith: Stories of Hope and Resilience, along with the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and the Interchurch Center.

September 11 raised the profile of Islam in the U.S. and, according to Rauf, it caused the Western world to pay attention in a way that made Muslims the subject of intense suspicion. His goal is to build an American Muslim identity and enhance multi-faith dialogue.

The event highlighted bridge-building projects and began with a harmonic recitation from the Quran by Ali Karjoovary.

“We need a national healing around 9/11 and our hope is that we can achieve it,” Rauf said. “And no matter how you slice it, I believe this healing will require the help of religious voices and American Muslims.”

Read the complete article here.

Multi-faith 9/11 prayer vigil calls for tolerance

September 12, 2011
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Mary Grace Lucas, CNN, Sep.11, religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/11/multi-faith-911-prayer-vigil-calls-for-tolerance/

Hundreds gathered in Washington Sunday to share an interfaith moment together in remembrance of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The morning vigil service, planned over months by staff at the Washington National Cathedral, integrated chants, prayers, music and traditions from across the religious spectrum.

The event was one of several organized by the Washington National Cathedral over the weekend.

“We feel like our events say to the world that faith is an element [of commemorating 9/11],” said Steven Schwab, spokesman for Washington National Cathedral.

A reading during the service mentioned the biblical Tower of Babel and subsequent scattering of peoples and languages over the earth.

Other readings, prayers, and reflections contemplated love, conflict, grief, and the idea of finding a single truth in differing viewpoints.

“These attitudes and relationships have a crucial bearing on justice. Justice is not about following the law. It’s about how we treat each other,” said local Hindu leader Dr. D.C. Rao.

“Without understanding and respect, there can be no justice.”

Mercy and tolerance were two other key theme as leaders took the podium to share thoughts on living in a community of vastly different religious and non-religious perspectives.

“Faith is mercy. Mercy is love for humanity. A love for humanity is to believe that human life – all human life – is sacred,” said Imam Mohammed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society.

Read the complete article here.

Ten Years After 9/11: Has Religion Driven Us Apart or Drawn Us Together?

September 12, 2011
By

Paul Brandeis Rauschenbush, Huffington Post, Sep. 6, www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-raushenbush/911-religion_b_949688.html

Two religious responses from the days immediately following the attacks of 9/11 demonstrate how religion has been both a divisive and unifying force in America over the last ten years.

The first was from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell who assigned blame for the attacks to God who, they explained, was angry at America because of Gays, Feminists and the ACLU, among others. While fires still smoldered at Ground Zero, Falwell and company were ironically fanning the flames of discord and division by blaming God and liberals instead of religious extremism.

The second response was different. As soon as reports made clear that the terrorists claimed allegiance to the fundamentalist Islam of Osama bin Laden, many feared violence might be directed toward the American Muslim population. Yet in the days after 9/11, reports came from all across the country that Christians, Jews, and other people of faith had called local mosques to offer support and solidarity. Instead of turning against Muslims, the religious community rallied for their fellow Americans of a different faith tradition.

These two examples show the simultaneous yet divergent directions that religious practice and thought has taken in America in the last ten years. 9/11 made it clear that religion, which had been ignored in global political calculations and overlooked by the media for decades, was still a force, and perhaps the force in people’s personal and communal lives.

Read the complete article here.

After 9/11, some run toward faith, some run the other way

September 12, 2011
By

Lauren Markoe, Religious News Service, Sep.9, www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/after_911_some_run_toward_faith_some_run_the_other_way/

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.

WCC general secretary honours 9/11 victims and stresses a culture of peace

September 12, 2011
By

WCC news, Sep.7, www.oikoumene.org/en/resources/documents/general-secretary/statements/ten-years-after-911.html

Remembering the thousands of people killed in the coordinated assault on 11 September 2001 in the United States of America, and its unfortunate consequences in Afghanistan and Iraq, World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit sends out a message honouring the victims, and promoting a culture of peace.

“On behalf of the council, I assure all those who have been affected by violence and inhumanity – in the United States and throughout the world – of continuing prayer and solidarity on the part of the fellowship of churches we constitute,” says Tveit stressing that “Terrorism in all its forms – whether committed by individuals, groups or states – is to be condemned.”

In his message, Tveit reaffirms churches’ commitment towards dialogue among people of different faiths, promoting a culture of “just peace”, which is also a key topic for the upcoming WCC 10th Assembly in 2013.

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.

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.