Posts Tagged ‘ Interfaith ’

Unite against religious violence, says Interfaith Network

July 31, 2011
By

Ekklesia, Jul.27, www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15162

The Interfaith Network in the UK has urged religious groups to unite against violence and prejudice following the murder of 76 people in Norway last week. They condemned the killer’s claim to be motivated by Christianity and his promotion of hostility to Muslims.

The network, which seeks to promote dialogue and understanding between people of different faiths, pointed out that “the individual arrested in the wake of these terrorist acts has offered a rationale rooted in opposition to multiculturalism and to the presence of Islam in Europe. He has claimed a justification based, in part, on what he sees as Christian belief”.

They suggest that incidents such as this have a “direct relevance” to all working for good interfaith relations, because “where terrorists justify their actions with reference to positions which they call religious, this reflects ignorance and breeds suspicion and mistrust”.

The signatories to the network’s statement acknowledge that religious teachings can be used to justify brutal acts of violence. But they insist that such acts “have no place in any society”. They add, “in the United Kingdom, people of different faiths coexist as part of one society”.

The Interfaith Network links 200 member bodies including national representative bodies of the Baha’i, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths.

They concluded, “We are committed, as people of faith, to discerning our shared values and building on these – alongside all people of goodwill – to strengthen our society”.

Read the complete article here.

Religions as instruments of peace

July 15, 2011
By

Theodore Gill, Ekklesia, Jul.14, www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/15103

‘Religions as instruments of peace’ is the subtitle of a 2011 summer course on ‘Building an interfaith community’. Twenty-three students from more than a dozen nations have assembled at the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey, Switzerland for the course which runs from 4 to 29 July.

One of the early lecturers admitted that many observers today see religions not as instruments of peace but as reasons for conflict. “Our hands as religious leaders are not clean,” said Rabbi Richard Marker of the International Jewish Committee on Inter-religious Consultations.

The experience of too many nations and their governments, he added, “is that religion is a cause of divisiveness that works against shared values.”

Now in its fifth year, the institute’s summer course on interfaith relations brings together students of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions for a time of study, shared experience of one another’s sacred spaces and reflection on their own cultures, spiritualities and worldviews.

The student body is made up of nine men and fourteen women. Ten are Christian, seven are Muslim and six are Jewish.

Read the complete article here.

Interfaith aid for medics

July 6, 2011
By

Jessica Elgot, Jewish Chronicle, Jun.23, www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/50713/interfaith-aid-medics

Cambridge University is sponsoring a programme for Jewish, Christian and Muslim trainee doctors and nurses at five Israeli hospitals to teach them the Koran, the New Testament and the Torah.

The Cambridge Interfaith programme, part of the university’s divinity faculty, is supporting the new workshops, run by the Middle Eastern branch of the British-based Three Faiths Forum.

The workshops are designed to teach Israeli medical and nursing students about each other’s cultures and are a compulsory part of the medical training.

Read the complete article here.

Young British Muslims contribute more than you might think

July 6, 2011
By

Sughra Ahmed, Common Ground News Service, Jul.5, www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=30025&lan=en&sp=0

Many young British Muslims – who comprise over 50 per cent of the Muslim population in the UK – feel confronted by a world that objectifies and stereotypes them as anti-social or troublemakers who do not contribute to a productive society. In recent years, these youth have felt the need to rise up in response to these misjudgements and make their voices heard through engagement with others.

From grassroots to national and international initiatives building relationships between faith communities, young British Muslims have been hard at work, contrary to what many of us might think. In recent years they have become active members of multi-faith initiatives like the Interfaith Youth Core, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation’s Faiths Act Fellows, and the Christian Muslim Forum of which Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the patron.

Read the complete article here.

Churches across America read from the Qur’an

July 6, 2011
By

Tad Stahnke, Common Ground News Service, Jul.5, www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=30023&lan=en&sp=0&isNew=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Although negative stories of Islamophobia in the United States abound in news media, most Americans respect religious diversity. That’s why on Sunday, 26 June, thousands of people across America joined together at dozens of churches and other houses of worship across the country. Congregants united to do far more than read Christian scriptures; from Alabama to Alaska, from California to New York, worshippers also heard the words of Jewish and Muslim sacred texts as rabbis and imams joined pastors in leading an event called Faith Shared.

A joint project of Human Rights First and the Interfaith Alliance, Faith Shared brought Americans together to counter the anti-Muslim bigotry and negative stereotypes that have erupted throughout the country in the past few years and led to misconceptions, distrust and, in some cases, even violence.

Read the complete article here.

Japanese interfaith group opposes U.S. bases on Okinawa

June 30, 2011
By

Hisashi Yukimoto, ENInews, Jun.21, www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=4970


A new interfaith group in Japan has joined local opposition to the U.S. military presence on the southern island of Okinawa as the two countries announced on 21 June that they have postponed the 2014 deadline for relocating a U.S. Marine base there, due to the plan’s unpopularity.

“The lives of Okinawan people are still threatened [by the bases],” said the Tokyo-based group composed primarily of Buddhists and Christians. “We as religionists have the same resolution in caring for life and protecting peace,” the group said in a statement adopted at its launch on 17 June. “We will address the problem of U.S. military bases in Okinawa,” it said.

The interfaith group is led by Tainen Miyagi, a Buddhist Abbot of Seigoin temple in Kyoto; the Rev. Isamu Koshiishi, moderator of the National Christian Council in Japan and Bishop Daiji Tani, president of the Japan Catholic Council for Justice and Peace. The group’s name in Japanese is: “Religionists Group for Okinawa Without Bases – To Seek Removal of Futenma Base And Cancellation of the Construction of New Base in Henoko.”

Read the complete article here.

Learning From My Neighbors: A Sikh’s Interfaith Journey

June 14, 2011
By

Tarunjit Singh Butalia, Huffington Post, Jun.9, www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-tarunjit-singh-butalia/interfaith-journey-reflections_b_872653.html

While growing up as a kid in northern India in the early 1980s, I fondly remember one of my best friends in high school, Sher Ali Khan. He was a devout Muslim.

While in 9th grade, Sher Ali called me over to his home for the Islamic festival of Eid. The food at the table was overflowing and beautifully decorated. But a dilemma faced me soon. All the meat on the table was halal — a special religious technique of preparation of meat in the Islamic faith that I as a Sikh was forbidden to eat, due to the Sikh Rehat Maryada (Principles of Sikh Living). So I chose to stay a silent vegetarian that day partaking only of vegetables and sweets.

A couple of months later, he was over at our home for dinner and we had cooked meat without any religious preparation. Since the meat was not halal, Sher Ali became a vegetarian for that meal.

At that time I thought that our religions were getting in the way of our friendship. But as I reflect on it now, it seems that we were learning how to negotiate our religious differences.

In 1989, I came to the United States to pursue my Ph.D. degree. The first question I asked myself was, “Do I even want to continue being religious?” After significant introspection, the answer became clear: yes, I wanted to be religious. But this was followed by another question: “What religious tradition should I be a part of?”

I remember approaching a local member of the Catholic clergy asking for his advice on what religious path to consider pursuing. His response surprised me. He asked me to look deeply into the faith I had grown up in and asked me to come back to him after giving my faith one more chance.

As you may have guessed by now, I never went back to that priest. But I am indebted to him for his advice. Here was someone from another religious tradition that helped me to grow in my own religious tradition. His advice on spirituality transcended the boundaries of religion.

Today, as I reflect on my friendship with my Muslim high school friend and the Catholic spiritual adviser, it is clear to me that the many diverse religions of the world are complimentary to each other and not in competition with each other.

Read the complete article here.

An Effort to Foster Tolerance in Religion

June 14, 2011
By

Laurie Goodstein, New York Times, Jun.13, www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/us/14patel.html?ref=us

For a guy who is only 35 and lives in a walk-up apartment, Eboo Patel has already racked up some impressive accomplishments.

A Rhodes scholar with a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, he has four honorary degrees. His autobiography is required freshman reading on 11 college campuses. He runs a nonprofit organization — the Interfaith Youth Core — with 31 employees and a budget of $4 million. And he was tapped by the White House as a key architect of an initiative announced in April by President Obama.

Mr. Patel got there by identifying a sticky problem in American civic life and proposing a concrete solution. The problem? Increased religious diversity is causing increasing religious conflict. And too often, religious extremists are driving events.

He figured that if Muslim radicals and extremists of other religions were recruiting young people, then those who believe in religious tolerance should also enlist the youth.

Interfaith activism could be a cause on college campuses, he argued, as much “a norm” as the environmental or women’s rights movements, as ambitious as Teach for America. The crucial ingredient was to gather students of different religions together not just to talk, he said, but to work together to feed the hungry, tutor children or build housing.

“Interfaith cooperation should be more than five people in a book club,” Mr. Patel said.

Read the complete article here.

Why Interfaith Dialogue Doesn’t Work — And What We Can Do About It

May 30, 2011
By

Rabbi Eric H Yoffe, Huffington Post, May 29, www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-eric-h-yoffie/why-interfaith-dialogue-d_b_867221.html

I have been participating in interfaith dialogue as a rabbi and Jewish leader for more than 30 years, and most of the time it just doesn’t work.

Most of the time — and it is painful for me to admit this — it is terribly boring. Most of the time there is a tendency to manufacture consensus, whether it exists or not. Most of the time we go to great lengths to avoid conflict. Most of the time we cover the same ground that we covered last month or the month before. And far too often we finish our session without really knowing the people across the table and what makes them tick religiously.

And most of we time we are satisfied with mouthing a few noble, often-repeated sentiments. Thus, we affirm the importance of mutual understanding, tolerance and dialogue; we assert that all human beings are created in the image of God; we proclaim that despite our differences, all of our traditions preach love of humankind and service to humanity. Nothing is wrong with these sentiments, of course; in conceptual terms, I believe in them all. But if we don’t dig beneath the surface and focus on substance rather than rhetoric, they mean very little.

The result is that most of the time, interfaith discussions are simply excruciating, irrelevant to me and to the world around me. Why then have I been so involved for so many years?

The reason is that very occasionally, something extraordinary happens: One of these conversations changes me, binds me to my colleagues, advances my understanding of myself and others, and adds texture and depth to my own religious beliefs and convictions.

Read the complete article here.

Donation will allow Claremont School of Theology to train rabbis, imams

May 17, 2011
By

Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times, May 16, www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-theology-20110516,0,5163422.story

Leaders of the Claremont School of Theology will announce Monday the gift of $40 million from an Arizona couple to help expand the Christian divinity institution into a university that will include training for Jewish and Muslim clergy.

The donation from David Lincoln, a Claremont trustee, and his wife, Joan, is the largest ever to the 126-year-old theology school, which enrols about 240 students in master’s and doctorate programs in religion and counselling. The couple also gave $10 million to the school last year.

The contributions will help the school transform itself into an unusual multifaith institution, to be named the Claremont Lincoln University in the couple’s honor, with enrollment expected to grow to about 600 over the next decade, officials said. The new university will offer interfaith degree programs and serve as an umbrella for three units: the existing Claremont School of Theology, which will continue to train students from its United Methodist base and other Christian denominations, and new divisions that will train rabbis and imams.

Those new units will be affiliated, respectively, with the Academy for Jewish Religion, California, a non-denominational rabbinical school based in Westwood, and the Islamic Center of Southern California, a mosque in Koreatown.

“We believe the outcome of this kind of education will be tolerance and respect among religions,” David Lincoln said in a statement.

Read the complete article here.