General News

Day of Action to Close Guantanamo

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Today, April 11, is the National Day of Action to support the Guantanamo hunger strikers and to call for Guantanamo to be closed. This effort is sponsored by Witness Against Torture and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture. Find an action near you and/or call President Obama urging him to fulfill his promise to close Guantanamo. There are phone numbers below, along with a script for callers to use. Support the hunger strikers and end indefinite imprisonment without trial.

Christianity

What Pope Francis Might Mean for Christian-Muslim Relations

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The truth is that the last couple of months were full of anticipation not just for Catholics but many Muslims as well, especially those in the political and interfaith arenas. From Pakistan to Turkey and across the United States, Muslims in all walks of life had been talking, writing and tweeting as they waited of news about the change of leadership at the Vatican. It’s no secret that Benedict’s resignation was viewed by the Muslim world as a sign of positive change, due to his often antagonistic attitude towards the world’s second largest religion.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Petition for Int'l. Solution to African Refugee Crisis

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We call on the nations of the world to accept their responsibility to share the burden of resolving the African refugee crisis. We hope Israel will play an appropriate role in such an effort alongside other nations that are committed to doing their fair share. With the approach of the 75th anniversary of the original Evian conference, in July 2013, we urge men and women of good will to come together in a partnership of humanity to face this crisis.

Interfaith

Religious Clergy Represent All of Us: A Reponse to the Allegations against Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

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Yesterday’s report from the New York Daily News of former Ground Zero Mosque advocate Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf allegedly stealing funds has left me – and countless other Muslims – reeling with shock. A person viewed by many as the moderate face of Islam in America, so different from the radical Muslim clergy of the Middle East and South East Asia, the Imam was the last person I would have expected to be… like everyone else.

art

Sadaf Syed: Breaking Stereotypes One Photo at a Time

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As a photojournalist, Syed wants to show society how “covered” women can relate to more secular American women. Syed wanted to expose readers to these powerful women’s personal lives. “I want them to see themselves,” says Syed.

Earth-based Religions

Did the Flood Actually Happen?

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When it comes to the Bible, most spiritual progressives are not literalists – particularly when it comes to the seemingly nursery rhyme stories of Bereishit, the Book of Genesis. If we place any credence at all in the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Babel and the Flood, it is likely through the Joseph Campbell-inspired lens of a mythologized history that reflects our inner genealogy as much as it does external or historical fact. But what if the story of Noah and the Flood, as caricaturized and smoothed over as it may be (the ants come marching two by two…), were a preserved fragment of real historical experience?

art

Writing for Change in San Francisco

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At first, I was worried that a one-day conference wouldn’t be worth $99 or, at the last minute, $149, but the moment I was welcomed into the Unitarian church on Franklin, I received a nice string backpack containing three new books, all useful, and two, especially valuable. Already I had recouped $60! And there was much more. This is a conference I believe many Tikkun readers would appreciate. Hawken and the Seattle Protests: Writing That Changes the World
The best moment – Paul Hawken’s speech – came first.

Inter-Culturalism

The Interfaith Triangle

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One of my greatest joys in working with Eboo Patel is watching him think. He is the sharpest wit in most of the rooms he enters, and if you manage to catch him with a surprising or unusual question after a public talk or small-group gathering, you can see his mind whirring as he finds not only a meaningful answer, but also a more compelling framework for your question. In Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, Eboo gives us all the gift of seeing him think. It seems apparent that he is in the process of reframing not merely a question, but the premises of the entire interfaith movement, of which he has long been a key part. The core of his new thinking comes out in his chapter, “The Science of Interfaith Cooperation.”

Christianity

Weathering Storms and Yearning For Deserts: How to Prepare for Hurricane America

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Why am I bringing up a bunch of monastics from the third century A.D.? Because I see so many parallels and dangers inside our own form of empire and so many elements of faith corrupted by the need for polarized absolutes which allow no room for questions and definitely no space for grace. I find myself, for the first time in my life, having a particularly personal empathy for the plight of the desert monks and nuns. I can understand wanting to leave the center of civilization to keep one’s connection to faith, soul, and God.