Christianity

How to do Interfaith

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If you are interested in interfaith work don’t miss this: “Three Clergymen, Three Faiths, One Friendship.” So many interfaith efforts involve avoiding each other’s hot buttons. This is how to do it:
The three say they became close not by avoiding or glossing over their conflicts, but by running straight at them. They put everything on the table: the verses they found offensive in one another’s holy books, anti-Semitism, violence in the name of religion, claims by each faith to have the exclusive hold on truth, and, of course, Israel. “One of the problems in the past with interfaith dialogue is we’ve been too unwilling to upset each other,” Rabbi Falcon told the crowd at the Second Presbyterian Church here.

Islam

Book and Video News: Dr. Sachedina on Human Rights; HRW's Video on the Goldstone Report

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Books? Videos? Whichever you like (most likely both), there are two new releases that are important for those who are interested in human rights–Abdulaziz Sachedina’s Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights, and a video on the Goldstone Report on Gaza by Human Rights Watch. For both, there will be presentations open to the public this week in Berkeley and Oakland.

Christianity

Launching my blog posts: A Sufi Look at Genesis, with a Tribute to King James

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When a couple gets married, they traditionally have a wedding. When a child is born, people usually throw some kind of celebration. When a ship sets out on its maiden voyage, it is customary to break a champagne bottle against its bow. A position as a blogger is, of course, nothing compared to those things. What are the opinions of one pundit, compared to a marriage, a new human life, or the ocean-crossing journeys of a ship?

Islam

Open religious discourse can prevent a future Fort Hood

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Washington, DC – In the immediate aftermath of the 5 November Fort Hood killings, some media commentators, alerted by gunman Major Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan’s Muslim name, immediately described the murders as a manifestation of his religious beliefs, reinforcing many Americans’ fears about Islam. In a moment like this one, the topic of religious freedom might be one we wish to avoid, but protecting it is essential to preventing another such tragedy. All Americans — both Muslims and non-Muslims — now have a role to play in ensuring that the country moves forward productively and peacefully. Soon after the attack, Muslim American individuals and organisations, such as Dr. Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), responded by unequivocally condemning the murders as reprehensible and outside the domain of Islam. According to CAIR, “No political or religious ideology could ever justify or excuse such wanton and indiscriminate violence.

Christianity

Karen Armstrong Wants YOU to Teach Compassion

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We may look different, sound different, follow differing doctrines and dogmas, or none at all, but compassion is at the core of the major faiths and ethic systems of our world. The Golden Rule, or some form of it, is found in every major religion and in almost all if not every country on our planet. Karen Armstrong is counting on this unifying ideology to bring together individuals and communities this Friday for the launch of the Charter for Compassion. Here’s a short video about her campaign:
[youtube: video=”DCG4qryy1Dg”]
Last year Armstrong was awarded the TED Prize, which is awarded to three individuals annually — each of whom is chosen for being “a leader in his/her chosen field of work, with an unconventional viewpoint and a vision to transform the world.” Karen Armstrong is considered an authority on comparative religion, focusing on the monotheistic religions, and considers herself a freelance monotheist.

Humanism

Religion, law, and the politics of human rights

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New at The Immanent Frame: Talal Asad and Abdullahi An-Na’im both stand at the forefront of the challenging and constructive exchange taking place today between European and Islamic traditions of political, legal, and religious thought. At a recent event organized by Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, the two scholars traded questions and criticisms concerning the concept of human rights. Moderated by José Casanova, the discussion addressed the intrinsic limitations and historical failures of the language of human rights, as well as its formidable capacity to challenge autocratic and state-centric distributions of power, creating openings for democratic contestation and political self-determination. A short excerpt of the exchange has been posted at The Immanent Frame and a complete transcript is available for download here (pdf). You can also watch video from this event at here & there.

Buddhism

Interfaith Youth Conference: What a Thrill!

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In one room, young Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, secular humanists, and others cluster in a circle to learn strategies for facilitating constructive interfaith discussions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Down the hall, more young people — bareheaded or wearing headscarves or kippot — crowd together to discuss multifaith intentional living communities, learn about the Baha’i faith, create videos about youth-led interfaith activism, and train to volunteer as advocates for undocumented immigrants. Talk about a rich space for conversation. All this happened during one morning of the Interfaith Youth Core’s 2009 conference, which took place October 25-27 at Northwestern University, just north of Chicago. The conference brought high school and college students engaged in interfaith work together with religious leaders, politicians, and authors interested in interreligious cooperation.

Culture

Zeitoun: You Will Really Love this Book

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Dave (peerless leader) Belden writes: And other Tikkun Daily bloggers, please post about your own recommendations now and then if you have them (tag them “recommended novels” so we can find them when story-hungry later). I’ve got my library card. I’m ready. And that’s an offer I can’t refuse. I’ve already blogged about Robert Wright’s challenging and rewarding “The Evolution of God”, which traces how the concept of the divine described in the Bible and Koran evolves in a manner that correlates strongly with the political situations that the writers were in at the time.

Gender and Sexuality

Gender as the Focal Point of Cross-Cultural Dialogue

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Louise Cankar, an assistant professor of sociology at Marquette University, recently published a book in which she argues that, while anti-Muslim suspicion existed prior to 9/11, 9/11 created an environment in which hostility toward Muslims could thrive and their political and social exclusion could be legitimated by both the government and nativist Americans. While Cankar’s discussion in her book, Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11, is, as a whole, thoroughly fascinating, if not depressing, her research regarding gendered dehumanization stands out as especially troubling – though also suggestive of where we may find solutions. Cankar’s dissection of the gendered patterns of dehumanization identify gender as a critical area for cross-cultural dialogue. She lays out three patterns in particular of gender dehumanization. Women In Hijab As Symbols of Anti-Americanism
As is perhaps inevitable, after 9/11 Muslim women who don hijab (the headscarf worn by some Muslim women) became central to the construction of Arabs and Muslims as the ominous “Other” – that is, as belonging to a culture in which women are oppressed and incapable of exercising choice, and men are violent and misogynist.

Humanism

When Must the Secular and Religious Work Together?

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There is huge scope for the secular and the religious to work together! We are currently missing far too many of those chances. Believers and nonbelievers tend to look down on and mistrust each other. The emphasis on belief, creed, and ideas — the ways we understand and describe our experience of the world — tends to overwhelm an emphasis on our actual shared experience, and on ways we could care about and for each other, and pursue shared goals. Look at how various atheists have been promoting Islamophobia.