Islam

A New Generation of Political Terrorists

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How long will we continue to condemn and apologize for the actions of the deranged, as if one, ten or even a couple of million can represent 1.6 billion Muslims? When a white shooter kills elementary school kids, or a pastor burns the Quran, Christians everywhere don’t scramble to apologize publicly for the actions of individuals or fringe group. This discussion isn’t new, and yet the world in general doesn’t seem to have learned that divide and conquer has always been the best military/political strategy of all time. And so with the blame game, the terrorists win again.

Healing Israel/Palestine

Confronting ‘the Other’ in Your Own Community

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Between every two people in the world is a unified field. The role of the interfaith activist has been to explore and cultivate that field and, in the process, to appreciate and emphasize the commonality – but not ignore the differences – of our faiths and beliefs. Locating a field of shared love and concern is the key to both interfaith and intrafaith harmony.

Christianity

Weekly Sermon: The Word Is Very Near

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Riverside, our crises have arrived. There is the seemingly external crisis of climate change, which many deny; and the crisis internal to the church, namely, to hear together one word why Riverside must exist for a whole world; one word, deeper than all our differences. This word is very near. How will you hear it?

Healing Israel/Palestine

The Problem with Partition: Human Rights Provide an Alternative for Israelis and Palestinians

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A human rights based approach could assist both Israel and the Palestinians. This is because human rights contain reciprocal responsibilities against irredentism, as well as requires a commitment to state unity. Also, human rights do not exclude a partition of Israel. In fact, they can help to facilitate this but in a manner that comports with other important rights, such as the rule of non-discrimination. Human rights merely require that human groups treat each other with what legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin termed “equal concern and respect.”

Islam

America's Chosen Muslims

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While the voices of moderate Islam are many, they are not a cohesive or collective voice because Muslims apart from the Ahmadiyya Community are not unified under a single leadership. They disagree among themselves regarding religion, tradition and practices, and those disagreements become obvious to others. Without unity in the Muslim “Ummah” or community, radicalization and extremism is common because youth fall through the cracks. Each Imam guides his own flock without any idea of what’s going on in the mosque next door. Perhaps that’s the way of most religious groups. The Ahmadiyya Community on the other hand, has the organizational skills and unified approach to get things done on a local and national level, thereby gaining the attention of policy makers and media alike. They have a single message and a common goal: to bring about the rise of moderate, peaceful Islam.

Christianity

Drinking from the Justice Well

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I’m delighted that people are eager to hold Jesus and justice together with their whole lives-especially white evangelicals, to whom this is news. But I’m sure that we who have neglected justice for so long cannot learn to practice it well without listening closely to our sisters and brothers who’ve known Jesus while suffering injustice.
We cannot have a justice movement in 21st century America without learning from the black-led freedom struggles of the 19th and 20th centuries in this country.
This is why School for Conversion has decided to make 21st Century Freedom Rides a central piece of our public education program moving forward. And it’s why I’m devoting two weeks this summer to teaching a seminar on the East and West coast for people who are eager to drink from the wells of wisdom that America’s black-led freedom movement offers.

Healing Israel/Palestine

A Pilgimage to the Holy Land

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These were the people, Israeli and Palestinian both, who gave us hope. It would seem that active engagement leaves little time for despair. In contrast, we seem stuck in our comfortable lives, and reluctant to step out of our comfort zone. Maybe it’s because our own country seems vast and open still, and we don’t know yet that we belong to the same human family as everyone else. Or is it that our mind-boggling weapons of mass destruction bolster our delusional sense of exceptionalism? But Israel and Palestine are small and on top of each other, and the madness of it all can be seen at a glance: The aerial view of the territory, all cut up into twisted enclaves, looks like it has been designed by the remote judges of Kafka’s The Trial.

Culture

Does Freedom of Speech Allow Stereotyping?

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The precious freedom of speech we all hold dear should never be limited, but stereotyping isn’t free speech. It’s a harmful, dangerous yet insidious way to hold down a group and deny them equality. Let’s not go down that road… again.

Politics & Society

Bangladesh and our Antalgic Lean

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In practical terms, the average Tikkun reader may not be ready to become a Gandhi or a King or to move to Bangladesh and become a labor activist. I know I’m not. Nonetheless, I believe that we have a religious obligation do something to resist the antalgic lean and move toward tikkun olam. It’s ultimately not about achieving perfection today or tomorrow or even in this lifetime, but about the direction we are moving. It’s about coming to know ourselves, not as individuals maximizing self-interest, but as part of the body of the world. This is the essence of the Sh’ma – one God, one world: a oneness undergirds reality and all separation is ultimately illusion.