“Say you wake up one morning and as you’re going through your Twitter feed you see something that really ticks you off because it degrades a certain group of people. You can Tweet all your friends about it, post something on Facebook, take a selfie of you burning the article. You can send a campus-wide Tweet and email about meeting in the dining hall at noon to discuss an action plan. You have one person contact the president, another person get in touch with the events office, another other clubs, the geeky guy in the corner (that would be me) making a flyer and deciding the best phrase to use in the Twitter hashtag, and by 6 p.m. you have an event planned to address the issue.
Saying Yes to a New Kind of Collaboration
We are living in a remarkable time for humanity. The old order is indeed crumbling around us. We are being faced daily with new and alarming consequences of our degradation of the Earth, a greed-based value system that undermines human dignity, and a culture of fear that fuels violence and hatred of the ‘other.’
Cultivating the Next Generation of Interfaith Leaders
More than 120 students from colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada braved wintry weather to participate in the sixth “Coming Together” conference (CT6), three days of interfaith dialogue and programming. CT6 was hosted last month at the University of Chicago by the Spiritual Life Office and Rockefeller Chapel.
Learning to Build Interfaith Community
Early last June, while most students were packing their books and looking forward to a summer respite from papers and tests, twenty-three women and men, affiliated with Boston Theological Institute’s network of seminaries, participated in an intensive two-week seminar focused on developing interfaith leadership and community-building skills.
Talking with Tomorrow’s Peacemakers
We live in a violent world filled with conflict, and we always have. But every member of every generation has a responsibility to our world, each in our own way, to lessen the unhappiness that reigns on this planet. Our generation, like the ones before it, will grow up and lead the world. It is essential that tomorrow’s leaders, trying to fix our world’s problems, are empathetic, understanding not only their own people’s suffering, but the suffering of those on the ‘other side’ as well.
Making Interfaith Cooperation a Social Norm
Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) seeks to make interfaith cooperation a social norm – a world where individuals have positive relationships across lines of faith and an appreciative understanding of the diverse traditions in our society. IFYC focuses our efforts on a mutually enriching higher education strategy working with colleges and universities. The goal is to transform their campus ecologies, making interfaith cooperation a priority and engaging students through a dynamic national Better Together campaign that trains a new generation of interfaith leaders.
Best Practices for Interreligious Ministry
In addition to adequate theological grounding on how to situate the religious other within the framework of one’s faith tradition, there are certain attitudes, virtues, and skills that would appear to be crucially needed in being able to creatively relate to, engage, and cooperate with religious others. In an excellent volume specifically addressing the subject, Catherine Cornille has laid out humility, commitment, interconnection, empathy, and hospitality as five such key elements to be nourished and cultivated in this regard.
Leaders for Tomorrow’s Interfaith Organizations
The more culturally diverse we become, the more adept we need to be in relating to people who hold profoundly different beliefs. What questions help you truly understand someone, especially someone with whom you have a fundamental disagreement? How do you engage people from different backgrounds when addressing community problems?