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social justice

Muchos Idiomas, Muchas Acciones / Many Languages, Many Actions

Muchos Idiomas, Muchas Acciones / Many Languages, Many Actions

by Vaus Bandhu

When I was 18, I began to get involved in interfaith collaboration to promote peacebuilding, and learned about the importance of creating a sustainable and lasting movement. Thanks to the support of…

URI in the World

URI in the World

by Azza Karam

URI envisions a world at peace, sustained by engaged and interconnected communities committed to respect for diversity, nonviolent resolution of conflict, and social, political, economic, and environmental justice.

Grow to Give: An Interfaith Food Equity Project

Grow to Give: An Interfaith Food Equity Project

by Heather Forest

Every year in my town of Huntington, Long Island, New York on Martin Luther King’s birthday, there is an interdenominational prayer service dedicated to a social justice theme.

Opening the Door to Collaboration

Opening the Door to Collaboration

by Paul Chaffee

The most important thing to know about Reimagining Interfaith (RI), the upcoming conference in Washington DC (July 28-August 1), is how collaborative it is.

Reimagining Interfaith Narratives

Reimagining Interfaith Narratives

by Aaron Stauffer

Good organizers consistently emphasize the importance of leaders “understanding” and “working” on their stories. When they are first getting to know a leader, they ask questions like: What keeps you up at night?

From the Shared Love of Justice and Humanity

From the Shared Love of Justice and Humanity

by Kathleen A. Green

Three years ago, I shared my idea for a doctorate of ministry dissertation – bringing humanists and religious adherents together in interfaith engagement – and received some blank stares, a few shaking heads, and even a couple of flat out discouraging declarations such as “What’s the point?

Trumpers: The Interfaith Movement’s Greatest Test

Trumpers: The Interfaith Movement’s Greatest Test

by Kevin Singer

In the 2018 Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country, a controversial guru from India and his followers attempt to build a utopian society in Wasco County, Oregon.

An Interfaith Vision for the Future of Faith

An Interfaith Vision for the Future of Faith

by Jennifer Bailey

Several times a month, I have a standing lunch date with three of my favorite people. We gather online over laptops and our meals in Boston, New York, and Nashville to form what we have come to call our “community of praxis.”

What's Love Got to Do With It?

What's Love Got to Do With It?

by John Hewko

We’ve all heard of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), launched to much fanfare in New York in September 2015. Yet less well known are the Bristol Faith Commitments, adopted just a few weeks earlier, when representatives from 24 different faith traditions launched 100 ten-year pledges as a response to the SDGs

Huston Smith – The Passing of a Giant in Our Midst

Huston Smith – The Passing of a Giant in Our Midst

by Paul Chaffee

If Swami Vivekananda’s clarion voice at the 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions introduced us to the challenge of living happily in an interfaith world, it was Huston Smith’s voice in The Religions of Man (1958) which taught us what that meant. 

Countering Theologies of Fear

Two years ago I sat in a room crowded with 300 angry people and 700 more outside shouting, and I nervously whispered, “I’ve never been in a room where I’ve felt so much white Christian rage.”eMy colleague, a pastor from Pulaski, Tennessee, nodded as I straightened up in my chair.

Revisioning Nepal as an Interfaith-Friendly Hindu State

With a current population of around 30 million, Nepal used to be the only constitutionally declared Hindu nation in the world. The now-defunct constitution of 1990, in effect until January 15, 2007, described the country as a “Hindu Kingdom,” whilst not establishing Hinduism as the state religion. Then came the Communist Party of Nepal and its secular “Republic.”

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.’

Mapping Social Services and Identifying Collaborators

How much do social outreach programs of religious congregations contribute to their communities? What is the overall contribution of congregational services and the quiet heroes who work for them?

Interfaith Collaboration – Walking the Talk

Principle 11 of the United Religions Initiative (URI) Charter says that “we seek and offer cooperation with other interfaith efforts.” The diverse community that met during URI’s formation in the late nineties envisioned that URI would be a different kind of organization in many respects.

This Unlimited Energy of Joy that Will Be Our Power

These lyrics from an old time romantic favorite, “You Mean the World to Me,” express the joy experienced in the interfaith movement. Starting as the movement did: acknowledging people from different religions with curiosity and respect, being fascinated by different practices and customs, meeting, speaking, listening, and learning together, the interfaith movement grew.

Strengthening Shakti through Ganesha Principles

Drawing Strength from the Goddess

Why Democracy Needs the Interfaith Movement

An Interview with Fr. John Pawlikowski

On Atheists and Theists Together at the Interfaith Table

As an interfaith activist, I’ve worked to bring an end to religious division. In recent years, this has increasingly meant speaking out against the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence sweeping America.

Shifting from ‘Millennium’ to ‘Sustainable’ Development Goals

Shifting from ‘Millennium’ to ‘Sustainable’ Development Goals

by Caroljean Willie

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were adopted by the United Nations Millennium summit in September, 2000. Government leaders from countries around the world agreed to set these goals…