I first joined the interfaith movement as a precocious fifteen-year-old. With an English translation of the Qur’an in hand, I walked into a Christian Bible study at my high school and demanded that they help me get Muslims a space to pray during Ramadan. For me then, as it did throughout my time in college, interfaith activism meant something very clear: come together to build community, create safe space for meaningful dialogue, and act out the words of our scriptures to make change for the common good. Together, we squirmed at the thought of the emerging “slacktivist” movement, where activists use the internet as their main platform for their cause. The internet was just digital space, so how can it change anything?
Virtual Tools for Building Interfaith Communities
Happy Black History month! TIO’s theme this month is new models of interfaith community. So it seems appropriate to explore different social media platforms supporting interfaith engagement, particularly with the younger generation. These five resources are the tip of the iceberg in terms of new social media platforms. But they are the most popular, free, and accessible social media resources, providing good ways to start for anyone beginning to explore social media platforms.
Buddhist Translators without Borders
I’m sitting in a retreat bungalow in the Australian bush south of Brisbane, near Mudgeeraba, Queensland. I am translating an ancient Buddhist scripture with twenty other people, most of whom are in different countries.
Interfaith Radio Takes Advantage of the Web
Radio is one of the oldest hi-tech tools of our time and one of the most durable. Today, coupled with websites and browsers, radio offers a local/global platform to anyone interested in doing the hard work of generating compelling programming that people listen to.
Mobilizing TIO – Outreach & Social Networking
Over the past year more than 120 writers have made contributions to The Interfaith Observer. Their essays are being sent out to 2,200 subscribers each month in the flash of an eye – no paper, no ink or postage, no waiting, but silently delivered to electronic mailboxes around the globe. Want to make movies? Searching for Sugar Man, a deeply satisfying intercultural film playing in theaters today, was shot on an iPhone and edited on a laptop!
Creating 20,000 Interfaith Dialogues
Sociologist Robert Putnam’s latest book, American Grace (2010), should be required reading for all Americans in the interfaith movement. As an interfaith activist I resonated with his finding that breaking down fear and prejudice towards ‘the other’ is best facilitated by promoting personal connections and relations across faiths.
Religion, Politics, Freedom, Faith & Making Movies in America
College-educated American women asked me at the dinner table, “But why would you want to do a film about Muslims?” “You know they’re out to get us.”
Interfaith in Cyberspace
It all began for me in the early 1990s with a simple posting on an e-mail group list – a list of holy days during the coming month observed by different religious groups from Adventists to Zoroastrians. That monthly listing brought together two great interests of mine, interreligious dialogue and the emerging power of electronic communication.
A Holy Month in Maine
The shadow-side of media is steady fare these days. Take YouTube, for instance. Provide a gigantic platform for anyone with a computer and a videocamera and the disastrous possibilities emerge. Last month, YouTube posted a 14-minute clip from Innocence of Muslims, a “preposterously amateurish, nearly unwatchable hack-job of a film responsible for sparking a firestorm of violence and anti-U.S. protests in the Middle East,” according to Discovery News.
The Internet – A Spiritual Haven for Youth?
Nearly 20,000 spiritually minded readers this year engaged with youth-created content at KidSpirit, an ad-free online magazine and community for youth exploring life’s big questions. These readers come from India and Indonesia and Illinois and many places in between. Most read KidSpirit in English, though a few intrepid souls read it in Chinese, Filipino or Italian.
Seminarians Go Online to “Make Interfaith”
In Rabbinic Judaism, Torah is considered as much a process as a sacred text. By studying, analyzing, and debating the significance of its contents, rabbis and their disciples are said to make Torah.
“She Answers Abraham” Celebrates First Anniversary
Parliament of the World’s Religions Webinars
At a time when interfaith educational resources are popping up all over the place, the free webinars from the Parliament of the World’s Religions represent one of the best values available. Leading figures in the interfaith movement are webcast; those watching live get to interact in real time, ask questions and make comments. If you happen to miss one, they are all on downloadable. Watch them whenever you wish. (Subscribe the Parliament’s blog to receive postings of future webinars.)
Exploring Religious Identity in Omaha and Beyond
“Wait, you’re a Muslim? But you’re not even brown!”
Emina was setting up a video blog for her interfaith youth service project two years ago. Instead of a tart response to her fellow-student, Emina videotaped her answer, using the opportunity to explain the diversity within Islam and her own identity as a Muslim.
New “Interfaith Infrastructure” Website Documents U.S. Interfaith Movement
Cambridge, MA – Harvard University’s Pluralism Project last month launched America’s Interfaith Infrastructure: An Emerging Landscape, a website documenting and resourcing the interfaith movement in the United States. Dr. Diana Eck, a professor at Harvard University and director of the Pluralism Project explains, “While interfaith organizations play a vital role in cities and towns across America, their critical contributions to our multireligious society are often overlooked.”
New Harvard Journal Focuses on Comparative Theology
In 2009 three Harvard Divinity School graduate students decided to create a new journal. Their goal? To provide a setting where they and their colleagues could publish peer-reviewed academic papers about “comparative theology.” They did not expect many readers beyond Harvard Yard.
Launching On Common Ground 2.0
Dr. Diana Eck and the Pluralism Project are updating their award-winning resource to explore the religious diversity of the United States. The first edition of On Common Ground: World Religions in America was released as a CD-ROM in 1996, providing teachers, students, and scholars with an innovative interactive resource in three parts: “America’s Many Religions,” “A New Religious Landscape,” and “Encountering Religious Diversity.”
Interfaith 101 for Us All
Ten Excellent Internet Sources for Interfaith News & Commentary
Information overload is a problem for interfaith-interested readers. Discovering useful, trustworthy news about religion is complicated. For more than a decade, major media’s interest in religion has been steadily growing. Newspapers may be in decline, but not religion reporting or multifaith stories. A big slice of religion stories today involve more than one tradition, and often Christianity, which once owned most of the American religion page, is not one of them. Most of us have a confusing view of a huge arena.