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Social Justice, October 2024
Marium Mohiuddin
Where Social Justice Begins

by Marium Mohiuddin

“You have to come and help me right now!” he said. All I could think was “it’s 4 a.m., and there’s no way I can sneak out.” My parents would kill me. Despite being a senior in college...

Where Social Justice Begins
Social Justice, October 2024
Sparrow Etter Carlson
The Substance of Possibility

by Sparrow Etter Carlson

I write this now with my hand on my heart, and here it will remain. For what follows is about the precious people within our midst who are treated as ex-humans in our society and...

The Substance of Possibility
Social Justice, October 2024
Mohammed Jibriel
Living at the Crossroads: The Complex Realities ...

by Mohammed Jibriel

I recently learned about the concept of moral injury, which describes the profound psychological, behavioral, social, and spiritual distress that...

Living at the Crossroads: The Complex Realities of Queer Palestinians
Social Justice, October 2024
Zack Ritter
Moving Toward Collective Care, Healing, and ...

by Zack Ritter

“All 40,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza are terrorists,” she said as we were eating cookies, standing around the flickering flames at Shabbat services. I was...

Moving Toward Collective Care, Healing, and Action
Social Justice, Women , October 2024
Cassandra Lawrence & Wendy Goldberg
Uplifting Women’s Voices and Challenging Male ...

by Cassandra Lawrence & Wendy Goldberg

It is the first thread in our tapestry of connections. In August 2018, both of us—eager for a safe space to discuss how multifaith communities can cultivate...

Uplifting Women’s Voices and Challenging Male Misconduct

Peacebuilding

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Ruminations on Em-Powerment

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Ruminations on Em-Powerment

by Frederica Helmiere

After my second child was born, I found myself yearning for a hearty dose of vocational discernment. Perhaps it was the presence of this new little life in our home that compelled me to reassess my own life’s calling, or perhaps it was a general growing dissatisfaction with my work that I could no longer ignore.

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Beating a Message of Peace in Uganda

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Beating a Message of Peace in Uganda

by Vicki Garlock

In a country often known for unspeakable violence and political strife, Buyondo Micheal offers a beacon of hope to those desperately seeking peace. As founder of Faiths Together Uganda (FTU), Micheal uses dance, music, and art to unify and delight. Inspired by global interfaith initiatives, he provides the funding and the energy for events that cross religious, cultural, and tribal divides.

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An Instrument of Thy Peace

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An Instrument of Thy Peace

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

“I’m just an ordinary person,” says Patrick McCollum in all earnestness. But the 66-year-old former jewelry designer, leader in the Pagan community, interfaith minister, and now world peace-maker, has been at the epicenter of extraordinary events that continue to unfold as he is called to serve in the far-flung corners of the globe.

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A Bold Vision

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Until recently becoming the executive director of Religions for Peace-USA, Robert Montgomery directed the Faith and Culture Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Its mission is to build community and work to foster greater understanding and appreciation of Middle Tennessee’s diverse faith traditions and cultures. Its vision is to transform its local community into one where all people embrace humility, understanding, respect, empathy, and compassion.

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Local Communities Affirm Solidarity with Muslim Neighbors

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Last month, December 2015, in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California, with Donald Trump threatening to close American borders to Muslims, and increasing incidents of Islamophobic violence, the major media barely noticed one of the most important stories.

Do Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures?

In the song “Boy in the Bubble,” Paul Simon sings “these are the days of miracle and wonder.” And indeed they are, replete with powerful technology that effectively shrinks time and space, medical prowess that extends and improves lives and a staggering scientific understanding of our universe — from the minute to the magnificent.

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Women Powerfully, Silently Walk Together For Peace

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Voices fell quiet as hundreds of women of different faith traditions filed silently through the busy throngs at the Salt Palace Convention Center on the opening day of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. The gathering that happens every five years brings together thousands of religious and spiritual people from around the world.

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Religious Freedom Fights Poverty and Counters Extremism

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Brian Grim, president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation (RFBF), argues that freedom of belief is one of three factors significantly associated with global economic growth, according to a study by researchers at Georgetown University and Brigham Young University.

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What We Need to Know about Religious Freedom: An Overview

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Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice.

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How a Year with Trappist Monks Led Me to The Citizens’ Climate Lobby

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I’m a Mennonite Christian with strong Unitarian Universalist leanings. I was raised Presbyterian and discovered Mennonites in an unusual setting, preparing the way for my involvement in interfaith environmental advocacy.

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Exploring Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University

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The attacks on September 11, 2001. Religious conflict in Northern Ireland. Protests over cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

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KAICIID Launches Peace Mapping Program

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As world leaders prepared to adopt the “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” at the United Nations on September 25-27, the Vienna-based International Dialogue Centre, known as KAICIID, launched the “Peace Map” in New York City: At the heart of its first phase, the Peace Map offers an interactive database of over 400 organizations that work to promote interreligious dialogue around the world.

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Dealing with Terror & Global Warming

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The same week that Pope Francis and President of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping visited the U.S., Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the Bay Area.

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Countering Theologies of Fear

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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.

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Muslim-Christian Dialogue is for the Birds

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Muslim-Christian Dialogue is for the Birds

by Michael Reid Trice

Twenty fifteen is a year for remembering massacre. This past July marked the twentieth summer since the summary executions in the municipality and town of Srebrenica, where over 8,000 Bosnian Muslims…

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3rd Annual Community Iftar in Nashville Community

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Over 300 people from the Middle Tennessee community gathered at the Music City Center in Nashville, Tennessee as a part of the Our Muslim Neighbor initiative’s 3rd Annual Community Iftar, an evening meal that ends the daily fast during Ramadan.

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Charleston – Standing Together in Solidarity

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In the wake of the shooting at Charleston, South Carolina, a question resurfaces in my mind. It is the same question that unfortunately arises time and again, whether it is the shooting at a Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, the shooting at a synagogue in West Jerusalem, or the attack on a mosque in Kuwait City. If Mr. Dylann Roof were in surgery, and the only blood available to save his life came from Rev. Clementa Pinckney or another member of his church – the blood that Mr. Roof has shed with deliberate planning – would he accept the blood or choose instead to die on the altar of his hate.

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The Jewish Imperative for Peacemaking

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The Jewish Imperative for Peacemaking
The Rabbis of the Talmud observed that most legislation in the Torah is case law. If we find a lost object, we are to return it to its owner. If we own property, we must take precautions to ensure the safety of those who enter it. If we see our enemy’s animal struggling under its load, we are to help him. When Shabbat (Sabbath) or a holy day comes, we are to observe it.

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The Most Difficult “Religious Other”

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Confronting the religious ‘other’ has been a core theme of the modern interfaith movement. The ability to identify and approach the other and discover a friend has become a cottage industry, generating conferences, academic research, and workshop curricula, particularly since the ugly rise of Islamophobia following 9/11 and recurring anti-Semitism.

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Buddhist-Muslim Meeting Pushes for Peace

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As reported in The Jakarta Post, the Muslim and Buddhist leaders of Southeast Asia and South Asia released the Yogyakarta Statement to refute the “use of Islam and Buddha in the olitics of discrimination and violebnce.” As a result of the “Overcoming Extremism and Advancing Peace with Justice” meeting, which drew leaders from Buddhism and Islam to Indonesia, the Yogyakarta Statement was released Thursday, March 5.