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.
“For God’s Sake, What are We Going to Do About That?”
At the end of April, 2015, and carrying over into the first two weeks of May, 2015, the nations of the world gathered at the United Nations in New York to review the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which originated in 1970. The NPT calls for nations, not possessing nuclear weapons, to refrain from developing them. And it calls for nations with nuclear weapons to reduce the number of weapons.
The Shifting Sands of Religion in the United States
Last month Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life published “America’s Changing Religious Landscape,” based on 35,071 interviews done between June and September last year, and comparing the new data with a similar survey in 2007.
“Why Human Trafficking Matters to Me”
I have worked on initiatives in Rwanda after the 1994 Genocide, and have done humanitarian and mission work in different African countries engaged in war for eight years. More recently I was working in Nepal with children who had been orphaned by the civil war. The deep suffering of humanity in developing countries has always captured my heart and my attention, until now.
The Gita and Me
I first became aware of the Bhagavat Gita in the mid-1960s. I was a college student taking my first tentative steps onto my spiritual path, reading all I could about the Eastern traditions instead of my assigned textbooks. It was all second-hand at first. It seemed that every writer and scholar I admired – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Aldous Huxley, Joseph Campbell, Alan Watts, J.D. Salinger – wrote with great admiration of the Gita. Thoreau apparently read it every day of his famous retreat on Walden Pond: “In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita … in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seems puny and trivial.”
Sleeping with the Jaguar
Like a river with three tributaries this story has three beginnings. Clearly it began on January 12 this year when I read in TIO about the interfaith, interspiritual festival – Universal Multicultural Dialog0 II – to be held in Guadalajara on May 6-8. But what captured me was the back-story, linking me to deeper layers of my psyche.
Interreligious Perspectives at GTU
As the Graduate Theological Union moves to include representatives of more of the world’s great religious traditions, the framing of issues from an interreligious perspective is already common in the research and writing of students in the masters and doctorate degree programs. Students today, while fixed often in particular religious traditions, also desire to explore how some of the same theological, ethical, historical, and cultural issues are dealt with by other religious traditions and movements. Here are just a few examples of recent master’s level students who engaged in interreligious research and comparative analysis. Miriam Attia’s MA dissertation was entitled “Ethical Concerns in Jewish and Christian Theologies of Suffering” and tackled a subject that tests and challenges all theological and wisdom traditions with the question: “how does one explain the existence of evil in a world influenced or controlled by the Sacred (theodicy)?”
Masks and Sacred Powers
In August, 2014, the Graduate Theological Union was given 189 works of sacred art from all over the world by Lanier Graham and family and the Institute for Aesthetic Development. GTU will use these works for classroom teaching, research, and in exhibitions open to the public in order to maximize access to and utilization of these treasures collected by one family over three generations.
New Options for Interreligious Studies
The GTU is a great place to study different religious traditions. Resources abound for students interested in Christianity (Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox), Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism, and now Hinduism and Sikhism. But in today’s increasingly pluralistic world, many students come to the GTU not to study any single tradition but to explore the connections between two or more of them. Students may be interested in Muslim-Jewish relations, or Buddhist-Christian dialogue, or the history of interaction between Hinduism and Sikhism. Or they want to learn how different religious traditions address a critical contemporary issue such as climate change or religious violence.
Hindu Studies Comes to the GTU
In January, the GTU welcomed renowned professor Dr. Rita Sherma as Director of Hindu Studies, as part of the launch of its highly anticipated Hindu Studies Initiative. The GTU now offers a Master of Arts degree with a concentration in Hindu Studies as well as a Certificate in Hindu Studies. These new Hindu Studies programs can be taken independently or in combination with any degree program at the GTU. The application deadline for all MA programs has been extended to July 1, 2015.
Diálogo Multicultural Universal II
Diálogo Multicultural Universal II, a project of the Carpe Diem Interfaith Foundation of Guadalajara, has put Latin America on the international interfaith map as a major contributor to the interfaith culture emerging globally. Building on the initial Diálogo in 2012, more than 1,000 registrants from 50 countries gathered earlier this month for three days, attending 150 workshops, many of them drawing hundreds of participants. Workshops which attracted 20 or 30 could be equally powerful, was the word in the halls. The numbers swelled with those who registered just for a day or two of the three.
Earth - Faith - Peace: An Interreligious Youth Teach-in
Twenty young people of diverse faiths from across the world will converge at the Mariapolis Luminosa Conference Center in Hyde Park, New York on Thursday, July 23 to tackle climate change. Their desire to build a more peaceful planet through environmental activism unites youth who, on the surface, seem different: they are Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians from America, India, and Cuba. The group’s diversity underscores a growing consciousness of the widespread and devastating effects of climate change. Indeed, every living being on Earth has been or will soon be affected by this issue.
New CEO Selected by the Parliament of the World’s Religions
Daniel Hostetler began as the new executive director of the Parliament of the World’s Religions on April 20. Hostetler brings more than 30 years experience in corporate consultancy and non-profit management, most recently directing operations and finance with the Dupage-Aurora World Relief in Illinois, an international Christian nonprofit supporting refugees and immigration issues.
Pope Francis & Rabbi Skorka: Forging a Deeper Relationship
There may come a moment in long-standing interfaith friendships when individuals deeply devoted to their religious traditions notice how the differences that separate them from their dialogue partner begin to recede or even dissolve. While recognizing that philosophical and religious differences still exist, they begin to experience a form of familiarity and kinship that supersedes religion, dogma, tradition, and history.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
This is the third “Best of TIO” issue we’ve published since launching in September 2011, and it is a treasure. These are tumultuous times for religion and for humankind, keeping us bombarded with terrible stories, week after week. But the articles in this issue are proof positive that good things can happen in bad times, that heroic behavior is championing a more peaceful, equitable world, and that our capacity to network and collaborate for the good is growing everyday.
William Swing’s A Bishop’s Quest: Founding a United Religions
On the afternoon he received the life-changing call, William E. Swing had been the Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of California for 14 years. At 57, his life was richly framed by four vows, as a husband, a deacon, a priest, and a bishop. He left a vibrant pastoral ministry in Washington DC in moving to San Francisco as a bishop. From Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, he quickly became known as a pioneer in responding to HIV/AIDS and homelessness, and a major stakeholder in addressing the needs of the elderly, immigrant ministries, and drug and alcohol rehab programs. Some touted him as a future presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church. His new book, A Bishop’s Quest: Founding a United Religions (2015), tells the historic story of what he did instead.
Learning to Appreciate South Asian Religion
What the Middle East is to Abrahamic traditions (particularly Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), South Asia is to Dharmic traditions (particularly Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism). And while life is a messy mix of the good and the bad for all of us, historically the Dharmic religions have a much better record of interreligious tolerance and mutual respect and appreciation than do the Abrahamic traditions.
Crossroads – GTU’s Special Edition of The Interfaith Observer
We are pleased to share with you this first edition ofCrossroads, a collaborative project between the Graduate Theological Union and The Interfaith Observer (TIO), a monthly online journal that publishes stories, opinion, and resources focusing on interfaith work throughout the world.
At the Crossroads
With this issue, we welcome the Graduate Theological Union community to The Interfaith Observer. This edition brings together the richness of the GTU with its strong commitment to education in a diverse ecumenical and interfaith context that has developed over 50 years, with the electronic journal that has emerged more recently covering the many dimensions of the interfaith encounter. With more than 300 contributors to date, TIO offers thoughtful reflection, news of local, regional, and global interfaith events, and articles on the personalities, organizations, and key events that have made up the history the interfaith movement.