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.
TIO Welcomes GTU as a New Partner
Empowering Grassroots Interfaith in India
Recent major media stories about religion in India have focused mostly on tensions between Hindus and both Christians and Muslims over issues of conversion and diet. Flying under the media horizon are 180 United Religion Initiative (URI) Cooperation Circles in India, referred to as CCs, self-governing groups which support URI’s commitment to daily interfaith cooperation, ending religiously motivated violence, and promoting peace, justice, and healing. CCs in India have four coordinators working in the nation’s north, south, east and western regions. They are particularly active in youth projects, women in interfaith, cross-cultural dialogue, and environmental issues.
U.S. Senior Religious Leaders Convene on Race and Violence
The moments are few and far between when senior-level religious leaders of most religious communities get the chance to spend a whole day with grassroots community organizers working to end structural racism and religious prejudice.
Two People, One Computer: A Manual for Jewish-Christian Dialogue
From the very first, I knew Francisco Canzani and Rabbi Silvina Chemen embodied genuine kindness. After two years writing at the same computer, the English translation of A Dialogue of Life: Towards the Encounter of Jews and Christians (Esp. Un diálogo para la vida: hacia el encuentro entre judíos y cristianos: a dos voces y al unísono) has been released. I interviewed the pair this week while they were in New York to hold discussions and workshops around the theme of meaningful dialogue.
Living the Gandhi Dream in Ahmedabad
The Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, in the west Indian state of Gujarat, was a bold experiment initiated by Mahatma Gandhi to find a way to make the spiritual practical. How does one take spiritual principles, apply them genuinely to everyday life, and then convey those principles to the neediest of children, so that the next generation might grow up with an innate sense of what it means to “love all and serve all.”
Buddhist-Muslim Meeting Pushes for Peace
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.
“Heartbeat” Brings Israeli-Palestinian Music to Tennessee
What is truly amazing about Heartbeat is not their music. It is the way they make their music. A group of ten 14-22 year olds, all of them but one an Israeli citizen, often proclaim that their music is simply a medium for a deeper message. Clearly inspired by a desire to love across boundaries of race, religion and ethnicity, the members proudly observe that what they are doing is anathema in many of their home communities. They are embracing the other in a way that is both constructive and creative.
Visiting India, the Motherland
I first became intoxicated by India as a college student in the 1960s, through the movies of Satyajit Ray, the music of Ravi Shankar and, most of all, the revelations of the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. My first exposure to those sacred texts came second-hand, through the work of interpreters like Alan Watts and Aldous Huxley and the fiction of Herman Hesse, Somerset Maugham, and J.D. Salinger. The Beatles put me over the top when they took up Transcendental Meditation and made their landmark pilgrimage to Rishikesh. The total effect of those cross-cultural hinges was to turn this existentialist/atheist/social activist into a dedicated spiritual seeker. I’ve been immersed in yogic practices and Hindu texts ever since.
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.”