Category: Congregation
On Irreconcilable Differences: My Interreligious Dialogue with Mormon Missionaries
Since I’m conducting field research on interfaith dialogue in Rome, I thought it would be an important part of my participant-observation to embark upon a dialogue. I met some Mormon sisters conduct... Read More
Pluralismo Vivo: The Interfaith Roads of Rome
It’s not easy to find clear examples of “interreligious violence” in Rome. The closest thing Rome suffers to religious violence are distant shrieks from ISIS across the Mediterranean Sea... Read More
What Can Interfaith Dialogue Really Do? Part 3 of 3
Read Part I here, and Part II here. When I ate lunch with the rabbi he inveighed against interfaith dialogue and its inability to reach or transform the minds of those who are closed to dialogue. He s... Read More
Justice and Love
“Few realities have determined the course of history more than the choices by which individuals, social groups, and nations have responded to aggression and hatred.”(John Rempel) “Lo... Read More
What Can Interfaith Dialogue Really Do? Part 2 of 3
Read Part I here. At lunch after Purim, I heard the rabbi criticize interfaith projects for being “just another religious group.” I reflected on the irony of a religious clergy person dismissing t... Read More
How Do We Tolerate the Intolerant?
What do tolerant people do with the intolerant? We tolerate them. We ignore them. We insult them. We try to change them: By explaining. By demonstrating. By oppressin... Read More
Ethics in the Shadow of Gethsemane
Every year at Harvard Divinity School, there is an annual competition for 2nd and 3rd year MDiv students called the Billings Preaching Competition. Being raised Catholic, preaching was never really a ... Read More
Religion Whiplash
Sometimes, I worry that going to seminary has killed the Christian in me. Take, for example, the experience of Holy Week. As a child, I remember most Easter weeks as a rush of excitement. After all, o... Read More