Tag: community
Our Humanity Compels Us Toward Others
I believe that in order to better relationships between peoples in today’s interdependent world, it is imperative that countries become more sensitive to the beliefs and histories of the different p... Read More
One of These Jews Is Not Like the Others: A Progressive Jew at an Orthodox Yom Kippur
It was raining at dusk. I decided not to ride my bike to the progressive Yom Kippur service on the Boston University campus. If I rode my bike, I would get too thirsty coming home and I wouldn’t ke... Read More
“Stand together yet not too near together”: How Interfaith Dialogue Teaches Participants to Value Diversity
“Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart... Read More
The Mechanics of Personal Transformation via Interfaith Dialogue
My research on interfaith dialogue is driven by questions about people’s individual capacities for transformation and cohabitation with other humans. In previous articles (here and here) I demonstra... Read More
Humanism, Race, and Why NonHumanists Should Care
I am a white, female, humanist writing today about what I have seen and heard about the racial climate in humanism (and its relatives: atheism, skepticism, freethought, etc.). “Racial climate” all... Read More
What’s “Religious” About Interreligious Dialogue?
Anyone who has embarked upon the study of religion immediately runs into a debate of the meaning of the very word religion. Definitions abound and debates rage about whether a general definition of re... Read More
The Difference Between Religious Diversity and Religious Pluralism
In a previous article I explored how “choice and safety” are the key ingredients in converting de facto religious diversity into religious pluralism, an environment more conducive to transformativ... Read More
What Exactly is “Mutual Recognition”?
The construct of “mutual recognition” is circulated frequently in the interfaith society: nearly every organization I approach as an ethnographic researcher names it as a primary goal. But... Read More