Tag: identity
“Right View” and Interfaith Dialogue
One “fold” on the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path toward enlightenment is Right View. “Right view” is the skill of dissolving interpretations in favor of drawing closer to the reality of the wor... 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
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
Arab Like Me: Rachel Dolezal and My Anxious Jewish Mask
Am I the Jewish Rachel Dolezal? I was sitting in my East Jerusalem apartment in a Moroccan djellaba, Abdel Halim Hafez warbling from the stereo, sipping mint tea and reading a New Yorker article about... Read More
“50 Years Since Nostra Aetate” with The International Council of Christians and Jews
“Jews are non-Christian in a way that other religions are not.” Meredeth Banki, speaker at the International Council of Christians and Jews, said this when speaking about her experience as part of... Read More