Tag: politics
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
Call to Action for a New and Just World Order By Junaid S. Ahmad and Abdul Jabbar
Over the past few decades, “politics” became a dirty word globally, to be left for the corrupt and deceitful. A healthy tradition of interventions by various social and political actors to remedy ... 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
On Taking a Selfie with Pope Francis
Recently I attended an audience with Pope Francis with the International Council of Christians and Jews. It was my second audience, as I had also gained access to the Vatican’s elaborate reception r... Read More
Can We Get Real? Authentic Interfaith Truth-Telling & the Burning of Black Churches
“Why does it take a tragedy to bring us all together?” Rev. Terry McCray Hill of Bethel AME Church in Portland, Oregon asked this question the day after the Charleston massacre. We gathere... Read More
Choice and Safety: Required Ingredients for Interfaith Progress
Classic “contact theory” predicts that diverse societies automatically bring about tolerance. I argued against this idea here when I discussed how proximity generally exacerbates the anxiety of di... Read More
Romantic Distance vs. Vexing Proximity: the difficulty of real up-close interfaith encounters
My research on interreligious dialogue and engagement has reinforced an old cliché: absence makes the heart grow fonder. When two people are distant from each other, it is easy to idealize each other... Read More