interfaith

In the pristine white glare of the airport corridor, the linoleum became my prayer rug. But my solitude was short lived.

Forty-two percent of U.S. marriages are interfaith. Naomi Schaefer-Riley convinced me that this is one of the biggest stories in religious life.

Each autumn, Fourth Presbyterian Church's sanctuary is full to overflowing with Jewish worshipers attending High Holy Days observances.

A number of activist organizations are declaring March 15-17 "National Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath Weekend."

It's not clear if this is meant to replace The Brady Center's "God Not Guns Sabbath," which has been observed on the last weekend of September for a number of years. But the organizers seem eager to keep the event broadly ecumenical and interfaith.

John Lennon's peace anthem "Imagine" can also be seen as an antidiversity hymn. Brian McLaren imagines something different.

Ever since Westerners discovered Asian cultures they have been intrigued by possible relationships between Christianity and Buddhism.

"I hope the shootings in Oak Creek will lead to interfaith education around the state," says Scott Anderson, director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. "There is a hunger for this kind of engagement."

"More than ever, people are building interfaith marriages," says Joyce Shin of Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. "Too often, religion is seen as an impediment to this instead of as a resource."

In a place where the religious other quite recently meant the invading army that killed your father, Pontanima's work is remarkable.

When I first came to Harvard, the weekly
worship service was recognizably Protestant but flexible and welcoming. Over the years, our students have urged us toward
new ways of gathering.

Miro­slav Volf believes that Christians and Muslims
worship the same God. On November 3 he took that argument to
Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

How we relate to the "other," ethnically, nationally, religiously, is
the most important moral and theological issue of our time.

We should respect people with whom we disagree. Should we also respect their convictions, even when these comprise an overarching interpretation of life with which we fundamentally disagree?

One of the chief ramifications of the protests that overthrew Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was the way religious divisions were set aside in the process.

Americans have become accustomed to picking and choosing among religious traditions and practices. But some have taken religious pluralism in a deeper and more radical direction.

The deep attention and reverence that Thomas Merton and Abdul Aziz brought to each other's books, traditions and lives undergirded their friendship, and the frank way they explored their similarities and differences enlivened it.

In recent conversations with my seminary classmates, we've
been lamenting the state of Christian education. In many churches it is evident
that the average member hasn't grown in religious or biblical knowledge since he
or she heard moralistic tales of Noah, Esther or Daniel as a child. Some even resist
pastoral attempts to expand their Christian knowledge, and they simply refuse
to learn about other
religions. As seminarians, we are struggling with how to respond to this.

I travel to the Middle East at least once each year, often visiting
multiple countries. I belong to an evangelical-Muslim discussion group
which meets annually, and the participants include pious, brilliant,
generous Muslim scholars whom I count as my friends. When a topic like
"Islamophobic America" comes up, I share intense personal e-mails with
them. But I came away from my trip to the Middle East this past summer with some new concerns.