Interfaith

Hussein Rashid 4-25-2018

RELIGION IS AN EASY language for people to use to define conflict. The people most willing to speak about what religion demands are the ones least likely to be invested in the sacrifices religion requires. They want the power that they believe they can claim through religion.

Those same voices who engage in this idle worship now hold the reins of power in the U.S. government. And they seek to exterminate Muslims. There are concerns of a Muslim registry and internment camps. More extreme fears consider other types of camps, imagining a return of the Holocaust. These fears are not unfounded, nor are they out of character with what President Trump’s advisers and appointees have said.

Yet these parallels are so powerful that I think it may be difficult for them to be realized. What I think is more likely in the near term is a different historical parallel. At the waning of another empire, the Colosseum became a space where individuals were martyred for what they believed, for entertainment.

An individual loss may be horrible, but the individual’s community may still believe it is safe. But death can come by a thousand cuts. The lion that chooses one life at a time remains a ravenous beast—the whole community will be vilified and will eventually die, just not quickly. And that beast will need a new food source.

The mayor of New York announced a 35-percent increase in hate crimes in the city in the month following the election. During that time there were 43 hate crimes documented. In December, a Muslim Metropolitan Transportation Authority worker wearing her uniform and a hijab was pushed down a flight of stairs at Grand Central station, and a Muslim police officer was threatened, in front of her teenage son, with having her throat slit. In August, two Muslim leaders were shot to death after leaving prayers at their mosque. For years, the New York police department has spied on Muslims where we pray.

Kimberly Winston 4-11-2018

Image via Kimberly Winston / RNS

In an attempt to reframe the story of slavery and reclaim food traditions, she has dedicated a section of the garden to re-creating some of the farming techniques and foods that enslaved Africans brought to America.

Gina Ciliberto 3-28-2018

This Sunday, Catholic churches across Sydney, Australia will bear the usual signs of Easter: incense, fresh flowers, a lit Paschal candle — and a few rows of churchgoers wearing kufi and headscarves. Every year for the past 13 years, groups of Muslims have attended Easter Mass in the Sydney Archdiocese and Broken Bay Diocese.

Image via Hamberg Media School / RNS

The Academy Award nomination was a cause for celebration throughout the country. President Uhuru Kenyatta tweeted after the 90th Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on March 4: “You have won our hearts as a nation … Keep telling our stories through your camera and you will win next time.”

Bobby Ross Jr. 2-27-2018

Screenshot via McKinney schools video / RNS

Too often, Parker said, teachers have placed Christian crosses and Bible verses on school walls, prayed aloud in classrooms and said things like, “The answer to all your big questions is God.”

Bobby Ross Jr. 2-20-2018

Image via Bobby Ross Jr. / RNS

“Look, if you want to be a racist old grandpa, you can be a racist old grandpa,” Johnson said. “But you cannot serve in public office. It’s wrong. I mean, everyone has the right to free speech, but you don’t have the freedom of the consequences of your free speech, right?”

Image via Rebekah Fulton/Sojourners 

And this is the America I believe in. No matter how we differ in our beliefs or practices, this country is meant to be a place where all of us feel safe and have the opportunity to thrive. So — despite demeaning rhetoric, stigmatizing policies, and acts of hatred and violence — I have hope, because I choose to see the many ways that people of faith and goodwill are pushing back. I hope that you do, too.

the Web Editors 12-07-2017

U.S. President Donald Trump announces that the United States recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will move its embassy there, during an address from the White House in Washington, U.S., December 6, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

"We ask from you Mr. President to help us all walk towards more love and a definitive peace, which cannot be reached without Jerusalem being for all. Our solemn advice and plea is for the United States to continue recognizing the present international status of Jerusalem. Any sudden changes would cause irreparable harm.”

the Web Editors 12-06-2017

Pope Francis shakes hands with Palestinian Minister Of Religious Affairs Mahmoud Al-Habbash during a private meeting at the Vatican December 6, 2017. Osservatore Romano/Handout via REUTERS

In response to Trump's announcement, patriarchs and heads of all churches in Jerusalem urged Trump to reconsider his decision to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reiterating deep concerns of potentially escalating conflicts in a region sacred to Muslims, Jews, and Christians. 

Image via RNS/Michele Chabin

“The Muslims see us as Jews and the Jews see us as fanatics. They’re wary of us. It’s difficult."

Image via RNS/Yonat Shimron

In 2010, when he first gave the opening prayer, the U.S. religious scene was far from idyllic.

Image via RNS/Islamic Networks Group

At a time of growing assaults and intimidation of Muslim Americans, the Islamic Networks Group has partnered with 70 interfaith organizations to launch a “Know Your Neighbor” campaign. The effort is intended to encourage individuals and groups to encounter people of faith different from their own.

Bobby Ross Jr. 5-26-2017

Image via RNS/Reuters/Eduardo Munoz

“If I’ve got money, and it’s easy for me to get over and give them money, I do,” Thun said. “What the Lord taught me is, I have a responsibility to give. What they choose to do with the money is between them and the Lord, and he can work with them in regards to stewardship.”

Image via RNS/NJ Advance Media/Aristide Economopoulos

“Now think about it, especially right now, with apparent one-party rule in our government: Congress and the president could pass comprehensive immigration reform tomorrow if they wanted to,” Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark told an audience of journalists meeting in Brooklyn on May 17. “They could bring nearly 12 million people out of the shadows — if they wanted to."

Karyn Wiseman 5-08-2017

Image via Benoit Daoust/Shutterstock.com

Through the Sisters of Salaam Shalom, Jewish and Muslim women are coming together to discover their similarities and bond together as friends and fellow travelers in the world. They are finding common ground, language, or customs to be bridges to relationships. They are not allowing the world to separate them.

Image via RNS/Reuters/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany

The global growth of Islam, and in particular the rise of Islamic extremism, have forced recent popes to set out, with increasing urgency, a strategy for engaging the religion.

Image via RNS 

The sanctuary, designed by Newman Architects of New Haven, Conn., provides a space for sharing, a place for those from different faith traditions, values, and cultures to meet and engage in dialogue, and to nurture the Lynn University community.

Image via RNS/CCAR

Anti-Semitic incidents have been rising in the U.S. in the past few years, and many Jews and others fault the Trump administration for only belatedly calling out anti-Semitism, and for failing to explicitly denounce those who have heralded his election as a victory for white people.

And Jewish and Muslim groups have banded together in unprecedented ways, in recent months, as mosques and Jewish institutions have been targeted.

Kimberly Winston 3-03-2017

And that is the point of Believer — to use Aslan’s hip-deep immersion in some obscure corner of the faith world to show that people of different religious persuasions — even the ones generally considered marginal, dangerous, or just plain “out there” — have more in common than they know.

Kimberly Winston 2-23-2017

“Are we going to have to worry about ICE agents swooping down on our clients on distribution day?” he said. “What if my congregation chose to offer sanctuary to an immigrant facing deportation? Would we have to worry about immigration officers and sheriff’s deputies kicking down our front door?”

Bishop Mark Beckwith, who heads the Episcopal Diocese of Newark in New Jersey, says at least 10 of the 100 congregations in his diocese have parishioners who are affected by the new policies. He described a heightened sense of urgency as his diocese investigates what its collective response should be.

“What is so upsetting about this is we don’t know what a safe space is,” he said, citing uncertainty about whether the traditional status of churches as sanctuaries will be respected. “We need to move as fast as these executive orders are moving. That’s the challenge. We are grounded in our biblical faith and we need to respond.”