Faith: Interfaith
“It’s just amazing to see how it doesn’t matter what race you are, anything like that; it’s just everybody has the same needs, so we all pitched in and just started helping out,” says Jared Stockstill, administrator at Bethany Church in Baton Rouge. “So I just feel like it’s really gone a long ways toward bringing us together, the community back together, and everybody’s pitching in and helping.” More
To raise awareness of the global refugee crisis, the Olympic Committee is allowing displaced people to compete together under a single flag. The team includes refugees from Syria and Africa. More
“I’m very interested in seeing some basic values return to the country. I care very deeply about life, I care deeply about marriage, I care deeply about religious liberty, I care deeply about issues of fiscal solvency,” says Reverend Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego. “The national debt is a biblical-moral issue to me, thou shalt not steal from future generations.” More
Muslim leaders spoke out this week after the massacre in Orlando. “We condemn it in the strongest possible terms,” said Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims.” And Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America, observed that “whatever they say about the practice of homosexuality is irrelevant to the fact we are committed to respect the other.” More
“If ISIS is allowed to define the terms of this engagement then they’ve pretty much won the battle. We have to understand them and meet them where they’re coming from but not capitulate, not really surrender to the terror they’re trying to spread, because that’s the victory they are looking for,” says Rabbi Jack Moline, executive director of the Interfaith Alliance. More
“People are going back to the basic texts, and they’re stripping away centuries of culture and tradition and looking for what they see at the heart of the religion,” says American journalist Carla Power, author of If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran. More
This year’s conference focused on women in leadership, peace, and climate change. Imam Malik Mujahid elaborates on the issues the Parliament considered and the importance of supporting religious leaders “who believe in the humanity of the other.” More
“Jerusalem is a place historically if there is something different about us, let’s fight about it. That’s basically the vibe. And so we and the chorus are trying to create an alternate reality,” says conductor Micah Hendler. He founded the YMCA Jerusalem Youth Chorus, an ensemble of Israeli and Palestinian high school singers. More
How do interfaith couples decide which faith their children should adopt? “We both wanted to keep our own religions and our own identity for ourselves, so we knew from the beginning that we didn’t want our children to be just one of our faiths,” says Amy Schombs, who is Jewish and whose husband is a Christian. More
Sacred journeys, says author Bruce Feiler, are “this experience of trying to get closer to God. There is so much noise in our lives; sometimes in order to hear you have to step away from that ordinary life and open yourself to the extraordinary.” More