What is religious pluralism to the Survivor? To the one who’s lost faith in themselves? Lost faith in other people? Lost faith in humanity? To the one who’s lost faith in their ability to connect because…
I’ll be honest. I haven’t felt at home in the field of interfaith work for quite a while. During one of the last interfaith conferences I spoke at, I was asked by an older white gentleman why I was there, then insisting…
n the spring of 2020, I was working with my higher education colleagues to prepare for an interfaith retreat set on Catalina Island, off the coast of southern California. We had planned numerous…
October 2023, Emerging Interfaith Culture, Interfaith Relationships
I’ve written about “casserole” hospitality, an ethic of care demonstrated in America’s Heartland found in communities of various traditions who welcome…
When we talk about compassion, which by definition is found in aspiring to alleviate another’s suffering, it is far too often viewed as a path that only implores people to be kind. Some societies are…
A recent New York Times story on the tension caused when Orthodox Jewish men request same-sex seating on airlines for religious reasons generated over 3,000 reader responses. The scenario as described in the story generally unfolds something like this: the individual reaches his assigned seat and finds that the seat next to him is occupied by a woman. He shifts uncomfortably in the aisle until the flight attendant or an alert passenger recognizes what’s going on and asks the woman to switch seats with a male so the Orthodox Jew may have his religious views accommodated. Often the woman is offended; sometimes she refuses to move. This has made for many challenging situations and some flight delays.
As an undergraduate in the early 1990s, the heyday of identity politics, I was a full-throated participant in the protests for cultural centers and academic study programs that focused on racial and ethnic minorities.