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Ruth Broyde Sharone

Bill and Jean Lesher's Lifetime Interfaith Partnership

Bill and Jean Lesher's Lifetime Interfaith Partnership

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

In the past 30 years of grassroots labor, I’ve occasionally encountered couples as devoted to interfaith activism as they are to one another. Such is the case of Jean and William Lesher, two people who live, breathe, and exemplify what it means to be in partnership and to share a lifelong commitment to the interfaith movement.

Interfaith Activism – A Giant Awakening

Interfaith Activism – A Giant Awakening

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

We are witnessing an awakening in the interfaith movement across the United States unlike anything we have seen since Civil Rights marches 50 years ago. This awakening seems to have surfaced as a direct result of the presidential election and in response to new policies and measures initiated by President Trump in his first 30 days in office.

If There is No Bread, There is No Torah

If There is No Bread, There is No Torah

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

In the adage “If there is no bread, there is no Torah,” Judaism recognizes that one needs to feed the body before you can feed the soul, because deep learning cannot occur on an empty stomach. The Jewish tradition also recognizes the power of food to enhance the body’s availability to be spiritually nourished.

A Muslim Reminds Americans of their Birthright

A Muslim Reminds Americans of their Birthright

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

Who could have predicted that a Muslim immigrant, Khizr Kahn, known by family and friends as a gentle, soft-spoken man, would make history on the fourth and final night of the 2016 Democratic National Convention or that he would become one of the most sought-after speakers in the country – especially on the Interfaith circuit? 

Joseph Prabhu's Anatomy of Wisdom

Joseph Prabhu's Anatomy of Wisdom

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

“Wisdom includes action as well as knowledge,” maintains Joseph Prabhu, a professor of philosophy and religion for four decades, a passionate interfaith activist, and Mother Teresa’s first altar boy in India. “Action brings insight into dynamic motion,” Prabhu explains, “and insight without thoughtful action, to my mind, is seriously incomplete.”

Dr. Mehnaz Afridi: Defying All Stereotypes

Dr. Mehnaz Afridi: Defying All Stereotypes

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

In an age when Muslim-Jewish tensions are unusually high, when prominent Muslim leaders publicly deny that the Holocaust happened, and when UNESCO recently voted to declare that the Temple Mount in Jerusalem is historically sacred only to Muslims, not Jews or Christians – it’s hard to imagine that a Muslim would have been selected to head a Holocaust center.

Obama's Final Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge

Obama's Final Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

Eboo Patel’s question rang out in Elstad Auditorium on the final day of the Sixth Annual President’s Interfaith Community Service Campus Challenge, held this year in September at Gallaudet University in Washington DC. Founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, and one of the principal architects of the Campus Challenge, Patel posed that key question to some 600 participants: students, professors, university presidents and interfaith activists

An Instrument of Thy Peace

An Instrument of Thy Peace

by Ruth Broyde Sharone

“I’m just an ordinary person,” says Patrick McCollum in all earnestness. But the 66-year-old former jewelry designer, leader in the Pagan community, interfaith minister, and now world peace-maker, has been at the epicenter of extraordinary events that continue to unfold as he is called to serve in the far-flung corners of the globe.

Featuring Ruth Broyde Sharone

If ‘interfaith’ is considered a big tent, you might say it covers the whole of humankind and our relationships, includes indeed all that lives, according to so many traditions. The 21st century really is different because we’re much more connected with each other, and our networks grow each day. So many changes in a few years, so many strangers who’ve become friends!

Varanasi Now and Forever

“There is hardly any city in the world that can claim greater antiquity, greater continuity, and greater popularity than Banaras (the British name for Varanasi). Banaras has been a holy city for at least 30 centuries. No city in India arouses the emotions of Hindus as much as Kasi does.” (Varanasi’s name in Hindu religious literature)

Muslims for Progressive Values Takes on Wahhabism

One day she woke up and said to herself, “Enough is enough.”

Ret. Lt. Colonel Shareda Hosein: Not Your Average Army Officer

What would propel an 18 year-old, 4’10” Muslim girl, born in Trinidad, the daughter of immigrants, to join the U.S. Army and serve for 35 years?

In the Face of Proselytizing

Messianic Judaism is a Biblically based movement of Jews who believe in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah of Israel. According to web statistics, from 2003 to 2007, the number of Messianic houses of worship in the United States grew from 150 to as many as 438, with over 100 in Israel and more worldwide. As of 2012, population estimates for the United States were between 175,000 and 250,000 members, for Israel, between 10,000 and 20,000 members, and an estimated total worldwide membership of 350,000.

Spontaneous Interfaith Relationships

For decades interfaith activists have been searching for “flint” to create the positive sparks needed for interfaith engagement and collaboration. In the beginning we would look for potential partners from different religious communities, speak to them separately, and then invite them into a wider circle for dialogue. We would lay the ground work and then praise the merits of their coming together, encouraging people to find a common language, to become comfortable with one another, share information about their religious practices, and “bond.” We wanted to create a non-threatening environment which we hoped would ultimately lead to a relationship of trust and then inspire more opportunities to engage the larger community. Sometimes it would take months to create that first encounter. Sometimes that first encounter would backfire because the individuals weren’t quite ready to go beyond their comfort zone.

“This Is No Place for a Zero Sum Game”

For more than 100 years Hartford Seminary has been a pioneer in establishing interfaith engagement between Christians and Muslims, developing Abrahamic curricula and a Muslim chaplaincy program. Most recently the school has begun to include the study of Dharmic faith traditions. This interfaith commitment is a sign of the times, no doubt, but also reflects the worldview of the woman who has served as Hartford’s president for the past 15 years, Professor of Social Ethics Heidi Hadsell.

Toward an Ecological Civilization

The image of an aspen grove in Southern Utah called “Pando” became both a symbol and wake-up call for some 1,500 participants – including 130 from China – who attended an extraordinary ecological conference held at Pomona College in Claremont, California, June 4-7.

Welcoming Vicki Garlock, New TIO Correspondent

More than 300 writers with a passion for interfaith culture have made TIO what it is today – a monthly treasure-chest of interfaith news and opinion. Representatives of dozens of religious, spiritual traditions, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds have generously, freely contributed their work. You can find photos and short bios of each one here. More than 1,000 articles have been published in the past four years, testimony to the import of the interfaith culture emerging all over the world.

The Sacred Power of Indigenous Women Threatened

We were about to begin a workshop entitled “The Sacred Power of Women” at the Dialogo Multicultural Universal in Guadalajara, Mexico last month. I had been asked to facilitate a panel of four accomplished, powerful women. Laura, an American-Samoan Latter Day Saint, is a businesswoman and philanthropist. Yonina, an Argentinean writer and publisher, was a Hindu nun for nine years. Evelina is an Ecuadorian anthropologist, lawyer, and historian. And Patti, a local Indigenous leader of Irish-Mexican heritage, is a teacher and performer of sacred ritual dance.

Pope Francis & Rabbi Skorka: Forging a Deeper Relationship

There may come a moment in long-standing interfaith friendships when individuals deeply devoted to their religious traditions notice how the differences that separate them from their dialogue partner begin to recede or even dissolve. While recognizing that philosophical and religious differences still exist, they begin to experience a form of familiarity and kinship that supersedes religion, dogma, tradition, and history.

Living the Gandhi Dream in Ahmedabad

The Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad, in the west Indian state of Gujarat, was a bold experiment initiated by Mahatma Gandhi to find a way to make the spiritual practical. How does one take spiritual principles, apply them genuinely to everyday life, and then convey those principles to the neediest of children, so that the next generation might grow up with an innate sense of what it means to “love all and serve all.”