On January 4th in a hotel conference room in Kampala, Uganda, youth political leaders and leaders of Uganda’s security forces came face to face for a highly unusual meeting: a national consultation to prevent violence in the upcoming elections on February 18.
Recovering Interfaith History, Recovering Ourselves
The sad wisdom claiming “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfill it” is much more interesting turned upside down: Those who remember the best of the past are freed to live into a better future. Choosing interfaith history as TIO’s second theme had to do with reclaiming remarkable stories, mostly unknown, of men and women building friendship among strangers centuries, even millennia ago.
Reclaiming Ashoka - An Iron Age Interfaith Exemplar
Approximately 2280 years ago, Emperor Ashoka, third regent of India’s Maurya Dynasty, ascended the throne. This Iron Age family ruled India’ first empire, stretching from eastern Iran to Burma, including most of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Scholars dispute the details but agree that Ashoka ruled for about four decades in the middle of the third century BCE.
How the 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions Changed My Life
The 1993 Parliament was a watershed event in the interfaith history, following in the footsteps of the first Parliament in 1893. Both events forged new ground and introduced new interfaith possibilities. In addition to making history, the 1993 Parliament transformed my life.
Knowing Huston Smith
When asked how he came to be known as “the dean of comparative religions,” Professor Huston Smith explained with this image: “I drive a hybrid car, but I, too, am a hybrid. I was born in China and my upbringing was there. My first language outside the family kitchen was Mandarin Chinese, spoken with a Suzhou dialect. I have both sides of our planet inside me.
Foundational Documents of the Interfaith Movement
It is no longer news that we live in a growing diversity on an ever-shrinking globe. Whether the subject is crime or economics, politics, entertainment, or almost everything else, strangers from different parts of the world are in dialogue, interacting personally and becoming ever better connected. Along with international communication, travel, and diversity in our neighborhoods comes the growing awareness that a thousand different flowers bloom in the same soil that grows ‘my’ faith, ‘our’ faith, or, we might say, ‘our faiths.’
Torah, Sequined Saris, Chapattis, and Peace
I have prayed in synagogues in Italy, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Curacao, Belgium, Kenya, Egypt, Australia, and Russia. But this was my first time chanting the Shema with a group of Jewish women all wearing saris.
A Dream That Is Contagious
Once after a lecture on the 1893 World Parliament of Religions, I was asked by a sleepy student, ‘Were you there yourself?’ No one, I assume, who was at the 1993 Parliament of World Religions (note the slight change of name) had been in Chicago, a hundred years before. Yet because of its continuing influence, it is worthwhile to glance back to the pioneers of the interfaith pilgrimage. I can remember my own excitement when, looking in the library for another book, I chanced on Barrows’ two volume record of that historic event.
Looking Back to Light Our Future
While a worldwide interfaith movement blossoms, looking back through history to discover glimpses of hospitable multi-religious interaction is instructive. Though few in number, ancient and medieval glimpses can be found of communities that embraced cooperative interreligious relations.
A TIO Interview with Marcus Braybrooke
TIO: When you first became involved in interfaith activities, few if any discerned how several decades of globalization would put religious diversity issues, for good and for ill, center stage in millions of communities. As a preeminent historian of this transformation and its best fruit, the interfaith movement, please share with us how you were drawn to this arena.
Crossing the Ocean & Changing the World
The story line is utterly improbable – an unknown, uninvited 30-year-old monk from a small monastic community in India provides the spark which lights the modern interfaith movement at a world fair in Chicago 118 years ago. All true, though, and it gets stranger.
The Legacy of Juliet Hollister
Sometimes the most amazing events are the most improbable. How, during a lunch of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, did a spark ignite a movement that to this day grows and travels around the world? That is exactly what happened when Juliet Hollister, a housewife and mother of three, while having lunch with a friend, was commiserating over the dire state of the world. Her friend suddenly suggested that someone should bring the leaders of the world’s religions together to work towards peace. A flash of inspiration went off in Juliet’s heart and mind. From that moment on, magical things seemed to happen around Juliet and her “Wonderful Obsession,” a name coined by the Time-Life Magazine article about her, published in 1962.