by Sofia Sayabalian
Having the opportunity to visit Reykjavík, Iceland was a special one. I always thought of Iceland as an isolated place–far, freezing, and frosted with whispers…
by Frank DiGirolamo
“Wow! … You just listened to my whole anthem.” It was late at night, years ago, on North Broadway in Capitol Hill. “Miguel” had just recited his life story to me for a good 20 minutes…
by Camila Torres
When I was a child, I was terrified of the dark. I hated going to sleep, because, once the lights turned off, the sheer possibility of encountering a monster kept me awake…
by Amina Malkin
When talking about religion, my father will sometimes talk about “the chosen people,” a title that Jewish people have historically adopted as a way to reference being descended from…
by Rev. Bud Heckman
One of the biggest religion stories today is the rising number of Americans who no longer identify with a particular religion. That is a given. But disaffiliation is only one side of the story.
by Tahil Sharma and Megan Anderson
2017 has shaped the interfaith movement and clearly shown us the growing need for religious and secular pluralism and understanding. From clergy at the front lines of demonstrations against white supremacy and the drastic changes being made to the healthcare system, to community members standing against hatred
by Miranda Hovemeyer
There’s a photo that I keep seeing posted on social media. I can’t find the original source, but it’s a photo of what appears to be a page from a book. On the page is written, “Being taught to avoid talking about politics and religion has led to a lack of understanding of politics and religion.
by Jennifer Bailey
Several times a month, I have a standing lunch date with three of my favorite people. We gather online over laptops and our meals in Boston, New York, and Nashville to form what we have come to call our “community of praxis.”
by Bud Heckman
When I first started working for interfaith cooperation, I could not find or figure out much of anything. I was hungry to learn, but it was more intuition, inductive reasoning, and plain old dumb luck of “finding” some of the trails of pioneers that moved me forward in figuring out what interfaith was.
by Katherine Marshall
Exploring the interfaith landscape drives home the dynamism and complexity of the array of formal organizations, initiatives, and largely unstructured efforts that fall under a loose interfaith rubric. They come in all sizes and shapes and touch on virtually every area of human endeavor.
As a first generation American who grew up in India, it seems counter-intuitive, at first, to be writing about growing up Hindu in America. Reflecting on my experience as a parent raising two Hindu American teens, though, a 19-year old and a 13-year old, I feel emboldened to put ‘pen to paper’ and share my thoughts.
I’m the daughter of second-generation Americans (SGAs). My four grandparents immigrated to the United States in the early twentieth century to escape desperate economic conditions and the grinding anti-Semitism they faced as Jews in Eastern Europe. Each settled in the Midwest United States and eventually in Omaha, Nebraska, where there was and remains a small but vibrant Jewish community.
In the tradition of Thanksgiving, I would like to show my appreciation for the unique interfaith environment at Georgetown University. Here is a story of how a devout Muslim learned about the Christian concept of agape by engaging with the Hindu community.
My traveling companions on the train from Rome to Milan were two extremely good-looking young couples in their late 20s and early 30s – two sisters and their husbands – on their way back home to New Jersey after a ten-day impulsive Italian vacation. They had stumbled on a travel deal too good to pass up: round trip tickets on the Emirates Airlines from New York to Milan for $480.
TIO: As a second-generation American Muslim, raised in Chicago, with a doctorate from Oxford, you are an examplar of meeting the challenge of growing up in one culture and navigating the culture we share today. Your books unpack the complexities of ‘growing up Muslim in America’ beautifully, vividly. And today you relate to thousands of young people in American universities and colleges, coming into constant contact with second-generation religious minorities. Could you share the biggest challenges they face collectively?
She looked the part of a fine arts major, with the gold spangle in her nostril, the streak of purple in her jet-black hair, and her bespoke clothing. Her diminutive form and high voice gave no hint of the feisty energy that would pour forth whenever she spoke up in the weekly meetings of the Student Interfaith Council at the University of Southern California. Born to Pakistani immigrant parents, she didn’t fit anybody’s stereotype of a Muslim woman.
