How much do social outreach programs of religious congregations contribute to their communities? What is the overall contribution of congregational services and the quiet heroes who work for them?
Interfaith Collaboration – Walking the Talk
Principle 11 of the United Religions Initiative (URI) Charter says that “we seek and offer cooperation with other interfaith efforts.” The diverse community that met during URI’s formation in the late nineties envisioned that URI would be a different kind of organization in many respects.
Colaboration, Cooperation, Coopetition
In 2014 the Compassion Games grew 120 percent to more than 158 teams. They are organically organized into “Leagues” according to the constituencies they represent. Sixteen sectors have been identified, including Interfaith, Education, Health Care, Families, Women/Girls, Youth/Elderly, Cities, and Arts/Culture.
This Unlimited Energy of Joy that Will Be Our Power
These lyrics from an old time romantic favorite, “You Mean the World to Me,” express the joy experienced in the interfaith movement. Starting as the movement did: acknowledging people from different religions with curiosity and respect, being fascinated by different practices and customs, meeting, speaking, listening, and learning together, the interfaith movement grew.
Bud Heckman – An Interfaith Frank Lloyd Wright
Bud Heckman is an interfaith Frank Lloyd Wright. This pastor, scholar, and author is a global architect designing the structures we all will need – if we are to transform religious conflict into interfaith cooperation that can benefit communities worldwide.
Europe’s Religious Leaders Working Together for Peace
What a Joyous and Blessed Ride!
Connectivity – The Missing Link in Climate Change Activism
On Atheists and Theists Together at the Interfaith Table
As an interfaith activist, I’ve worked to bring an end to religious division. In recent years, this has increasingly meant speaking out against the rise in anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence sweeping America.
First Steps in Building a Global Interfaith Community
Death, destruction and United Nations preventive military efforts often command public and media attention. The other purposes and activities of the U.N. – concentrating, for instance, on developing respect for rights, preventing discrimination, economic development, and cultural coexistence – receive less attention.
Collaborative Peace Groups
In today’s world, one could be easily be made to believe that religion primarily fosters hatred and violence. But the reality is that religious people and organizations have often been at the forefront of interfaith relations and restoring peace in violent regions. On International Day of Peace, HuffPost Religion is proud to share this list of national and international religious organizations that are working to promote peace on local, national and international levels.
Linking Energy Conservation and Faith Communities
Looking out over the audience, I saw that the room was filled with every seat taken and a number of participants standing along the edges. It was a gathering sponsored by the White House office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, attended by more than 150 representatives of widely diverse faith groups and congregations from across the country. Their common interest? Energy savings. A dollar saved [President Obama establishing the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Photo: White House] through energy conservation is a dollar that can be redirected toward more worthwhile ends – of which the various faiths have many.
The Power of Interfaith-Based Community Organizing
“Community Organizing” made it into national news when Barack Obama’s work history was vetted in 2008. Though the pundits made quick judgments, precious few know about the scope and power that interfaith-based community organizing generates in America today. PICO National Network is one of the largest players. It was founded in 1972 as a regional training institute to help support neighborhood organizations in California through an interfaith congregation-community approach. Rather than bring people together around particular issues such as housing or education, one model, this broad-based approach makes values and relationships the glue that holds community together. Today PICO has 44 affiliated federations, including LA Voice, and eight statewide networks working in 150 cities and towns and 17 states. More than one million families and one thousand congregations from 40 different denominations and faiths participate in PICO.
Interfaith and Peace, Social Justice, and Respect for the Earth
“War no more.” That was the hope that inspired Charles Bonney as he explained in his opening address to the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions. Bonney believed that a major cause of conflict was “because the religious faiths of the world have most seriously misunderstood and misjudged each other.”i One hundred years later, Hans Küng declared that there would be “No peace in the world without peace between religions.”ii
Peacemaking – Seeking, Finding, Starting
Turning the final page of Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith, I felt what only comes from finishing a great book: a mixture of equal parts exhilaration and disappointment that it’s over. Patel is an engaging writer with an intriguing personal story, and the major ideas encapsulated in his book spoke to me on a very basic level.
Interfaith Call to Action on Climate Change
The Interfaith Moral Action on Climate Change is a collaborative interfaith political action initiative to wake up politicians in the United States and begin taking responsibility for the disaster of climate change. You can endorse the call at IMACC’s website.
Making Interfaith Cooperation a Social Norm
Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) seeks to make interfaith cooperation a social norm – a world where individuals have positive relationships across lines of faith and an appreciative understanding of the diverse traditions in our society. IFYC focuses our efforts on a mutually enriching higher education strategy working with colleges and universities. The goal is to transform their campus ecologies, making interfaith cooperation a priority and engaging students through a dynamic national Better Together campaign that trains a new generation of interfaith leaders.
March 2012 Resources
Guide to Religious Tolerance In A Hostile Environment – New Golden Rule Video – New Video: From A Village in India to Multi-Cultural Toronto – Meaning Making Involves Us All
Claremont Lincoln University Launched Watershed Moment in American Theological Education
On September 6, 2011, Claremont School of Theology, a distinguished United Methodist seminary with roots back to 1885, joined in partnership with The Academy for Jewish Religion, California, and the Islamic Center of Southern California/Bayan College. Together, they and a number of other affiliates have joined to create Claremont Lincoln University (CLU), an institution like none other before.