3rd Interfaith Leadership Forum: "Building Interfaith Partnerships Beyond Racism and Religious Nationalism"
Release Date: 02/25/2022
4th Interfaith Leadership Forum: Interfaith Engagement with the Environmental Crisis
Rumi Forum Podcast
Rumi Forum, Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington, and Washington Theological Consortium presented the 4th Interfaith Leadership Forum: “Interfaith Engagement with the Environmental Crisis” on May 31, 2023. The program featured keynote speaker Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, an interfaith panel, and an opportunity for small group dialogues. Keynote by: Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, D.Min. started at Adat Shalom when the synagogue was only eight years old, and meeting at the JCC – he was still in rabbinic school, Founding Rabbi Sid was part-time, Shabbat morning services were every...
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In-Person Book Talk: “Profiles in Peace”
Rumi Forum Podcast
This new book traces the lives of Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs in Israel and Palestine who have dedicated their lives to building peaceful relations among the two peoples and between individual people who seek to live in peace and harmony with one another. These people have acted courageously and consistently in their work for peace. In this book, the author profiles the lives, thoughts, feelings, and actions of six important peacebuilders — men and women, secular and religious, 3 Jewish Israelis: Rabbi Michael Melchior, Professor Galia Golan, and Mrs. Hadassah Froman, and 3...
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In-Person Book Talk: “Between Thought & Action”
Rumi Forum Podcast
This in-person book talk by Dr. Ori Z. Soltes was a discussion on “Between Thought & Action”, Fethullah Gulen`s intellectual biography of thoughts, words, and actions including interviews with Hizmet movement followers. This volume has two goals. One is to explore the life and the thought of Fethullah Gulen and the important educational and peace-inducing activities in which he and those inspired by him have been engaged for several decades. The outcome of those efforts—of creating schools and providing diverse social and cultural services that bring people together people from diverse...
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In-Person Book Talk: "Hearts & Minds: Hizmet Schools and Interethnic Relations"
Rumi Forum Podcast
Dr. Parrillo and Dr. Ansari present a cross-cultural study of Hizmet schools in seven countries of varying histories and ethnic compositions. Some are fairly homogeneous, while others are longstanding multicultural, multiracial societies. Some have Muslim-majority populations, others a small Muslim minority. Through hundreds of interviews with students, parents, staff, and financial supporters, the authors explored individual perceptions and experiences, as well as the triad of student, parent, and school interaction. Analyzing the commonality of the schools' structures and processes in...
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In-Person Book Talk: “I Never Thought of It That Way”
Rumi Forum Podcast
We think we have the answers, but we need to be asking a lot more questions. Partisanship is up, trust is down, and our social media feeds make us sure we’re right and everyone else is ignorant (or worse). But avoiding and attacking one another is breaking… everything. Journalist Mónica Guzmán is the loving liberal daughter of Mexican immigrants who voted—twice—for Donald Trump. When the country could no longer see straight across the political divide, Mónica set out to find what was blinding us and discovered the most eye-opening tool we’re not using: our own curiosity....
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3rd Interfaith Leadership Forum: "Building Interfaith Partnerships Beyond Racism and Religious Nationalism"
Rumi Forum Podcast
Religious nationalism is on the rise worldwide. In the U.S., it has primarily taken the form of White Christian Nationalism: the affiliation of being White and Christian with belonging and mattering in this country. This program explored the nature of global nationalism and its specific manifestation in the U.S. First, we heard from Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer, who is an expert who has been studying this trend for over thirty years. His keynote remarks were followed by a panel of diverse faith leaders who shared their views on building interfaith solidarity to resist the White Supremacist Christian...
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Panel Discussion: “Modern Muslim and Jewish Thinkers Who Have Inspired Us”
Rumi Forum Podcast
While anti-Semites and Islamophobes often speak as if our faiths have been frozen in ice (and primitive thinking) for many centuries, the fact is that Jews and Muslims belong to living, breathing, stimulating faiths. On February 9, 2022, JIDS and the Rumi Forum jointly presented a dialogue that presents some of the exciting ideas and personalities that have emerged within the past century to enrich our faiths. Jews and Muslims belong to living, breathing, and stimulating faiths. On this panel, we discovered some of their inspiring modern thinkers together. We heard...
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Panel Discussion: ”How Do We Deal With Covid, Social Injustice, and Polarization?”
Rumi Forum Podcast
Rumi Forum, Prince George’s County Office of Human Rights, and Prince George’s County Memorial Library System presented a virtual panel discussion on “How Do We Deal With Covid, Social Injustice, and Polarization?” on February 3, 2022, for a conversation for our time, in recognition of World Interfaith Harmony Week. How do we build and use interfaith harmony to develop restoration, reconciliation, and resiliency as applicable to the world that we live in now? We are plagued: by the Covid-19 pandemic, by social injustice, by economic inequities, limited and inequitable access to...
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In-Person Book Talk: “People of the Book”
Rumi Forum Podcast
On December 9, 2021, participants joined this in-person book talk for a considered study of Muslim–Christian coexistence and dialogue in the time of Prophet Muhammad. The Christians that lived around the Arabian Peninsula during Muhammad’s lifetime are shrouded in mystery. Some of the stories of the Prophet’s interactions with them are based on legends and myths, while others are more authentic and plausible. But who exactly were these Christians? Why did Muhammad interact with them as he reportedly did? And what lessons can today’s Christians and Muslims learn from these encounters?...
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In-Person Book Talk: “God`s Diplomats”
Rumi Forum Podcast
Using inside sources and extensive field reporting about the secretive, high-stakes world of international diplomacy, Vatican reporter Victor Gaetan takes readers to the Holy See to explicate Pope Francis‘s diplomacy, show why it works, and offer readers a startling contrast to the dangerous inadequacies of recent U.S. international decisions. About the author Victor Gaetan, Ph.D., has served as an international correspondent for Catholic News Service and the National Catholic Register. He contributes to Foreign Affairs and America magazine. He has written from...
info_outlineReligious nationalism is on the rise worldwide. In the U.S., it has primarily taken the form of White Christian Nationalism: the affiliation of being White and Christian with belonging and mattering in this country. This program explored the nature of global nationalism and its specific manifestation in the U.S. First, we heard from Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer, who is an expert who has been studying this trend for over thirty years. His keynote remarks were followed by a panel of diverse faith leaders who shared their views on building interfaith solidarity to resist the White Supremacist Christian ideology threatening our nation. This program was a forum for people of faith to learn, become activated, and feel equipped to respond together effectively.
Program Outline:
Opening Remarks
Rev. David Lindsey, Executive Director, Interfaith Council of Metropolitan Washington (IFC)
Keynote
“The Capitol Insurrection and the Global Rise of Religious Nationalism”
Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer, Founding Director of the Orfalea Center of Global and International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara
Panel Presentations
Moderated by Rev. David Lindsey, IFC
“The Interfaith Imperative”
Rabbi Jack Moline – President, Interfaith Alliance
“Doctrine of Discovery, Manifest Destiny and Christian Nationalism: Nothing New.”
Charles Watson Jr. – Director of Education, Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty
“The Pro-Democracy Faith Movement”
Maggie Siddiqi – Senior Director, Religion and Faith, Center for American Progress
“Religious Liberty and the Shortfall of Advocacy”
Simran Singh – Vice Chairman, IRF (International Religious Freedom) Secretariat