Interfaith

Muslim worshipers kneel for prayer outside of Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, Xinjiang province western China. Oct. 2, 2008 / Shutterstock

Uighur leaders and experts located outside China have warned that the situation could worsen, and “mass murder” could not be ruled out. With upwards of 10 percent of the Uighurs being held against their will, it is being called the worst and the most neglected humanitarian crisis of the past 10 years. Why is this is happening, and what makes the Chinese government see Muslims as a threat?

Amy Fallas 5-16-2019

An injured member of Zion Church, which was bombed on Easter Sunday, cries as she prays at a community hall in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, May 5, 2019. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

While the Trump administration has been vocal about confronting religious persecution for global Christians, many of its domestic and foreign policies only serve to exacerbate the conditions that make Christians in these regions more vulnerable. The Iraqi Christian Chaldean community in the United States has been susceptible to deportations in the aftermath of Trump’s executive orders. The “Muslim travel ban” has done little for Christian migrants and other vulnerable religious communities from nations now under travel restrictions to the United States.

Kevin Singer 5-15-2019

REUTERS/Leah Millis

Pence clearly scratched an itch for the crowd that gave him a standing ovation and loud chants of “U-S-A” after he was introduced. His words were also a familiar refrain in the white evangelical community. According to a 2017 study by the Public Religion Research Institute, white evangelical Protestants were the only religious group more likely to believe Christians face discrimination compared to Muslims.

Vera Broekhuysen 4-17-2019

Cantor Broekhuysen leading Mincha services at the border wall. 

It was Wednesday, March 27th. I was one of 20 rabbis and cantors, assembled by T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), to witness and report on the border. A few hours earlier, CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan (now ICE’s acting director) had held a press conference at the same spot.

Catherine Orsborn 3-20-2019

In front of Christchurch Botanic Gardens in Christchurch, New Zealand. March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Silva

As executive director of the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, my professional life is concentrated on counteracting anti-Muslim discrimination and violence. When I started this work, there were many from my white Christian community of origin that wondered if I had converted to Islam — as if that’s why I started doing this work. I understood where the people asking this question were coming from, but the assumption behind it bothered me. They assumed the only reason Christians would care about anti-Muslim hate in the United States is if they had converted to Islam themselves. The assumption caused me to dig deeper into why I would care enough about this issue to devote myself to it not in spite of my Christian identity but because of it.

J. Dana Trent 3-20-2019

Flowers and cards are seen at the memorial site outside Al Noor mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand. March 19, 2019. REUTERS/Edgar Su

Let me tell you what it’s like to walk into a classroom studying world religions after a mass shooting at a house of worship. I know because I’ve done it twice in six months. Last October, my students and I returned to class after 11 people were gunned down in Pittsburgh during Shabbat services. Last Friday, we awoke to a shooting that killed 50 people during Jumu'ah prayers at a New Zealand masjid.

Reza Aslan

So far, Aslan’s cable shows — including his Muslim-American family sitcom that was dropped by ABC — have not panned out. But his ambitions to reach a broader audience remain as large as ever. And unlike the somewhat braggadocios and didactic style of commentary that he’s become known for in front of television cameras, he’s eager to change minds while occupying a different place: behind the camera.

the Web Editors 2-08-2019

Light from the setting sun shines on the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

A Muslim man was executed in Alabama on Thursday, as originally scheduled, after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the execution, denying his request for an imam's presence in the execution chamber.

Attorneys for Domineque Ray, 42, had argued that Alabama's execution policy favored Christian inmates because a chaplain is allowed in the room, often kneeling next to the death row prisoner, and praying with the inmate if requested.

Harmeet Kamboj 2-06-2019

While the zeal and strategy of the Religious Right has been well-documented since the movement’s inception in the late 20th century, journalists have lately turned their attention to its alleged left-leaning counterpart. Stories, bearing equal parts documentation and speculation, of an emerging “Religious Left” have decorated the pages of major outlets such as the The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, and Reuters since 2016. But the framing of these stories distorts as much as it uncovers.

Chris Karnadi 1-29-2019

"Tidying Up with Marie Kondo" on Netflix.

Kondo focuses not on the aesthetic or the number of things; she instead focuses on the owner’s relationship to the object itself, whether or not it “sparks joy.” She advises, “Take each item in one’s hand and ask: ‘Does this spark joy?’ If it does, keep it. If not, dispose of it.” This relationship to objects is crucial to Kondo’s method and hinges on her Shinto background. Though KonMari is self-help, it’s self-help rooted in a Shinto spirituality. 

Najeeba Syeed 12-13-2018

Sunset in Turkey. Image via Shutterstock. 

My life depends on Christians announcing the good news AND that Muslims are not demonic worshippers of some foreign God. My life depends on Christians having those complex, emotionally exhausting conversations during the holidays with uncle Harry when he makes a derogatory remark. My life depends on you, as Christians, being willing to be uncomfortable in your own spaces and not being silent when someone says something Islamophobic.

Dani Gabriel 12-06-2018

Image via Wael Alreweie/Shutterstock 

Lee: I would like faith communities to stretch themselves. We are being called to stretch. So much is being tested and contested in our political world and in the world that we're living. Some faith communities are feeling it very directly and some may be insulated from it, but I think our invitation to faith communities is to be willing to take some leaps of faith and to step off the curb. Get out of our comfort zones. These are extraordinary times and we're going to have to push ourselves to respond to these extraordinary times with equal measure. That’s going to mean trying things we haven't done before.

Amedeo Zullo. Shutterstock. 

We launched our organization, Neighborly Faith, when we were graduate students at Wheaton College in 2015. We were there during the saga between Wheaton College administration and Dr. Larycia Hawkins, and when Wheaton students penned an open letter in the Washington Post, condemning Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s inflammatory remarks about Muslims after the San Bernadino shootings. We saw a growing crop of evangelical college students who wanted to love their Muslim neighbors as themselves, but who were getting little guidance on how to do so from their elders.

Syafiqah Jaaffar 10-29-2018

It seems that no matter where we look, we are confronted with alliances between the religious right and the political right. The Christian right in the U.S. sees Donald Trump and his administration as some sort of a messiah for white Protestant Christianity. In Muslim-majority Southeast Asian states like Malaysia and Indonesia, various levels of government are finding it hard to not acquiesce to the demands made by conservative Muslim groups on matters related to condemning the LGBT community. Perhaps such incursions by the religious right into politics have become more prominent recently because they are abetted by the ascendancy of the authoritarian and anti-intellectual personality.

Image provided by Crystal Cheatham

Entering digital spaces that are dominated by conservative Christian resources, Our Bible App is attempting to carve out a unique space. It is explicitly pro-LGBT, pro-women and pro-interfaith inclusivity in its stated mission. “I created this app because I'm tired of feeling left out of Christianity because of my complex identities,” Crystal Cheatham, the app’s founder and CEO, told Sojourners. “I wanted worship materials that talked about an inclusive kind of faith and embraced that same kind of community.”

Image via Tanner Mardis/ Unsplash 

Contemporary society often seems disconnected from these ideals. Our leaders refuse to admit to indiscretions, or having admitted them, refuse to apologize. They regard an apology as a sign of weakness rather than a show of moral strength. This is worse than myopic; it is a dangerous indifference to what is right. The truth is that it takes courage to apologize, and accountability is not the same as capitulation.

ZP Heller 9-18-2018

Recently my mother told me that if the authorities had stopped her family at any point as they fled from Poland, she would have been separated from her parents. They would have survived the horrors of the Holocaust only to face the fresh hell of a Communist regime. That image immediately brought to mind the heart-rending photos from earlier this year of over 2,600 children, from infants to teenagers, being forcibly separated from their parents as they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border due to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy on immigration.

Sarahbeth Caplin 8-29-2018

This is just one of the ways that many Christian groups think they are honoring Judaism and the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. But as someone with one foot in both worlds — a Christian with Jewish identity — honor is not what it feels like. Rather, it comes off as exploitative.

Dhanya Addanki 8-09-2018

Image via Ric Urrutia

When Velasquez came to the border, she was taken to a detention center in Texas where she was held for a month and a half before making her way to Colorado. She met her husband in Colorado and the couple have three children who are American citizens. She lost a request for asylum in 2016 and was given a year-long stay of deportation in the U.S. Immigration officials indicated that they would not renew her stay of deportation any longer. So instead of going to her Aug. 9, 2017 check in with ICE, Velasquez and her family went to Park Hill and Temple Micah

Image via United Nations Photo / Flickr

A crowd of thousands of angry, shouting protesters gathered as his body, covered by a sheet, was carried on a makeshift stretcher along dirt streets to the presidential palace, a Reuters witness said.