Telling good religion stories

Religious, spiritual and faith-inspired actors have long shaped public responses to some of society’s most urgent shared crises—from welcoming the stranger to caring for creation. Yet in much of the media coverage around issues like immigration, the economy, gun violence, and the environment, engaged voices of faith are often oversimplified, sidelined, or portrayed in a critical manner.

But what if we focused on good religion stories instead?

In a forthcoming anthology combining journalistic narrative with social-scientific reflections, titled Engaged Spirituality: Stories of Religious Resilience, Inspiration, and Pursuit of the Common Good, I and 17 other authors explore the power of telling such stories. But with an unexpected twist. Or you might say, a surprise ending: that telling good religion stories helps us to look beyond the present, imagine a new repertoire of the possible, and rise together to advance vital conversations around some of the most critical issues of our time.

The anthology emerged out of the Spiritual Exemplars Project, sponsored by the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture, which involved a team of journalists and researchers profiling 104 spiritually-engaged humanitarians across 13 faith traditions and 42 countries.

The exemplars, individuals motivated and sustained by spiritual values, beliefs, and practices to serve humanity, included a nun who performed the first Buddhist same-sex wedding, a Jewish lay leader who served more than 2 million meals to food-insecure college students, a priest who helped rescue 150,000 distressed refugees in the Mediterranean Sea, a Jain who served more than 400,000 people in 400 Sri Lankan villages and a Latina convert who founded the first shelter for Muslim migrants at the U.S./Mexico border.

Their lives, inspired by African Religious traditions, Baha’i precepts, Protestant ethics, Humanist altruism, and Indigenous spirituality, highlighted some of humanity’s highest shared values in pursuit of the common good.

During the project, team members realized they were not only gaining insights about how spiritually engaged humanitarians understand their lives and work, but about how religious values and spiritual practices inspire and sustain social action on a larger scale. This anthology is an outgrowth of that process, taking readers on a journey to meet people doing extraordinary work and to share their life trajectories, traumas, and triumphs.

Intrafaith minorities: Appreciating religious communities’ internal diversity

When it comes to international religious freedom, we tend to hear a lot about religious minorities, their struggle for rights and recognition or persecution — both state-sanctioned and informal. 

But what of intrafaith minorities? 

While interfaith tensions refer to high-friction relations between different religious communities, intrafaith conflict occurs between different denominations or groups within a faith tradition. 

One might think of frictions between Shiite majorities in Iraq and Iran and their Sunni minorities — or vice versa in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Syria — or the sometimes awkward relationship between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christians. 

In this edition of ReligionLink, we look at intrafaith diversity and discrimination, unpacking how people of different interpretations deal with internal distinctions and differences within shared traditions. 

Peacebuilders Reflect on Pope Francis’ Impact on Christian-Muslim Relations

When Pope Francis died on April 21, aged 88, tributes not only poured in from politicians and representatives of the world’s 1.3 billion Roman Catholics, but also from leaders of different religious traditions.  

Justin Welby, the former archbishop of Canterbury who became leader of the Anglican church the same year Francis became pope, said Francis was “an example of humility” who “constantly reminded us of the importance of serving the poor, always standing with those who faced persecution and hardship.” 

The Dalai Lama said he was an example of service to others, “consistently revealing by his own actions how to live a simple, but meaningful life.” 

Chief rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, remembered Francis for his, “unwavering dedication to promoting peace and goodwill worldwide.”  

The tributes from numerous global religious leaders and communities are a testimony to Francis’ interreligious engagement during his 12-year papacy — and the primacy he placed on values like mercy, dialogue with the marginalized, interdependence and the shared urgency of working for the common good.  

Throughout his papacy, Francis regularly called on people of faith to practice interfaith dialogue, friendship, and collaboration. He himself also engaged in numerous trips, consultations and one-to-one dialogues throughout his 12-year papacy.   

But in the days since his death, I also heard from numerous practitioners in the field of Christian-Muslim dialogue who spoke of the particular, and personal, impact Pope Francis had on them.  

World Evangelical Alliance Seeks New Leader Who Can Bring Unity

Peirong Lin, a deputy secretary at the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), likes to joke that evangelical is the most polarizing word in the world. 

“Yet that is exactly what we are trying to unite around,” she told Christianity Today, “the euangelion, the Good News, the gospel, and what it looks like in different countries and contexts.” 

Now the global organization of national and regional alliances representing 600 million evangelicals is looking for one person to help bring everybody together. The international council that oversees the WEA is stressing the need for unity as the search for a new secretary general gets underway. 

“The Good News expresses itself in different ways around the world … and our responsibility as the WEA is to take a ‘world’ understanding to the gospel, not just a particular context,” Lin said. “The question for us going forward is how we can best represent everyone and work together.”

The search began 11 months after the resignation of secretary general Thomas Schirrmacher, who stepped down for health reasons amid ongoing controversies about the WEA’s participation in interfaith dialogue with Catholics. A plan for a quick search for a new replacement—one press release promised new leadership in six months—was scuttled. WEA leadership said it needed more time to review its organizational structure and consult more evangelical leaders about the strengths, weaknesses, and long-term direction of the alliance.

Goodwill Shana, the interim head of the WEA, said in an email that the appointment of a new leader will be a “very significant step for the WEA” and everyone wants to find “the person of God’s choice to lead us into the future.”

The WEA hopes to announce the name of the new secretary general at the upcoming General Assembly in October.

How they do it in Deutschland: Signposts for Interreligious Dialogue in Germany

The Christmas market attacks in Magdeburg — and the heated political atmosphere that followed — have stressed a range of issues ahead of Germany’s snap elections on February 23.  

Voters across Europe’s largest economy are concerned about domestic security, immigration, upholding the rule of law and strengthening democracy against perceived enemies within and without.  

An important aspect of this equation is how followers of Germany’s various religious communities might work to address these concerns together.  

With a total population of nearly 85 million, there are an estimated 23 million Catholics (27 percent), 21 million Protestants (25 percent) and nearly 5 million Muslims (5.7 percent). There are also smaller populations of evangelicals (2 percent) and Orthodox Christians (1.9 percent), as well as Jews, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus, Yezidis, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Pagans and Sikhs. Notably, 44 percent of Germans (or 37 million) claim no religious affiliation, but may practice some form of spirituality or hold some kind of enchanted worldview.  

In my latest for Interfaith America, I explore how members of these various groups work together — or against one another — is of great importance for the future of plural, open societies like Germany. 

Death, dying, and faith in America

Death, as the cliche goes, is one of life’s few certainties.  

At some point in time, all of us with loved ones will be bereaved by their passing. We will attend services, gather with family and friends, and otherwise memorialize the dead we once knew.  

And, eventually, all of us will die.  

Though death is a universal experience, the nature of death and dying in the United States continues to evolve.   

Thanks to technological advances, shifting healthcare norms, the rearrangement of families, communities and social structures, ongoing differences due to class and race, as well as alterations to America’s religious landscape, death and dying in the U.S. have changed dramatically in recent decades.  

Over the last century, life expectancy has continued (with occasional setbacks) to increase — with the current lifespans lasting an average of 77.5 years — and three-quarters (74.76%) of the nearly 3.1 million deaths in the U.S. in 2023 were to persons aged 65 and older. Death is also a progressively protracted and isolating affair. Occurring after a chronic illness, long-term discomfort, or slow-but-steady cognitive decline, many face the egress alone, as smaller families, divorce rates, and the continuing breakdown of connections among individuals’ social networks leaves many with fragile networks of community and care at the end of their lives.  

And while religion in the U.S. may not be dying, our changing relationship with faith has important implications for how individuals and communities face the end of life in 21st-century America.  

Interfaith Action at American Borders

Every border has a story. Every dividing line on a map, every marker and monument and wall and fence comes with a narrative.  

And at the U.S./Mexico border, that story is an increasingly international and interfaith one.  

Not only are people on the move arriving at the U.S.’s southern border representing a broader swathe of global society and the world’s religions, but organizations across a range of faith traditions are teaming up to provide for their needs — both immediately and in terms of securing their rights to movement and to seek asylum once they arrive safely in the country.  

“An increasingly interfaith affair”  

Rick, 46, a San Diego resident who volunteers with various organizations at the U.S. border with Baja California, Mexico, said he’s noticed the uptick in migrants with backgrounds he would not necessarily expect. 

“I mean, across the years, it’s traditionally been a lot of people from across Latin America — Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala,” he said, “but nowadays, my Spanish is pretty useless. 

“People from all over the world are making their way here,” he said.  

In spring 2024, Rick regularly came down to the Iris Ave. trolley station in South San Diego — just 3 miles from the San Ysidro Border Crossing — to hand out waters to new arrivals waiting for onward transportation in the shade of eucalyptus trees next to the station.  

When he showed up, Rick said he was surprised by the people he met there. “There were Sikhs from Punjab, Buddhists from China, Christians from Haiti, Muslims from Bangladesh and Afghanistan,” he said, “it was like the United Nations in South San Diego.” 

That was quite the shift, Rick said. “It used to be mostly Catholics, a smattering of Pentecostals and Protestants; I met a few Mormons from Mexico a few years ago. But now, it’s an increasingly interfaith affair,” Rick said.

“It’s Changed Everything”: Interfaith Dialogue in the Wake of October 7, 2023

I sat down for tacos with a colleague in Culver City, California, one early summer’s eve. The conversation was light.   

That is, until it wasn’t.   

Involved with interreligious dialogue at the local, state, national, and intergovernmental level, my acquaintance was concerned about the impact of Hamas’ attack on Israel that killed nearly 1,200 individuals and the Israeli Defense Force’s (IDF) brutal reprisal against Gaza and its people in the months that followed had done irreparable harm to cause of peacemaking in the U.S.   

The intense, seemingly endless violence and the chilling prospect of a ceasefire without lasting peace, my acquaintance feels, is having a profound emotional, psychological, and practical impact on people who care about connecting across religious, cultural, and political differences.   

“It’s set us back at least 20 years,” they said. Communities that used to connect, colleagues that used to be in conversation, groups that used to meet, and initiatives that used to be shared have all been impacted. “It’s changed everything.”   

As Thomas Banchoff wrote for Commonweal, “the Israel-Hamas war illustrates the fragility of interfaith diplomacy” and dialogue.   

While many said numerous theological, social, and political gains had been made through interreligious engagement in the U.S. and abroad in recent years, the damaging impact of savage violence, polarizing discourse, divisive protests, and tiptoeing around political landmines is a stark reminder of interfaith dialogue’s delicacy and potential limitations.   

Since October 7 last year, the strain between the Jewish and Muslim communities — and beyond — has challenged the ability of interfaith spaces to function as facilitators for positive dialogue, let alone spaces for solidarity.   

While various initiatives can claim decades of leadership in interreligious dialogue and relationships built between leaders and laity from numerous traditions, many have struggled to gather communities during the conflict. 

In various private exchanges, leaders and community members express their frustrations with their community’s lack of speaking out but are unwilling to call out a lack of mutual accountability for what happened and continues to happen.   

This, say practitioners nationwide, has eroded and stifled opportunities for sustainable peace. 

Piano, piano: In Europe, evangelicals are divided over the right relationship with Rome.

Leonardo De Chirico is in an ongoing argument with the Italian government about the “intrinsic characteristics” of religious buildings.

The evangelical pastor insists that Breccia di Roma (Breach of Rome), which is located in a simple storefront about a kilometer from the Colosseum, is a church. Christians meet there regularly to pray, praise God, and listen to the preaching of the Word. The national tax authority has noted, though, that the multifunctional space, which also houses a theological library and a missions training center, does not have the vaulted ceilings, stained glass, raised altar, candles, or saint statues commonly associated with churches in the majority-Catholic country and therefore doesn’t qualify for religious tax exemptions.

“The arguments are silly and poor,” De Chirico told CT. “The pictures they showed were of impressive buildings, but we showed that Muslim prayer rooms are simple and some Catholic churches meet in shops. Synagogues look like our space. They are all tax-exempt. We are not asking for privilege. We are not asking for something that others don’t have.”

This conflict has been going on since 2016. A lower court sided with the Reformed Baptist church, but the tax authority filed an appeal. The case is now going to Italy’s Supreme Court.

But tax-exempt status is not the most serious disagreement De Chirico has with Italians about what a church is. In 2014, he wrote a pamphlet critiquing the papacy. In 2021, the Reformed pastor and theology chair of the Italian Evangelical Alliance wrote a book arguing that the “theological framework of Roman Catholicism is not faithful to the biblical gospel.”

So it frustrated him, to say the least, when Thomas Schirrmacher, the head of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), joined an ecumenical prayer vigil in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, in September. It seemed to him that the secretary general of the global evangelical association was embracing the spiritual leadership of Pope Francis and endorsing a vision of unity not grounded in the gospel.

“When you pray with someone in public, you are saying that the differences between our theologies are mere footnotes,” De Chirico said. “Dialogue is welcome, but there are core differences we cannot forget or ignore.”

In my latest for Christianity Today, I take a look at how European evangelicals approach church planting, ecumenical dialogue and other issues in contexts where Catholicism remains predominant.

Ten Years of 'Being Both': An Interview with Susan Katz Miller

Religious plurality is a fact of life. Every day, we encounter and interact with an increasing number of people of different faith traditions.

With Jewish neighbors, Hindu co-workers, and non-religious friends – and amidst other changes in the landscape of marriages and relationships – it is unsurprising that in the United States, interfaith marriages have been on the rise. In fact, over the past five decades, the share of couples in same-faith marriages has dropped substantially, with an increasing number opting for starting interfaith families, according to the 2022 American National Family Life Survey.

Ten years ago, Susan Katz Miller wrote a book with this demographic, and their families, in mind. Being Both introduced another world often judged, and nudged to the margins, by monochromatic religious insiders who feared or looked down upon interfaith unions. It suggested another way forward to a generation of people increasingly aware of religious plurality and living it out within their own families. Katz Miller did not shy away from the challenges interfaith family communities face, whether navigating institutional obstacles to their unions or when deciding how to include coming of age ceremonies for their children or navigate the interreligious calendar.

A decade after its first publication, I had the opportunity to ask Katz Miller some follow-up questions about the ongoing challenges interfaith families face, the evolving religious and interfaith marriage landscape, and how our very notion of what “religions” are and how we define religious communities and cultures might be challenged by the dynamics she’s witnessed in interfaith families over the years. The following is an edited version of our conversation.

After a decade, what do you feel is Being Both’s ongoing message and relevance?

PHOTO courtesy of the author.

This book is not only still relevant but perhaps more relevant than ever. So, I'm grateful that Beacon Press still has it in print in hardcover, paperback, and eBook. For the 10th anniversary, we made an audiobook and I have just come out of the studio, where I spent three days recording and narrating.

I also wrote a new author's note that puts it in perspective as a snapshot in time, ten years ago, when I think people were just becoming aware of the possibility of being an interfaith family that would educate children in both religions, and what that would look like and what the challenges and benefits are.

Now, a decade later, with demographic changes and increasing support from religious institutions, I think it's become easier to be an interfaith family; easier at being and doing both. I think as a society, we've become more educated about these issues. And there have been some important shifts as a result.

What are the challenges that interfaith families continue to face, or that have perhaps evolved, over the last ten years?

The challenges have always been more external than internal. What I mean is that you often feel more challenged by extended family who don't accept your relationship or religious institutions that don't support you. And I think that those are still the main challenges. But I do think extended family members are less likely now than they were to object to or mourn your marriage to someone of another faith. Just because it's become more common, and people are used to the idea. And maybe they've developed some confidence in seeing a generation of kids grow up and not be confused or screwed up by their interfaith family.

At the same time, institutions are becoming more welcoming and inclusive, sometimes even being led by people in interfaith families. This changes the landscape. When you have clergy who are in interfaith marriages, when you have boards that include people in those categories, then that changes the policies that might be made, and makes it more likely that these families are going to be included and welcomed. For example, since the book first came out, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College decided to accept rabbinical students who are in interfaith relationships and to ordain them. Just this year, Hebrew College in the Boston area did the same. These changes have a huge effect, I think, on the entire Jewish and interfaith family landscape.

Religious institutions like these have come to realize that interfaith families who want to claim more than one religion and educate their children in more than one religion, is part of our reality, and that it's here to stay. That was a very threatening idea to a lot of institutions a decade ago. What I'm seeing now is leaders, institutions, and communities willing to be open to the idea that there could be benefits to the interfaith family pathway.

What are some of the internal challenges that interfaith families face?

The internal challenges are the same, I think: figuring out how, and whether, to honor different aspects of your family’s religions, how, or whether, to celebrate certain holidays, and things like that. But, you know, these are the challenges all couples face. They ask, “Are we going to do Christmas your way or Christmas my way? Are going to do your kind of Hanukkah, of my kind of Hanukkah?” It doesn't really matter whether they're two religions or one religion in a family, there's still going to be differences that must be negotiated. Every couple needs to address questions like: did these religious traditions mean to me in my childhood? What were my feelings around them? What do they mean now? Has that changed? And do you want to bring that practice into your family going forward? Or not? And why?

How has the general decline in religious adherence impacted the interfaith family landscape?

That is one of the key statistics that I did update in the book. Increasingly, in my years of speaking about this book, and working with couples, I've seen a rise in the numbers of couples who are Christian and secular, Jewish and atheist. And I believe Christians with secular, or non-religious, partners, is the largest, fastest growing segment of the interfaith families worldwide. I often refer such couples to Dale McGowan’s In Faith and In Doubt, which is specifically about marriage between people who are Christian and people who are “nones.”

What might readers have to learn from your book about this thing we call “religion?”

Another trend I noticed in the past ten years is the increasing number of couples and families who have more than two religions in their heritage; some that have three or more! You’re going to have interfaith kids dating a Muslim; for example, a Jewish-Christian interfaith kid dating a Hindu. That’s three heritages in that coupledom. This makes the interfaith family even more complex – and more exciting. It is kind of refreshing as it challenges some of the binaries that we have let define American religion (e.g., the Judeo-Christian binary).

This also fits in with broader conversations about multiple religious practice, or multiple religious participation. This idea was first explored by Catholic theologians who labelled it “multiple religious belonging,” but belonging can be a complicated thing, with gatekeepers in institutions often deciding who is in and who is out. I am increasingly talking about and thinking about interfaith families who teach their children two or more religions, as part of this global reality of multiple religious practice, which goes back to the beginnings of religion. Anytime you have two spiritual or religious cultures side-by-side, you're going to have people marrying across those boundaries. So interfaith families go back to the beginning of these things we call “culture” and “religion,” influenced by forces like colonization, immigration, and the forced movement of people. Interfaith families have helped shape the traditions we believe are bounded. They were a product of contact and interfaith relationships, within and beyond marriage.

Additional Reading and Resources

• Being Both: Embracing Two Religions in One Interfaith Family, by Susan Katz Miller

• “Leaps of Faiths,” a documentary by David Kovacs and Steve Ordower on interfaith families

• “Nous tous,” a film by Pierre Pirard

Do New DEI Laws Pose a Threat to Interfaith Programs on U.S. Campuses?

Around this time of year, Matt Hartley would be preparing for the University of North Florida’s (UNF) annual “Find Your Folks” fair.   

Matt Hartley. Courtesy Photo.

Held on the university’s Jacksonville campus during the first week of the fall semester, the event helps students find organizations that align with their religious — or non-religious — convictions.  

As Director of UNF’s Interfaith Center, Hartley said, “it’s a way to welcome hundreds of new students to campus, tell them about our great interfaith work and invite them to get involved.”   

But this year, “Find Your Folks” is probably not happening.   

“We don’t know if our Center is going to exist,” Hartley said, “so we can’t plan like we normally do.”   

The question around whether UNF’s Interfaith Center will still be around comes as a result of SB266, a state law in Florida that prevents colleges and universities from spending state or federal money to promote, support or maintain programs or activities that “advocate for” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).   

As Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas reported in March, although the law’s intention primarily focuses on what Governor Ron DeSantis frequently calls “woke” racial ideology, the law will impact centers like UNF’s. It also portends potentially wider ramifications for interfaith efforts on college campuses across the U.S.   

Does the world really need interreligious dialogue?

Growing up in what could best be described as a decidedly non-ecumenical Protestant denomination, I was taught to treat “interfaith” like a bad word.

But the negativity around interactions between people of different religious, spiritual and humanistic beliefs always sat a bit awkwardly with my everyday experience growing up in Los Angeles, one of the most religiously diverse cities in the United States.

I couldn’t square the alarming discourse around interreligious interactions with the lived reality of diversity that defined my teenage years (and beyond). My friends were Buddhist and Muslim, Jewish and Christian, Pagan and atheist.

And so, despite the warnings, I stayed curious about different traditions, learning about other religions as I dove deeper into my own.

As I’ve made religion my profession, I’ve also come to appreciate how interreligious dialogue has changed over the years and how it is far from the caricature I was brought up to believe it was.

On the occasion of the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago (August 14-18), I shared some thoughts on interreligious dialogue and its role in the contemporary world on my column, “What You Missed Without Religion Class.”

Interfaith dialogue often gets a bad rap as a project concerned with surface level “feel good” conversations. Today, interreligious dialogue (a more widely preferred term) has grown into a multifaceted and critical field of interaction with real-world impact and implications for your life and mine.

AI and Faith: Can New Tech Be a Blessing or a Curse?

The e-mails can be alarming.  

Over the last several months — especially with the launch of OpenAI products like ChatGPT — the number of messages I’ve received from colleagues in religious studies and religion news about the promise and pitfalls of artificial intelligence (AI) has steadily increased.  

Some of them read like dystopian novels, full of prophetic warnings and puzzled worry about how these technologies spell the inevitable doom for everything from college essays to news copy, commentary features to podcasting. Others percolate with positivity, promising increased productivity, better bibliographies or more robust conversations around technology and ethics.  

Whether welcomed or spurned, the general opinion is that AI’s transformation of our work, relationships, and religions is inevitable.  

As President of the Religion News Association, Editor of ReligionLink, and a scholar of religion, I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the technologies that could shape our spiritual futures and the expected effects of AI on religion reporting. 

Questions I’ve wrestled with lately include: What, if anything, might AI reveal to us about the act of reporting, the nature of religion news and journalists’ role in the public sphere? Is there anything distinctive about religious traditions and the ways they will creatively encounter AI and its impact on humanity? What issues arise as AI becomes less distinguishable from human intelligence? How might religious notions of humanity evolve to address AI?  

Certainly, AI presents particular challenges to religion newswriters and religious practitioners alike. But before we get too caught up in the computers-will-take-over-the-world chaos, I’d like to offer a few reflections that might help us chart a way forward.  

What Hath Religious Studies To Do With Interreligious Dialogue?

When I moved to Germany, I was invited to take part in a pioneering project to map interreligious dialogue (IRD) efforts across the country.

In the aftermath of the 10th World Assembly of Religions for Peace in Lindau in August 2019, a group of colleagues got together to pursue the idea of an interreligious cartography in Germany. The goal was to make a comprehensive survey of local, national, and international interreligious initiatives and actors in German municipalities to serve as a reference for future research.

Through our investigation, we gained a clearer picture of what IRD looks like in Germany and who is taking part. From Bonn to Berlin, Flensburg to Freiburg, one of the things that became evident was that many of the local initiatives involved, or were led by, religion scholars and academic theologians. Based on my own research and experience, this holds true in the U.S. and elsewhere, with scholars often actively involved in IRD efforts at the local, regional, national, and international levels.

As I reflected on this, I pondered a few questions: Are religious studies and IRD natural companions or should they be carefully delineated and divided? Should those who study religion lead the way when it comes to multi-religious responses to the world’s pressing issues? Or, as some argue, should IRD remain an object for critical study and not participation?

How do we love our neighbors

Christians, and specifically those of the evangelical variety, can sometimes struggle to form deep, meaningful relationships with the "religious Other."

Whether it’s a tendency to interpret these relationships through the lens of “evangelism” or a fear of diversity and difference, evangelical Christians have often been absent from the interreligious table.

I happen to come from a tradition that is particularly ecumenically-challenged. While the denomination has its historical reasons for not playing nice with the “religious Other,” the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) lacks a robust model for interreligious encounters and education in religious diversity.

This can often be confounding or frustrating for LCMS laity — and clergy — who encounter a wide range of religious expressions in their day-to-day life.

While I was in St. Louis, Missouri teaching a two-week intensive on cultural anthropology at Concordia Seminary, I got the chance to chat with Sarah Crowder about these issues.

Sarah is a high school theology teacher in Las Vegas and her students had some questions about the world’s religions and how to approach the topic.

Thanks to Sarah and her students, for the conversation!

Why does dialogue often fail? People just don't care

When I was in high school, I basically dated my way through the world’s religions.  

My first girlfriend was Wiccan. I dated a Buddhist. I was consistently invited to attend dances at the local stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I even went out with a Methodist! 

Beyond my romantic relationships, my friends were Jewish and evangelical, Muslim and atheist, as well as many traditions between and beyond.​

It was these relationships that motivated me — a Lutheran raised in a decidedly non-ecumenical denomination — to study religion and connect with people across deep differences. 

You could say I was intrinsically motivated to (ahem) figure these relationships out. 

Inspired, I became an ordained pastor and sought to lead congregations and communities in interreligious dialogue in New Zealand, South Africa, the U.S., and Europe.  

What I came to realize along the way is many people simply weren’t as motivated as me. No matter my fancy degrees, slick PowerPoint slides, or authentic relationships with people of other faiths, many folks I invited to join me just didn’t care as much as I did. 

This motivational divide is what I came to call the apathy gap.

For Dr. Kezevino Aram, Joy Comes from Serving the Most Vulnerable

The township of Kovaipudur has a reputation.

Located in the foothills of the Sahyadri Mountain range and part of the city of Coimbatore, in Tamil Nadu, India, the township enjoys gentle mountain breezes and monsoon rains that create a generally serene setting of lush vegetation. Locals know Kovaipudur is cooler than the rest of the city.

But Kovaipudur is also known as the home of Shanti Ashram, an international centre for development, learning and collaboration founded by Dr. M. Aram and Mrs. Minoti Aram, who are Dr. Kezevino Aram´s parents,  in 1986 on the Gandhian principle of Sarvodaya (progress for all).

According to Shanti Ashram’s records, its community work impacts more than 250,000 people in Coimbatore and its environs. Dr. Kezevino Aram has been leading the Ashram as its President since 2014. Through her hands-on, collaborative approach, Aram has responded to numerous challenges and crises in her community— most recently the COVID-19 pandemic.

In India, attacks on Christians signal wider, worrying trends for religious minorities

Vigilante lynching mobs. State-sponsored harassment. Vandals defacing houses of worship. 

According to recent reports, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, and other religious minorities in India are being confronted by renewed and increased attacks.

In July 2021, the London School of Economics and Political Science, through research commissioned by the persecution watchdog Open Doors, reported that religious minorities in India are facing “imminent existential threat.” 

The most prominent source of this anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, and anti-Sikh sentiment is Hindutva, a type of Hindu nationalism that advocates for the transformation of constitutionally secular India into an ethno-religious state based on Hindu supremacy. 

Hindutva should be distinguished from Hindu religious traditions, some of the world’s most ancient religious texts and practices, as well as to traditions that are present throughout every part of the globe today.

Along with other religious minorities, Christians are believed to have allegiances that lie outside India — or having adopted the religion of colonial rulers — and thus are not “true Indians” according to Hindutva activists and advocates. Wanting to purify India of their presence, there has been an increase in violent rhetoric against, and orchestrated attacks on, Christians in recent years. 

Increased pressure, attacks

In December, Al Jazeera reported that human rights groups recorded more than 300 attacks on Christians and their places of worship from January to September 2021 alone. On February 25, 2022, a 35-year-old pastor was assaulted and tied to a post at a roadside in South Delhi. He was accused of forcing conversions on Hindus by his attackers. 

Christians account for around 2.3% of India’s population and are the nation’s third-largest religious group after Hindus and Muslims. Despite Hindutva-inspired allegations that Christianity is alien to India, it is believed that the religion could have taken root in the region some 2,000 years ago. Withhigher concentrations in some small, northeastern states like Nagaland, Mizoram, and Meghalaya, Christians are found throughout India, with significant populations in southern states like Tamil Nadu and Kerala as well as the northwestern state of Punjab. 

Rev. Dr. D. Christu Das, principal of Concordia Theological Seminary, Nagercoil, India (CTSN), said that Lutherans are among those facing state-sponsored pressure and orchestrated persecutory actions by local authorities. Although almost half of Christians are Catholic, there are around 4 million Lutherans in the country, making them India’s third largest Christian community and its second largest Protestant denomination after the Assemblies of God. 

In particular, Christu Das is concerned about anti-conversion bills, which ban changing one’s faith identification. These laws, said Christu Das, provide pretense for religiously motivated violence. 

Proponents of these laws accuse Christians of using money, power, and undue influence to force people into conversion. Some charge Christians with wanting to “convert all Hindus.” Connecting Christianity to European colonialism, one advocate of anti-conversion laws say that Christians have a “fanatical urge to destroy all global religious diversity in the name” of their religion.  

The regions where Christians face the most resistance and persecution are states where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a Hindu nationalist party, is a major player in state government. Although that can change every five years due to elections, state authorities both within and beyond the BJP often willingly ignore attacks or implicitly — sometimes explicitly — encourage their proliferation. 

Across India’s history as an independent nation, several states have passed “Freedom of Religion” laws to restrict religious conversions. More recently, anti-conversion laws have been passed in Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019), Jharkhand (2017), and Uttarakhand (2018). In November 2019, citing supposedly rising incidents of forced and fraudulent conversions, the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission recommended enacting a new law to regulate religious conversions. This led state governments in Uttar Pradesh and neighboring Madhya Pradesh to police religious conversions in the states in 2020 and 2021 respectively. 

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) — in concordance with the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) — said, “These laws claim to merely purge the use of force, fraud, and inducement from religious persuasion in the interest of public order. But these vague and overtly broad legislations are in fact based on a long-time propaganda by right-wing Hindu groups against Christian and Muslim minorities.”

To Christu Das, this means that these laws go against the universal human rights declaration and the guarantees of religious freedom contained therein. Believing that in a modern, globalized world, conversion from one religion to another is common, Christu Das said that people should be allowed to change their faiths according to their personal choice and not be coerced one way or another. 

“Religious transformation is a human rights issue”

“Religious transformation is a human rights issue,” he said, “conversion to any religion and profess and practice of any faith is a fundamental constitutional right to every Indian citizen. 

“So the anti-conversion bills, banning conversion, are against the fundamental rights of every citizen of India.”

Standing under a streetlight at around 8:00 pm local time, Aneeta (not her real name) said she has seen the steady rise of anti-Christian sentiment in her own lifetime. A college student in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Aneeta said that high school friends and their families began treating her with more disdain in recent years. 

“They started to call me names, to chide me for my faith, to accuse me of being anti-Indian,” she said. 

While the interactions never rose to the level of violence, she is concerned they might. Depending upon the politician elected, the popular mood, or the discourse online, throwaway comments can turn into open cruel quite quickly.

 Looking down at her phone, she said, “you see everything online these days: the reports of violence against Christians, the horrible things people say on social media, blaming Christians for everything from colonization to COVID-19.”  

Scholars like Edward Anderson, Arkotong Longkumer, and others have identified how the internet and social media has provided “a new space where Hindutva actors can flourish.” 

Reports indicate that when Hindutva hooligans attack Christians, they often try to snatch victims’ and witnesses’ phones, to stop them from recording the incidents. At the same time, they produce their own videos to spread disinformation, stir up hatred, and promote their agenda. 

Moreover, during the pandemic, Christians have been deliberately overlooked in the local distribution of government aid and have even been accused of spreading the virus.

For Thomas Schirrmacher, secretary general and CEO of the WEA, the way forward for Christians facing anti-conversion laws, attacks, and other limits on their religious freedom, is to work together with people of other faiths. 

Leading Christians into “conversations, cooperation, and witness,” Schirrmacher works closely with leaders from other religious traditions to try and guarantee the rights of all. 

In conversation with Muslims, Hindus, and others, Schirrmacher said evangelical Christians should willingly wade into the world of interreligious dialogue to provide protections for various religious minorities and guarantee the right to convert from one faith to another as a basic human right. 

Christu Das also sees the pressure facing Christians in India as a shared problem for all people of faith. “All religious minorities are impacted by these laws,” he said, “Sikh, Muslim, Jain, Paris, Anglo Indians, Christians, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians.” 

He said that the Indian constitution earmarks freedom of religion as one of its peoples’ fundamental rights. 

“Everyone should have the right of freedom of thought, conscience and religion, only subject to limitation for public safety, order, health, and to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of others,” he said, “that’s a treasure of our constitution.” 

“Religious freedom preserves India’s diversity, where people of different faiths, worldviews, and beliefs can peacefully live together without fear of punishment,” said Christu Das.  

These attacks on Christians, he said, are more than the persecution of a particular faith, but an attack on all Indians and their fundamental freedoms.

Raising up women's voices across religious traditions

Women and girls are effective and powerful leaders and peacemakers, often playing a critical role in religious traditions across the world.  At the same time, and despite advances in gender equality, women and girls still face hurdles when it comes to having a voice in local, regional, and international religious bodies. 

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, I am sharing a few select stories that reflect how women and girls are involved in interreligious dialogue initiatives across the globe, and how their participation and leadership results in substantial and positive change. 

I invite you to explore their diverse experiences and critical perspectives on the opportunities, as well as the constraints, women and girls continue to face.

Alissa Wahid

The work of the Gusdurian Network Indonesia

Azza Karam

The Role Of Women In Faith And Diplomacy

Ela Gandhi

Serving humanity from a Gandhian perspective

KAICIID Women

Reflecting on Women’s Role in Interreligious Dialogue

Rabbi & Imam Attend Holocaust Remembrance Ceremony at Auschwitz-Birkenau

At a time of increased antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate, and xenophobia in Europe, it is a powerful moment when a rabbi and an imam stand side-by-side in solidarity, with Holocaust survivors, one another, and on behalf of Europe’s Jews and Muslims.

On Thursday, 27 January Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland and Imam Adham Abd El Aal, representative of the Grand Mufti of Poland in Warsaw, did just that at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD) ceremonies at Auschwitz-Birkenau, a Nazi death camp where more than 1.1m people, mostly Jews, were killed.

The pair are part of the Muslim Jewish Leadership Council-Europe (MJLC), an organization founded to serve the need to free members of religious minorities from prejudice, false claims, discrimination, and violence.

Seventeen years ago, on 1 November 2005, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly designated 27 January as IHRD. The yearly commemoration marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945 and is meant to remember and honor Nazism’s many victims. It is also intended to educate people about the Holocaust, prevent further genocide, and denounce all forms of “religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.”

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s IHRD ceremony at Auschwitz-included only a handful of guests, mostly survivors and local leaders from the religious and political spheres. Among those who gathered at the memorial in Birkenau were Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, Imam Adham Abd El Aal, representative of the Grand Mufti of Poland in Warsaw, the Roman-Catholic Bishop Roman Pindel, the Orthodox Bishop Atanzy and Bishop Adrian Korczago from the Polish Evangelical-Augsburg Church. 

On the importance of the MJLC’s presence at the event, Schudrich said, “What happened in Auschwitz was a Jewish tragedy. It was a human tragedy. But all of humanity needs to learn the lesson: the world cannot be silent when mass murder and genocide has taken place. Therefore, we must speak out together. It’s our responsibility,” he said.