The activists safeguarding sacred sites across the globe

During an interview in September 2021, Anas Alabbadi, Deputy Director for KAICIID’s Programmes Department, was distracted by a news notification that flashed across his screen: German police had just prevented an attack on a synagogue in Hagen, a city just east of Düsseldorf, Germany.

Having witnessed the devastation of the synagogue attack in the eastern German city of Halle in 2019, Alabbadi was struck again by how events like these underscored the emphasis KAICIID places on supporting and encouraging projects that promote the protection of religious sites.

“We believe, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that people everywhere must be allowed to practice their faith in peace,” he said, “that religious sites and all places of worship and contemplation should be safe havens, not sites of terror or bloodshed.”

Across the globe, attacks on houses of worship and sacred sites are on the rise.

For example, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops reported in July 2020 that there were 97 attacks on churches in the U.S. since May 2020 alone.

Elsewhere last April, the walls of a mosque in the French city of Rennes were defaced with Islamophobic graffiti. In August 2021, a Hindu temple was ransacked in the remote town of Bhong in the eastern Pakistani province of Punjab.

The list, as they say, could go on and on.

Noting that religious sites are of such significance that it makes them particularly endangered, Alabbadi said, “we want to make sure to protect religious sites so that they can continue to be facilitators of positive peace.”

Photo by Varun Pyasi via Unsplash.

Safeguarding Sacred Sites From Indonesia To Algeria

Given the global scope of the issue, KAICIID is actively providing support to projects to protect places of worship from Africa to Asia, Europe to the Middle East.

When the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) started the process of developing an action plan for reacting to the increase in attacks on religious sites after the bloodshed at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2019, KAICIID provided immediate support. KAICIID’s background research included supplying quotes from religious texts for the preamble, information on UNESCO’s work on the preservation of religious sites, and recommendations on the prevention of attacks under UNESCO’s purview.

The result was the “Plan of Action to Safeguard Religious Sites.” According to its preamble, the plan “is a global call to rally around our most basic tenets of humanity and solidarity and to reaffirm the sanctity of all religious sites and the safety of all worshippers who visit houses of worship in a spirit of compassion and respect.”

For Alabbadi, the Plan of Action’s greatest strength lies in its systematic approach to the problem and focus on prevention and response.

“The emphasis is on education, countering hate speech – including on social media – and being prepared to provide care and support when an attack happens,” Alabbadi said.

“Translating such recommendations requires better collaboration between policymakers and religious actors,” he said, “religious actors have a lot to contribute in developing and implementing policies related to the protection of scared sites.”

To that end, over the last two years KAICIID supported projects in the Arab region bringing together peace education and the protection of sacred sites. These projects included the development of a mobile app in Algeria and youth trainings in Tunisia.

In Indonesia, KAICIID organised the 2019 “Jakarta Conference” with the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation (OIC), bringing together religious leaders and policymakers from across Southeast Asia to discuss challenges and opportunities for protecting holy sites. 

The result was the “Jakarta Statement: Together for Diversity — Dialogue in Action,” which included a collective pledge to recognise, preserve, and protect “sites of worship and spiritual heritage and allowing worshippers to use them in peace and harmony.”

Photo by Rohan Reddy via Unsplash.

Reaffirming The Sanctity Of Sacred Sites In Africa

In Africa, KAICIID partnered with the African Union to support 12 projects organised by members of its Interfaith Dialogue Forum (AU-IFDF) specifically focused on the protection of sacred sites.

Agustin Nunez, KAICIID’s Senior Programme Manager for the Africa Region, said the AU’s main theme for 2021 is the promotion of cultural heritage, including the protection of sacred sites.

The partnership, he said, is meant to bring both religious and community actors to the policymaking table “to raise awareness and advocate for the development of regional mechanisms in Africa” to do so.

Among the projects is one in Djibouti where KAICIID-supported religious leaders, elders, youth, CSOs, and NGOs are working together to build a platform to collaborate in preserving and restoring local religious assets. Chief among their priorities is the preservation of holy sites in the eastern African nation.

Not only do such projects contribute concretely to the protection of religious sites, but “promote a peaceful, secure Africa whose development is people-driven” said Nunez, “especially by its women and youth.”

Elsewhere, in the city of Jos, Nigeria, Rev. Zaka Ahuche Peter said his KAICIID Fellows training equipped him to do the same in his country.

That Fellows training includes, “educational modules on the symbolic importance of sacred sites and build Fellows’ capacity to communicate this and diffuse situations through education and creating space for dialogue,” said Alabbadi.

Peter said his relationship with another KAICIID Fellow of a different faith, Fatima Madaki, reveals the “human factor” beyond distrust, helping foster resilience and a mutual respect for the “Other.” He said these kinds of relationships are vital as “attacks on religious sites in Nigeria seem not to abate.

“The fact still remains that ignorance, fanaticism and lack of the fear of God are responsible for destruction of holy sites,” he said, “but in collaboration with religious leaders and training from KAICIID, we are able to send the correct teachings out.”

Farther to the south, in the Nigerian state of Kaduna, Mugu Zakka Bako received a KAICIID 2021-2022 micro grant to organise an interreligious dialogue between local government, civil society organisations, and community leaders to strengthen coherent narratives to respond to violent extremism.

An active and trained peacebuilder whose passion for non-violence as a solution to conflict was moulded out of personal violence against his family members, Bako said “we have been bewitched by a lot of conflicts over natural resources and for ethno-religious, political, and economic reasons.

The conflicts have included numerous attacks on religious sites. “This has happened recently with the burning of churches and mosques in Plateau and some parts of Kaduna state,” he said, “the incessant attacks create insecurity and insecurity is one of Nigeria’s biggest challenges.”

As part of his KAICIID-funded interreligious dialogue sessions, Bako takes participants to different visits to religious sites.

The reactions, said Bako, have been overwhelming. “The outcome has been to foster resilience in the communities where I have worked,” he said, “it has helped religious leaders develop coping capacity and become aware of the need for them to protect their religious sites.

“Today, they are working towards interreligious groupings where Christians protect worship sites of the Muslims, while the Muslims do the same for Christians,” he said.

These kinds of programmes, Alabbadi said, are particularly impactful. With an eye toward expanding programmes like them in the Arab region and Europe in years to come, Alabbadi said, “when imams, priests, and other religious leaders visit each other in hard times and in good times, it signals to the community that it’s okay for them to do the same.”

““This level of relationship is what we call positive peace, to visit and to know what’s behind those walls,””

— Anas Alabbadi

“It is easy to believe negative stories about what is happening behind these walls when you stand outside them,” said Alabbadi, “but once you step inside and see another’s sacred space with your own eyes, it’s a profound, life-changing, life-affirming experience.”

*This post originally appeared on KAICIID.org.

Weimar: The Capital of Contemporary Yiddishland?

In a clear homage to the Beatles’ 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album cover and its wonderful whirl of colorful visuals, the poster for this year’s Yiddish Summer Weimar (YSW) festival features a menagerie of cut-out visages: from Johann Sebastian Bach and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to wandering cattle and a bedecked bass drum reading, “Makonovetsky’s Wandering Stars Club Band.”

Together, the collage symbolizes the transcultural and time-spanning story of Yiddish culture and music — its progenitors and critics, its historical influences and contemporary performative interpreters.

At the center of it all stands Alan Bern.  

Bern playing the accordion. PHOTO: Yulia Kabakova, courtesy of Alan Bern

The Bloomington, Indiana-born composer, musician, educator and cultural activist made his way to Berlin, Germany in 1987. There, he helped found Brave Old World, a band described by The Washington Post as the first “supergroup” of klezmer music’s contemporary revival movement.

Klezmer music is an instrumental tradition of Ashkenazi Jews of Europe. Simply meaning “musician,” the word “klezmer” reflects, and conveys, its broader Yiddish roots.

A spoken language of a considerable portion of Ashkenazi Jews for centuries, Yiddish emerged in 9th-century Europe as a mix of German vernacular, written Hebrew, and Aramaic, Slavic, and Romantic linguistic influences and vocabulary. Meaning “Jewish” in the language itself, Yiddish is also the vehicle for a rich culture heritage of everyday Jewish life and celebration: proverbs, humor, idioms and music.

Over the last 30-odd years, klezmer – and Yiddish language and culture in general – has been enjoying quite the comeback.

Knoblauch Klezmer Band · Moustache

In the midst of this rejuvenation, Bern and Brave Old World were invited to conduct a workshop on Yiddish music in the central German city of Weimar as part of the European Summer Academy in 1999. The workshop was a wild success and Bern became the founding artistic director of what is now known as YSW — a five-week summer institute and festival for the study, creation and performance of Yiddish culture and music in the heart of Germany.

Today, it is one of the most widely recognized programs for the renewal of Yiddish culture in the world, receiving awards from the European Union and the German Music Council, among others. In 2016 Bern was awarded the Weimar Prize in recognition of his significant cultural contributions to the city.

For Bern, YSW is about more than showcasing Yiddish music; it’s about exploring Yiddish culture as a complex, and continually evolving, convergence of European and non-European customs. It’s also about empowering people for creativity and connection on a continent evermore marked by diversity and difference.

Streaming Ramadan TV to the World

Fatima al-Masri, a sales consultant in her 20s, grew up watching TV drama serials during Ramadan as a family tradition in Amman, Jordan. “We will be talking about it for hours, for days even,” she says. “You have no idea how much time we spend watching these shows, analyzing them. It opens up a lot of conversation.”

For nearly 2 billion people worldwide, the holy month of Ramadan is not just 29 or 30 days of fasting from dawn to sunset, prayer and charity. It is also a month of social gatherings and cultural events—including television dramas produced for the season.

As travel and public health restrictions have hampered in-person socializing during Ramadan both in 2020 and this year, social media and television have been playing greater roles than ever.

Now along with searching YouTube for advice on how best to fast or what to make for the day’s fast-breaking iftar,observing Ramadan also involves deciding among apps such as Ramadan Diet, Daily Dua or dozens more. It means picking out Ramadan-themed gifs to share on Whatsapp threads. And it means selecting which TV series to binge with the family—and the options are overwhelming. Traditional Ramadan programming powerhouses like Egypt and Turkey as well as ones in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, Algeria and the UAE are all serving up ever-more sumptuous buffets of social dramas, cooking shows, music specials, comedies and religious programming.

Often described by Arab media experts as a sweeps season for the Middle East, Ramadan boosts TV viewership by up to 45 percent on traditional platforms, and YouTube has recently seen three-fold to four-fold Ramadan spikes. This is why Arabic-language networks so often premiere their top shows in Ramadan—from perennially popular prank shows like Ramez to cooking shows with popular Moroccan chef Assia Othman to Al Namous, a Kuwaiti drama featuring stories across social classes set in the 1940s and 1970s, and dozens more. 

“If you want to understand the region, you have to see it through its pop culture.”

— Joseph Fahim, film critic

While satellite channels have delivered programs like these to millions of Arabic speakers for decades, streaming platforms like Netflix and YouTube are now bringing even more to new audiences, particularly in Europe, North America and Asia, with subtitling in major world languages. 

Along with widened distribution and added viewership, streaming platforms and competitive programming are pushing producers to offer increasingly contemporary storylines and series shorter than a month’s worth of 30 episodes. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ramadan TV has offered a window on places viewers couldn’t travel to and also offered cultural insights.

“If you want to understand the region, you have to see it through its pop culture,” says Egyptian film critic Joseph Fahim. “A good way to start learning is through a show.”

Finding spiritual solace in Berlin, the not-so-secular city

Both before and during the pandemic — and perhaps for years to come — religion remains a potent force in Germany’s not-so-secular city, Berlin.

When Harvard theologian Harvey Cox served as an ecumenical worker in Berlin in the 1960s, he watched the city and its people wrestle with their identity , surmising that they were taking steps toward a more secular future in the aftermath of conflict and chaos. 

It was in Berlin that the seeds of an idea — later called the “secularization thesis” — began to germinate in his mind. In his 1965 book, “The Secular City,” Cox proposed that as societies develop, the need for religion diminishes, and as a result, religion itself declines. 

And yet, as cosmopolitan as ever, Berliners — its people, not its pastries — still turn to a diverse array of religious sources to meet multiple needs: from social contact to providing a semblance of order in a tumultuous world. 

The magnificent tale of Moroccan acrobats in 19th-century England

Mohamed “Mo” Salah, the 28-year-old Egyptian professional footballer, is idolized by fans across the globe for being a goal-scoring machine for Liverpool Football Club in the English Premier League and Egypt’s national squad. But beyond his adept dribbling and scintillating scoring, the “Egyptian King” has left his mark on Liverpool in other ways. 

Researchers from Stanford University in the U.S. claimed that as a visibly Muslim, and very successful, footballer, Salah has helped humanize Islam not only in Liverpool, but in Britain writ large. They called this the “Mo Salah Effect.”

Even so, they suggested, the effect isn’t limited to Salah. They wrote that other “celebrities with role-model like qualities have long been thought to shape social attitudes.” 

Preston, UK, journalist Ismaeel Nakhuda poses beside the gravestone that gives the acrobat’s full name, Achmed Ben Ibrahim. (Photo courtesy Ismaeel Nakhuda/AramcoWorld Magazine)

For instance, about an hour’s drive outside of Liverpool lies the small city of Preston. There, around the turn of the 20th-century, a traveling Moroccan acrobat named Ali — known as Achmed ben Ibrahim — was part of a prominent community of Muslims that left their mark on Victorian British society. 

In fact, before there was a “Mo Salah Effect,” one might say there was an “Achmed ben Ibrahim Effect,” or, at the least, a “Moroccan acrobat effect.” 

The connections between the two Muslim athletes — Salah and Achmed — is a story that involves a traveling troupe of Moroccan acrobats, a Liverpudlian lawyer, and a mysterious grave located on the margins of a middle-class Lancashire cemetery.

It is also the story of the evolution of Muslim life in England and the cosmopolitan transformation of a port city like Liverpool, and how the early arrival of immigrants helped pave the way for the likes of Mo Salah to act as cultural humanitarians today.

After 1,700 years of complicated history, Germany's Jews look to the future

Just a few steps down from Erfurt’s famous Krämerbrücke and its boutique shops, bespoke ice cream, and local charm, you’ll a mikveh (bath used for ritual purification) that dates back to the 13th-century. It’s a testament to the rich, and long, history of Jews and Jewish life in the central German city.

As I was standing in Erfurt’s mikveh a few weeks ago, I took a silent moment to reflect on the immensity of 900 years of Jewish history in the city.

Staring at the steps, I imagined the women who would descend them to bathe in the Gera river’s waters and wondered what their lives were like, what stories they could tell, what histories were embedded in the dusty sandstone and murky water of the memorial right in the midst of Erfurt’s old town.

I was humbled by the immensity of that history, the honor of standing in such a space and being given the opportunity to share such stories.

Mühlhausen citizens Nancy Krug, Pastor Teja Begrich, and Dr. Antje Schloms, pictured here in the town’s 19th-century synagogue, are part of honoring the history of Jewish life in the city. PHOTO: Ken Chitwood.

Thankfully, there are plenty of opportunities to learn about Jewish history in Germany — from well-known museums and monuments in Frankfurt and Berlin to lesser-known, but equally valuable, synagogues in places like Mühlhausen and Berkach.

But for this piece, I wanted to learn about more than history. And so, I spoke to Jewish leaders, researchers, historians, and other experts to learn what their history can tell us today and what Jewish life looks like in Germany now and in the near future.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service: “Germany celebrates a historic milestone of Jewish culture — while looking forward.” 

*Many thanks go to the various people I spoke to for this piece. I am working on a couple of other articles related to this research, but for now I wanted to mention all the people who contributed background, provided coordination, or otherwise assisted with this piece: Kristin Luther with the city of Erfurt; Dr. Maria Stürzebecher, also with the city of Erfurt; Carolina von Stojentin with Thüringer Tourismus; Gundela Bach in the village of Berkach; Nancy Krug of the city of Mühlhausen; Pastor Teja Begrich of Mühlhausen; Dr. Antje Schloms of the Mühlhausen city archives, Prof. Dr. Annegret Schüle of Erinnerungsort Topf & Söhne; Prof. Dr. Carsten Schapkow of the University of Oklahoma; Alan Bern with Yiddish Summer Weimar; Helene Shani Braun in Berlin; Rabbi Alexander Nachama of the  Jüdische Landesgemeinde Thüringen; Manfred Levy, education director at Jüdischen Museum Frankfurt; Alexandra Husemeyer of the Tora ist Leben project; and Martin Kranz of the Achava Festspiele Thüringen.

"No Victor but Allah": The Islamic Built Legacy of Puerto Rico

ولا غالبَ إلا الله

Wa la Ghalib Illa Allah

No hay vencedor excepto Allah. 

There is no victor except Allah. 

Walking past the pastel-colored façades of Viejo San Juan (Old San Juan), you might miss the arabesque arches and azulejo tile work that adorns buildings like the French restaurant at 311 Calle de Fortaleza or the elite cultural institution el Ateneo Puertorriqueño.

Both of these stunning buildings bear the remnants of a little-known, but resilient, slice of Puerto Rico’s history — that of how Islamic architecture came to shape the built environment of the island and other parts of the Americas during the Spanish colonial period and beyond.

The words above — “there is no victor except Allah” — are featured hundreds of times on the walls of the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. They can also be found on the façade of 311 Calle de Fortaleza or in the Ateneo Puertorriqueño’s lobby.

More than architectural curiosity, these vestiges of Islamic influence in Puerto Rican art, culture, and society become a strong identity referent for Puerto Rican Muslims who feel marginalized from more popular and sanctioned understandings of what counts as “Puerto Rican.”

This story forms a key part of a new podcast episode from “Kerning Cultures,” put together by Alice Fordham.

I got to consult on this project and am super excited that it is out in the world. I encourage you to listen to the podcast and learn more about how Puerto Rican Muslims make meaning through the island’s Andalusian and neo-Moorish architecture.

THANKS:

Thanks to Alice Fordham for reaching out about this piece and involving me in the process. It was an honor to contribute. Also, a huge shout out to Kemal Delgado and María (Maru) Eugenia Pabón. Kemal is one of the Puerto Rican Muslims I’ve learned much from over the last few years and Maru was a fellow participant in an in-depth Arabic language program in Amman, Jordan with my wife, Paula. Not only am I glad to see friends and colleagues produce such a beautiful, resonant story, but I am pleased to see the Puerto Rican Muslim experience find a broader audience. It’s a narrative I am humbled to share, in this way and more.

Growing Hair for Jesus, German Village Plans for 2022

Jesus is thrilled to see you again in May 2022. 

Or, at least, Frederik Mayet, the man who will play Jesus in the 42nd Oberammergau Passion Play season next year,  is excited to welcome attendees — many of them pilgrims — back to his village, after a two-year postponement of the play due to the coronavirus.

The play started in 1633, is a reenactment of the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus, with performances taking place once every 10 years. In the intervening years, it’s only been canceled a few times: once for the Franco-Prussian War, once for each of the World Wars, and last year, because of COVID-19.

“I’m really looking forward to see people coming together again,” said Mayet, “we worked really great together as a village being on stage for half a year before the lockdown and then suddenly, from one day to the next, you don’t see anyone for weeks and months.

“We are optimistic about next year, because we really want to have this situation back,” he said. 

The passion play is now set to run May 14 to October 2 next year. The actors of the village formally began to prepare last month on Ash Wednesday, when director Christian Stückl put out an official “hair and beard decree.”

The decree instructed all the local actors to “let their hair grow out, and the males to also grow a beard.”

Mayet said, “with the hair growing, you start to grow into your role as well.” 

Your own personal tour through LutherCountry

In 2018, when I had the opportunity to go on a personal tour through LutherCountry, I decided to travel with my dad. 

That decision was inspired. 

The bratwursts on the market square in Weimar, the early morning mist settling around the base of the Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, the reverberating sound of the church bells from the Castle Church in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg — all of it was richer watching my father enjoy the tastes, sights, and sounds of LutherCountry for the first time. 

At the end our journey, saying our goodbyes at Berlin’s Tegel airport, we tearfully said to one another, “we may never get the chance to do something like this together again.” 

Little did we know that two years later, we would be feeling the weight of those words all the more. Since that trip, we’d been planning for both my parents to come in May 2020. The hotels were booked, the itinerary set, and the flights confirmed. You could almost smell the bratwurst that we were going to be chowing down on together. 

Then, COVID-19 happened. 

Your Personal Tour Through LutherCountry

In lieu of detailed itineraries, the plan for this trip is pretty straightforward:

September 10, 2020

1:00 PM EST // 10:00 AM PST

Register in advance for the meeting HERE. 

The webinar will be held via Zoom. Participants need a working internet connection, the volumed turned on, and a comfortable chair to sit back in and experience LutherCountry virtually.

All-in-all the webinar will last around one hour, depending on the Q&A session.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Having planned for months to welcome my parents to our new home in Germany, we were devastated when we had to cancel everything. And I know, we are far from alone. 

Many of you also canceled, postponed, or gave up on long-hoped-for trips to dream destinations. Many of you told me that you were planning to come to Germany this summer or were hoping to come to the Christmas markets this year. 

COVID-19 upended those plans. 

Feeling our pain, the two German states that make-up “LutherCountry” — Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt — are coming to the rescue and bringing LutherCountry to our homes with, “Your personal tour through LutherCountry” on Thursday, September 10th.

The “Your personal tour through LutherCountry” webinar will be hosted by LutherCountry expert Mike Adams, CEO of TourComm Germany, who will guide participants to stops along the way, including Wittenberg, Eisleben, Erfurt, and the Wartburg. 

Each city played a special role in Martin Luther’s life and the story of the Reformation. 

That story will come alive with the help of tour guides such as Katerina von Bora in Wittenberg, my friend, and Texan-turned-German, Rev. Dr. Robert G. Moore, Rev. Scott Moore at the Augustinian Monastery in Erfurt, and special guests from the Wartburg and Eisleben.

My dad appreciating the historical significance in Martin Luther’s room at the Wartburg, Eisenach. (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

For those who have lost loved ones, whose livelihoods have been threatened, or whose lives are at risk on the frontlines, travel can be pretty far down on the priority list in the midst of the pandemic. In the end, traveling is a privilege. 

And yet, people are starting to travel again — camping, taking road trips, or small weekend getaways with loved ones — and planning for dream-trips in the future when restrictions are lifted and life returns to a bit of normalcy. 

“For many of us, travel is a vibrant part of life. It is part of what makes life worth ‘living.’”

As we all slowly come to the realization that the virus will be with us for quite some time and that we will have to adjust our lives accordingly, he role that travel plays in our lives will have to change too. 

Planned trips may be delayed awhile. When we are finally able to travel again, those trips might look very different than before the pandemic. 

With that in mind, LutherCountry is not only going to take you on a “personal tour,” but invite you to share your own questions and concerns. At the end of the webinar, participants will be invited by Mike Adams to ask anything they like about Luther and his homeland and how they might be able to plan their next trip to LutherCountry, whenever that may be. 

The famous Martin Luther statue in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg (PHOTO: Ken Chitwood)

Maybe it will be to see the Oberammergau Passion Play, scheduled for May 2020 only to be postponed until May 2022, the same year as the 500th anniversary of Luther’s translation of the Bible. Or, perhaps it will be to celebrate the 500th wedding anniversary of Katherina von Bora and Martin Luther in Lutherstadt-Wittenberg in 2025. 

Whatever your dreams, the “personal tour through LutherCountry” webinar might be the perfect place to start your planning. 

“We Need Each Other to Survive”: How Interfaith Orgs are Responding to COVID-19

When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Zaw Zaw Aung’s first thought was how the disease might put further strain on already fraught relationships in Myanmar, where there are ongoing tensions between Buddhists and Muslims.

Aung is the Programme Manager of Paungsie Metta Initiatives (PMI), a multi-religious network of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, and Muslims that promotes peaceful dialogue across Myanmar.

Rather than endangering PMI’s efforts, the crisis has proved an opportunity to strengthen bridge-building between Myanmar’s multiple religious communities, Aung said.

As part of my reporting for the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), I had the opportunity to speak with Zaw Zaw Aung and other interfaith leaders in Nigeria, Indonesia, the Middle East, and the Central African Republic about their efforts in the wake of the global pandemic.

These are their stories of courage in the face of the coronavirus, making connections in an age of social distancing, and how interfaith responses to the global crisis are creating fertile ground for future inter-religious engagement.

Come, let us wear face masks in worship: Lockdown measures eased, but Christians struggle with coronavirus restrictions

Franziska König always enjoys getting a note from her pastor. Even so, she never expected to get one like she did last week.

“The message started out normally, asking me how I am doing,” König said, “how I am fairing in these terrible times and so on.”

Then, her pastor told her that their small evangelical church in Berlin was going to reopen after being closed for weeks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That was good news.

“But it was weird when he said I would have to make ‘reservations’ for my family to have a spot on Sunday,” said König. “That’s certainly never happened before.”

König and her congregation are not alone in navigating a “new normal” for worship gatherings as lockdown limits ease across Germany.

While Germany’s federal government makes plans for tracing infection chains and reopening public facilities, churches across Germany are developing their own plans for how to restart worship with new regulations such as compulsory face masks, the prohibition of physical contact, and restrictions on congregational singing.

Questions about singing, more than anything else, have caused consternation among evangelicals in Germany. Perhaps this comes as no surprise. It was the German reformer Martin Luther, after all, who said that “next to the Word of God, music deserves the highest praise.”

However, Lothar Wieler, the head of Germany’s top health research organization—the Robert Koch Institute (RKI)—strongly advised against communal singing of any kind while there are still fears about the spread of the coronavirus. Wieler explained in the official biweekly COVID-19 press conference that “evidence shows that during singing, the virus drops appear to fly particularly far.”

Some even say that singing is a “super-spreader.”

The Other Oil from the Middle East

Petite, iridescent bottles and bulk household products filled with or using pungent, concentrated, natural “essential” oils have become so common on retail shelves and websites that they are almost unremarkable features of the modern consumer landscape. Essential oils are increasingly part of a lifestyle—like yoga or organic foods—that appeals to young and old, men and women. As recently as a decade ago, anything infused with the sweet-smelling fragrances of essential oils may have been associated more with patchouli-redolent bohemians. But today, buying, wearing and diffusing essential oils is nearly as commonplace as the online shopping that has helped popularize them.

According to market research firm Statista, the global market value for essential oils is projected to reach $27 billion by 2022, based on estimates done before the covid-19 outbreak. The market in the us alone is currently worth $4 billion, and essential oils now help scent perfumes, soaps, cosmetics, flavorings, cleaning products, lotions, candles, aromatherapy products and even aerosols such as “Sleep Serenity Moonlit Lavender,” a “bedroom mist” by Febreze. Mixed with jujube bark extract, they are also found in Sephora’s Christophe Robin shampoos. The list could go on. 

The growing popularity of essential oils is the latest chapter in a history of use and fascination that dates back more than 3,000 years. Used through the centuries for staying healthy, worshipping, sleeping well, de-stressing, making dinner and just smelling nice, what were known in classical Greece and Rome as “odiferous oils and ointments of the Orient”—as the late organic chemist A. J. Haagen-Smit alliterated in 1961—have wafted west. Along the way they have infused not only scents but also dollars into major retail chains such as Carrefour and Walmart, as well as independent specialty companies, from boutiques to multilevel marketers that now rank nearly alongside Avon and Mary Kay Cosmetics. The passage of essential oils from East to West is a story of encounter and exchange, invention and inquiry, trade and transcendence that continues today.

If one follows the history of essential oils and their journeys, uses and prestige as they traveled west, it is apparent they have been deemed valuable—indeed essential—elements and accoutrements of comfort and wellness for thousands of years.

A Butcher By Name, This Muslim Surgeon Saves Lives Across Battle Lines

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt — the city of learned philosophers and a once-great library, named after Alexander the Great— I head west toward Borg el-Arab to meet Dr. Mohammed Elgazzar, who could be considered a torch bearer for the legacy of Alexandrian medicine.

My car passes numerous pick-ups going in both directions, carrying bovine burdens.

Today is Eid al-Adha— the feast of the sacrifice— and these are the chosen beasts for ritual slaughter. Remembering the story of how God commanded Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ismail as a test of faith, Muslims slaughter an animal on Eid al-Adha, recalling Ibrahim’s sacrifice and the importance of submission to the will of God.

It is hard to count how many cows I see on my 45-minute drive, but I estimate around 60. My driver, Ahmed, tells me that a cow costs around 55 Egyptian pounds (around $3.25 USD) per kilogram.

I arrive in Borg al-Arab and join Elgazzar and his two sons there to sacrifice their family’s cow and have it butchered for fattah — a traditional dish of rice, pita, and beef. According to the Sunnah— the life and traditions of the prophet Muhammed— one-third of the animal goes to families who paid for it, another third goes to those less fortunate, and the final third to friends, extended family and neighbors. 

The Elgazzar cow, presently fighting the group of men seeking to subdue it before slaughter, cost around 26,235 EGP (about $1,583 USD), split between seven families. 

Elgazzar makes his way to the front of the pressing crowd with the head butcher and three  assistants. They stretch the cow’s neck out with a blindfold over its eyes and its appendages pulled aside by ropes. With a single move and an exclamation of “Allahu Akbar!” the butcher and Elgazzar make the deadly cut. 

Butchers prepare a cow for ritual sacrifice at The Republic Butcher and Grill in Eid al-Adha in Burj Al Arab, Egypt. Photo by Ken Chitwood.

The slice is silent, swift and the blood spills out quickly. It looks like a poorly made corn-syrup concoction from a 1950s American war movie. Unreal and yet, visceral. Elgazzar appears unaffected by the process. 

After a few minutes, the cow breathes its last and hangs from a chain, to be butchered over several hours.

Elgazzar comments on the anatomy of the beast with the precise eye of a doctor and gives suggestions to the butchers as they make their cuts.

Tiring of the butchering process, we both step outside for some fresh air. As the heat of the day intensifies, I ask Elgazzar about the ironic juxtaposition of wielding a knife to take a life, compared to his usual use of knives to save them. 

“These are completely different,” he says sternly, “But I would always prefer to save the life, always.”

Disciplined, dignified and driven by a resonant desire to save those on the brink of death, Elgazzar— whose surname ironically means “the butcher” in Arabic— first thought of medicine as a means to save his mother from a terminal illness. Not able to save his mother, he went on to save countless more lives as a renowned and award-winning war surgeon on both sides of conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.

A short history of hajj cancellations

Saudi Arabia has urged Muslims to delay their plans for the hajj, amid speculation that the obligatory pilgrimage may be canceled this year due to the coronavirus.

Earlier this year, Saudi authorities halted travel to holy sites as part of the umrah, the “lesser pilgrimage” that takes place throughout the year.

Canceling the hajj, however, would mean a massive economic hitfor the country and many businesses globally, such as the hajj travel industry. Millions of Muslims visit the Saudi kingdom each year, and the pilgrimage has not been canceled since the founding of the Saudi Kingdom in 1932. 

But as a scholar of global Islam, I have encountered many instances in the more than 1,400-year history of the pilgrimage when its planning had to be altered due to armed conflicts, disease or just plain politics.

Plague Started Their Passion Play in 1633. COVID-19 Canceled It in 2020.

As an epidemic raged across Europe, a picturesque German village in the mountainous south of Bavaria decided to do something about it. 

Having already lost 80 of their own to the plague, the villagers of Oberammergau pledged to perform the Passion of Jesus Christ—his suffering, death, and resurrection—every tenth year, so that no one else might die. 

So goes the historical legend of the origins of the Oberammergau Passion Play, an almost four-centuries-old tradition that takes place once every 10 years. 

The year of the pledge was 1633, not 2020. The Pest—German for plague—was the so-called “Black Death,” not the COVID-19 pandemic.

But, in an ironic twist of fate, the 42nd Oberammergau season—set to run between May 16 to October 4, 2020—was postponed last week due to measures taken by local government authorities in response to the new coronavirus outbreak. 

For my latest story in Christianity Today, I spoke to organizers, tour operators, locals, and potential pilgrims about their hopes, fears, and the realities of what it means to postpone a once-in-a-decade ritual in light of COVID-19’s rapid spread across the globe.

Coronavirus: How a Possible Epidemic is Shaping Muslim Pilgrimages

Coronavirus news, fears, and realities are impacting everything — even sacred pilgrimages.

Due to concerns over the global spread of the coronavirus – especially in nearby Iran – Saudi Arabia has temporarily suspended travel to its holy sites. Millions of Muslims visit the Saudi kingdom around the year for pilgrimage.

The current travel restrictions prevent the entry of both overseas pilgrims and Saudi citizens into the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This has had a direct impact on the umrah pilgrimage, known as the “lesser pilgrimage,” that can be performed at almost any time of the year.

The question is whether or not the continuing spread of the virus will put a halt to the hajj later this year.

Click below to read about how past experiences with epidemics might shape the decision and understand the difference between umrah and hajj.

O For a Global Tongue to Sing: Why German Evangelicals Are Praising God in English

English is the first thing you notice at Hillsong Berlin. The church was meeting at the Kino in der Kulturbrauerei—a movie theater in a historic brewery, just one tram stop from the last standing section of the Berlin Wall—but on Sunday night the sign out front said, “Welcome Home.” A smiling cadre of young, fashionable, and diverse volunteers from around the world greeted people in accented English.

Inside, the entire service is in English, including the sermon and all the worship songs. Participants sing “Wake,” “What a Beautiful Name,” and “King of Kings.” Most international Hillsong churches translate their services from the local language into English. In Berlin, there is no translation. The service is just in English. That isn’t Hannah Fischer’s first language, but that’s part of why she comes to Hillsong Berlin.

“People from outside Germany can’t really understand how awkward it is to be Christian here,” she said. “I could never praise God like that in my language.”

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther insisted that Christians needed to hear the gospel in their own language, in words they could understand. When the Reformation swept Germany, people abandoned Latin worship for German prayers and praise.

Today, however, German Christians like Fischer are turning from their own language to a more global tongue: English. They say the foreign language allows them to loosen their German identity, praise God in an uninhibited way, and connect with a global, cosmopolitan Christianity.

Would Martin Luther vote for a "neo-Nazi" party?

“Hier stehe ich und kann nicht anders.” // “Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise.”

Inspired by his original defiant declaration at the Diet of Worms in 1521, the apocryphal saying of the 16th-century rebel monk and reformer Martin Luther has come to be a proud proverb of Protestantism and symbolic of virtuous subversion. 

However, in the run-up to state elections in the eastern German state of Thuringia on October 27th, the National Democratic Party (NDP) is playing off the famous phrase on some of their election posters. 

Instead of “Here I stand,” Martin Luther is made to say, “I would vote NPD, I cannot do otherwise” alongside the NPD’s slogan “defend the homeland.”

Amid Ramadan celebrations, Jordanians fear an uncertain future

Traveling in Jordan during Ramadan presents a buffet of both blessings and challenges.

On the one hand, it’s a joy to experience the alternate rhythm of a nation fasting from food, drink, and the pleasures of life from sunrise to sunset and to observe how that changes the daily schedule and provides margins of time and space for spiritual reflection and rejuvenation.

On the other hand, it can be hard to grab lunch at that café you heard about in Abdoun because almost nothing is open for business during the holy month of fasting.

On the whole, I truly enjoyed my time in Jordan and the opportunity to experience the fasting and the feasting with Jordanians who quickly became friends. During iftars — meals in the evening to break the daily fast — and in a couple of local mosques, I got the chance to talk to young Jordanians about the country’s present and its potential futures.

The result is my latest piece with Religion News Service, which explores the many reasons why young Jordanians are uncertain about their kingdom’s future.

Find out why and read more by clicking below:

Fellowship with Spiritual Exemplars Project

What role does religion play in motivating exemplary individuals to commit their lives to humanitarian work? How does engaged spirituality sustain their work in the face of great challenges?

These are the questions I will help the University of Southern California’s (USC) Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC) explore as a journalist-fellow reporting on, “Spiritual Exemplars: A Global Project on Engaged Spirituality.”

I am humbled, honored, and terribly excited to join a team of top-notch journalists from around the globe to help report on and write profiles about individuals working on humanitarian causes, such as poverty and  human rights.

The journalist-fellows for the Spiritual Exemplars Project. (PHOTO: USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture)

These “exemplars” are often inspired and sustained by their spiritual beliefs and practices. Whether they are Buddhist, Muslim or Christian — or do not adhere to any particular tradition — their spirituality compels them to be engaged with the world.

Religion and spirituality matter. They motivate us. They move us inwardly and outwardly and move with us across the globe. Throughout the annals of time and over vast geographic boundaries, religion and spirituality have helped humans express their deepest questions, confront some of the most critical issues of life, and influenced virtually every human society, civilization, or culture since the dawn of human history. 

Despite their ubiquity and importance, religion and spirituality are still relatively misunderstood. Even if they are valued, there remains a blind spot in our critical, but compassionate understanding of how religion and spirituality function in the lives of some of humanity’s most inspiring individuals and compelling communities. In the U.S., but also abroad, we suffer from what scholar Stephen Prothero calls, “religious illiteracy.” 

That is why it is important for us to seek to understand religion and spirituality in all of its vast diversity and from a variety of perspectives. 

The USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe.

My writing, teaching, and speaking have been geared toward addressing religious illiteracy since I started with my first blog back in 2007. Given that the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture studies, documents and helps communities understand the changes that shape religious cultures in Southern California and across the globe, I saw working with their Spiritual Exemplars Project as a prime opportunity to continue that work. Through my work over the next couple of years I aim to continue to shine light on how religion and spirituality function in the lives of exemplars and their communities in a diverse array of places and from multiple points of view.

If we want to understand our world and how the complexities of the human condition inform behavior in changing contexts, we must pay attention to the role of religious traditions and spiritual practices. Not only will this allow us to better appreciate the human condition and apperceive its highest shared values, but it might improve the possibility of addressing some of humanity’s most urgent shared challenges. 

Although the foundations of modern religion are shifting and spirituality as we have long known it is undergoing daily transformations, neither shows any signs of going away. Religion and spirituality will remain tenaciously important and will continue to impact human societies for the foreseeable future, playing a role in addressing the world’s most intractable problems — both for good and for ill. 

For these reasons and more, I am beyond thrilled to be a journalist-fellow with the Spiritual Exemplars Project and look forward to the stories, reports, and scholarly work that comes out of our work together over the next two-and-a-half years.

Be on the lookout for stories from the project on this website. If you have not already, be sure to sign up for my e-mail list so you can stay up-to-date with all the latest religion and culture news!