InterfaithNews.Net

It is a sad mark of the persistence of ethnic, cultural, and religious
bigotry that so many people continue to paint all Muslims as fanatics and
terrorists, as evidenced by violence against individual Muslims and their
religious institutions. It is equally disturbing that the same brush is
often applied to non-Muslims of North African, Middle Eastern, and Indian
origin, particularly to Sikhs.

In June, a ground-breaking conference was held at the United Nations that
brought together government representatives, members of the United
Nations system, and religious NGOs. There they discussed the need for
strengthened interfaith dialogue and its importance for peacebuilding.
The following convenor’s report summarizes the goals, conclusions, and
recommendations of the conference.

Rev. Paul Chaffee of the Interfaith Center at the Presidio (and of the
InterfaithNews.Net Advisory Board, among other affiliations), writes about
the Interfaith Family Circle, "a new kind of model for generating and
supporting interfaith relations in any local community."

Bishop William E. Swing of California has written the following
reflection to honor Roman Catholic Archbishop William J. Levada of San
Francisco, who on Friday, May 13, was named prefect of the Vatican's
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

In a beautiful statement, religious leaders in Albania — one of the
poorest nations in Europe, and one of the last released from Communism
— proclaim the importance of religious harmony and shared values while
carefully enunciated their own distinctness. The preservation of the belief
in uniqueness of one's own religion is one of the most difficult public
relations issues faced by the interfaith movement. Here we have an amazing
model of how to achieve this while emphasizing the need for cooperation.
"Let us treat others as we would wish them to treat us."

In October, Faith & Values Media, The National Conference for
Community and Justice, and the Interfaith Youth Core launched CampusQuest, in
which participants are invited to join a national youth movement for
interfaith awareness by creating a CampusQuest in their own
communities.

Interfaith collaboration must be a central priority of Christian churches, a top leader of the World Council of Churches (WCC) said on Aug. 26. “Religions may generate mistrust and intolerance, and even fuel ethnic and political conflicts, unless a common ground for a harmonious co-existence is found between them,”

Dr Rowan Williams has today (Wednesday 11 June) delivered his first major address on inter faith relations since becoming Archbishop of Canterbury. Speaking at the University of Birmingham, Dr Williams challenged some basic assumptions about relations between faith communities and between religions and secular society.

April 30, 2003, CHICAGO - As President Bush prepared his Thursday evening address to announce “the end of the Iraq war,” more than 75 Muslim, Christian, Jewish and other faith leaders from across the United States converged on Chicago to issue a set of principles to lead toward a peaceful future. The summit addressed the humanitarian, spiritual and civil costs of war and its ramifications here at home.

Gustav Niebuhr reviews the history of the interfaith movement in America in this article for the Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.