by Chris Stedman

from the Washington Post

Is the Internet destroying our morals?

Earlier this month, Pope Benedict XVI issued a warning…

Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and featured presenter at the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions

by Katherine Marshall

from the Huffington Post

The following interview is part of a…

Katherine Marshall, Senior Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, and featured presenter at the 2009 Parliament of the World's Religions

by Katherine Marshall

from the Huffington Post

The following interview is part of a…

From The Huffington Post

A couple weeks ago, I attended the launch of the Faith Project with my friend, Miranda. We sat in the back, in close proximity to the tasty treats, and listened to amazing religious people talk about how their backgrounds inspire them to fight for justice and equality for all. Although we stood in solidarity with these interfaith activists, Ms. Hovemeyer and I came from a far…

From The Huffington Post

In his great work To Heal the Soul, Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira wrote that all humans each have their own unique musical ladder — a distinct melody that allows one to draw down spiritual sustenance into this world. This melody is exclusive and in essence can not be performed by anyone else. He believes that it is so individualized that to use someone else’s ladder is like putting someone else’s saliva into your…

From The Huffington Post

I learned one of the most valuable life lessons several years ago when I joined a Muslim American delegation heading for the holy land to fulfill the fifth pillar of Islam, a ritual completed by millions this week. As I walked in the footsteps of Abraham and his family, completing the rites of Hajj, I came to understand a truth that those working to improve personal or global relations must remember: Failure is the building…

Aither - La Revista

Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, one of three cities bidding to host the 2014 Parliament of the World’s Religions, recently published an online magazine to support their bid.

AITHER – LA REVISTA, features an entire issue dedicated to the question “Why…

From The American Chronicle

After a decade, Nepal is due to hold its census for the eleventh time in 2011. The history of census in Nepal goes back a hundred years to 1901. National census can facilitate planning of projects targeted towards specific groups if it records actual figures and conditions of those groups. The past censuses of Nepal are often termed to be “deliberate undercounting of [indigenous] communities…” and erroneous with…

From FORE

The environmental crisis is one that is well documented in its various interlocking manifestations of industrial pollution, resource depletion, and population explosion. The urgency of the problems are manifold, namely, the essential ingredients for human survival, especially water supplies and agricultural land, are being threatened across the planet by population and consumption pressures. With the collapse of fishing industries and…

Janaan Hashim

by Janaan Hashim

I have a new-found respect for Muslim women who look nothing like me, but share the common thread of faith. The media has painted them in a negative, oppressed manner; one in which they must be “freed” by the West. These women…

Karen Armstrong spoke this past month at a special gathering hosted by the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions in Palo Alto, California. The celebrated author and founder of the Charter for Compassion addressed the ethos of compassion and the work of the Charter.

“Compassion is not…

From The Huffington Post

In a recent interview with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, we discussed his attendance at the 2010 Clinton Global Initiative held earlier this year, the work of his Faith Foundation, and the importance of understanding religion in a rapidly globalizing world.

…

Rahim Kanani: While your Faith…

In a commitment to extending its reach to diverse religious and spiritual communities, the Board of the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, at its October 24-25, 2010 meeting, elected seven new Trustees for a three-year term:

Ms. Anju Bhargava (Hindu)

Mr. Kirit Daftary (Jain)

Dr. Robert Henderson (Baha’i)

Ms. Mary Nelson (Christian)

Mr. Christopher Peters (Native American)

Dr. Anantanand Rambachan (Hindu)

Mr. Kuldeep Singh (Sikh)

The…

From The Huffington Post

(RNS) Imam Mohamed Magid assumes the helm of the Islamic Society of North America, the largest Muslim group in the U.S. and Canada, at a time of unprecedented hostility and suspicion against U.S. Muslims.

Changing those perceptions is the first priority for the Sudanese-born Magid, 45, who has earned high marks as an outgoing bridge-builder who heads the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, a congregation of 5,000…

by Janaan Hashim

The mood was tranquil, though despair hovers over the mosque’s more recent history. If anything, it is a sad, sad story.

Hebron experiences the most violent treatment of Palestinians by Jewish settlers. In addition to seeing a Palestinian’s home literally split in half for a family of settlers to live in, main access streets being blocked, a water well spoiled with raw sewage, businesses closed by force and inventory ruined, debris and objects thrown upon…

Janaan in mosque at Beit Fajjar

by Janaan Hashim

While wrapping up our one-week visit to Israel and Palestine, human nature’s ugly face left its mark in a house of worship. Not associated with the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a sister delegate and I embarked on our own to offer our support in the small village of Beit Fajjar in Palestine.

The mosque was,…

From CNN

For the last several years Shinnyo-en Buddhists have conducted the Saisho Homa fire rite ceremony in Taiwan, Paris and Berlin. This year, for the first time, the rite was brought to Shinnyo-en’s head temple in Redwood City, California.

A homa ceremony is Buddhist prayer ceremony. Saisho is a reference to the wisdom and compassion of the…

One year after the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions was held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the city has changed for the better. The world’s largest interreligious event brings people together from all over the world, and certainly has a global impact, but nowhere is that impact more noticeable than in the host city itself.

Join the celebration of a newly-invigorated interreligious movement:

“A World of Difference…Just Around the…

From CNN

For the last several years Shinnyo-en Buddhists have conducted the Saisho Homa fire rite ceremony in Taiwan, Paris and Berlin. This year, for the first time, the rite was brought to Shinnyo-en’s head temple in Redwood City, California.

A homa ceremony is Buddhist prayer ceremony. Saisho is a reference to the wisdom and compassion of the…

From The Huffington Post

ST. LOUIS (RNS) In 2003, Norman Gershman was looking for some of the righteous.

What he found astonished the investment banker-turned-photographer, and led him toward a project now on display in a St. Louis synagogue.

The Righteous Among Nations are gentile rescuers who make up “a small minority who mustered extraordinary courage to uphold human values,” according to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial…