My fear is that much as the investment and institutional support offered to IRD processes can enter doom-loops, so too can community engagement with such spaces. As the messaging around participation gets increasingly negative and hostile, the harder it becomes for people to choose to engage. The result must therefore be fewer relationships being formed and less solidarity and understanding.
Tag Archives: Interfaith
Dreidels and FoRB
As I read these stories of persecution on the grounds of religion or belief I could not help but think about the Hannukah dreidel.
On Dialogue: Talking about “The Conflict”
In my experience, the starting point must be an acknowledgement that what happens between Israelis and Palestinians over there, has a profound impact on individuals here.
Yom Kippur Reflections on Freedom of Religion or Belief
Earlier this summer I attended the Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Ministerial held in London. In the days afterwards, I found myself wondering where I might find a Jewish response to FoRB violations. It is a thought that has been flitting in and out of my mind ever since. Then, on Wednesday afternoon, I found myself face-to-face with a way into that question.
On Dialogue: Notes from the estuary
I am not the first person to be captivated by the Dyfi Estuary, but perhaps(!?) I am the first interfaith practitioner to sit here and wonder what this place might tell me about my own practice.
Reflections on the FoRB Ministerial: 3 Education, The Missing Dimension of FoRB
The next step needs to focus on the framework around which those with experience of exploring questions of religion and belief in classrooms are drawn into FoRB discussions and to explore what approaches work best.
Reflections on the FoRB Ministerial: 2. And Interfaith?
For interfaith to be effectively utilised in the promotion and protection of FoRB will require the mobilisation of approaches which will necessitate a greater willingness for risk from those commissioning work.
Reflections on the FoRB Ministerial: 1. Where was religion?
If we are not as attentive to the ways in which communities and individuals live out their faiths and beliefs as we are to the way in which they might experience persecution, what opportunities and issues might we miss?
Intersections, Accommodations and Tensions in Interfaith and FoRB
This tension, between practices of FoRB which seek accommodation with other Rights and practices which work in the intersections, is reflective of the tension which I as an interfaith professional grapple with all the time.
Local Wisdom, Listening and a Papal Visit
Interfaith dialogue rarely makes headlines, but this weekend there was no denying the power and theatricality of the images of an encounter between a 90-year old Iraqi cleric and an 84-year old Argentine priest seated in a plain, white-washed room.