Opportunities as well as Limits of Interfaith Bridging Activities Today : A Select List of Resources

PS. This post is continuously updated, last up date: April 2, 2014

• The challenge of interfaith dialogue, by Tom Holmes
• Losing faith in interfaith?
• At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden: A Jew's Search for Hope with Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land  Yossi Klein Halevi 
• The Future of interfaith, By Drea Parker Patheos (blog)
• Religious Traditions and the Limits of Tolerance  Louis J. Hammann
• The Jewish-Arab Center - Multi-cultural and inter-religious dialogue ...
• Islam and the Outer Limits of Ecumenism | Crisis Magazine
• The limits of interfaith dialogue: Marmur | Toronto Star
• Interfaith Grand River: The Potential and Limits of Dialogue to Transform Participants and Impact Communities
• Interfaith Event: '‘Possibilities & Limits of Inter-religious Dialogue’: Professor Catherine Cornille – Sydney, Australia ...
• Interfaith Forum: Are there limits to Interfaith Dialogue?
• The Limits of Interfaith/Interreligious Dialogue | James W. McCarty III
• The limits of interfaith dialogue | CatholicVote.org
• Belief and Righteous Work: An Open Vision on a New World, By Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed al-Salimi
• Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Asia (ARI - Springer Asia Series) Juliana Finucane 
• Confusion over pope’s letter saying interfaith talks impossible, By Tom Heneghan, FaithWorld 

Love and Compassion: Rumi's Seven Pieces of Advice, Buddhist Perspective

Love and Compassion: Rumi's Seven Pieces of Advice Buddhistdoor International Dr. Thomas Lau

Extract:

This summer, the Anatolia Cultural & Dialog Centre of Turkey and the Hong Kong University Centre of Buddhist Studies Alumni Association jointly arranged a tour to Turkey. It offered the chance of a brief encounter of the Turkish cultural and religious life. Turkey is a secular country by constitution. In actual fact, more than 99% of the population is of Islamic background. Muslim practices are deeply seeded in the daily life of common people, and most people do not have any knowledge of Buddhism. During the tour, we visited the Mevlâna Museum and the tomb of Rumi in Konya, a city in central Turkey. The full name of Rumi (1207-1273) is Mevlânâ Celâleddin Mehed Rumi. He is a Sufi scholar, writer and poet, and he is one of the most famous masters in the history of Islam. Not only that his poetries are wide acclaimed, but his teachings are also very much inspiring and far-reaching. He teaches unconditional acceptance, tolerance, patience, love, compassion, and benevolence. His famous ‘Seven Advices’ has passed down all the years and is still very much revered in the present time. The Seven Advices epitomizes the highest sentiment of humanity, transcends religious boundaries, and encompasses the common values of all religions:

 

1.       In generosity and helping others: be like the river

2.       In compassion and grace: be like the sun.

3.       In concealing others’ faults: be like the night.

4.       In anger and fury: be like the dead.

5.       In modesty and humility: be like the soil.

6.       In tolerance: be like the ocean.

7.       Either you appear as you are, or: be as you appear. continue reading

On the same shelf:

 Seven Advice of Mevlana [Jalal ad-Din Rumi] - YouTube

 The Odyssey: Seven Advice Of Rumi

 Mawlana Jalaluddin Rumi | Healing Hearts

Brotherhood - A select list by Faiths: Hinduism, Jewish, Bahai, Christianity, Ancient and Modern

Current titles at Amazon:

• Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream by Deepak and Sanjiv Chopra, New Harvest (2013), ISBN: 9780544032101 -- For more details of the book, here
• Rivalry and Brotherhood: Politics in the Life of Farmers in Northern India
  Dipankar Gupta
• A Navajo In India Ancient Brotherhood
• The Brotherhood (The Brotherhood Trilogy) Tejas Desai
• Anandamath, or The Sacred Brotherhood Bankimcandra Chatterji
• Bhakti pathway to god the way of love union with god and universal brotherhood in Hinduism and Christianity edited by Kala Acharya. Lalita Namjoshi. Giuseppe Zanghi organized by K.L. Somaiya Bharatiya Sanskriti Peetham and the Centre for Interfaith Dialogue. Focolare Movement.
• 'Isms & 'Ologies: All the Movements, Ideologies and Doctrines That Have Shaped Our World
  Arthur Goldwag
• The Bahai movement for universal religion, brotherhood and peace : a sketch of its history and teaching Charles Mason Remey
• Itamar makes Friends; A Children's Story Of Jewish Brotherhood Josh Hasten
• Bridge to brotherhood : Judaism's dialogue with Christianity. Stuart E. Rosenberg
• Brotherhood of Darkness      Dr. Stanley Monteith

Hindu Man Mistaken for Muslim Refused Service by JetBlue

Neetzan Zimmerman Aug 23, 2013, Gawker Media @ gawker.com
Extract:

"New York-based data scientist Aditya Mukerjee admits that his physical appearance regularly ensures that he'll get hassled by airport security, but none of his past experiences with being "randomly selected" could have prepared him for the nightmare that ensued following a standard TSA pat-down earlier this month." continue reading

Search Terms to find Religious and Spiritual Resources on the Internet

Here is a suggestion to use presice search terms when searching the Web. For a complete list of terms and related web resources see: Cyber Worship in Multifaith Perspectives by Mohamed Taher

From the above book, listed below are search terms (or keywords) for you to use when searching for resources about a specific religion / spiritual experience.

Mapping Alternative Traditions (aka New Age Religions/Spiritualities):

•  Rituals, Magic, Spells, Meditating, Circle Casting, Invoking & Evoking…

Mapping Buddhism:

• Prayer & Praise (Chanting, Samadhi Or Meditation)
• Sacrament (Rituals)
• Scripture (Dharma, Teaching, Three Baskets, Inspirational Devotions)

Mapping Islam:

• Prayer (Salat, Dua, Ibadah, Rituals, Rites)
• Praise (Darud, Qasida, Taarif, Salam, Naat, Vadhaif, Dhikr, Tasbeeh)
• Scripture (Quran, Hadith, Inspirational literature)
• Sacraments (Muqaddas, Mutabarrik, Tabarruk, Aathar)

Mapping Jainism:

• Prayer (Prarthana, Puja, Seva)
• Praise (Stuti)
• Scripture (Shastra)
• Sacrament (Prashad)

Mapping Judaism:

• Prayer (Tefilah, rites, etc.)
• Scripture (Hebrew Bible, Midras)

Mapping Sikhism:

• Prayer (Ardas)
• Praise (Salah / Sift)
• Scripture (Bani)
• Sacrements (Prasad)

Note: Some may ask: Why do we need to search or know what to search (terms, keywords, terminology, taxonomy, etc.)? It is because the Western terms or keywords for religious and spiritual experiences are different from the Eastern. In the Western usage the following are clear and don't confuse:

• liturgy / beads
• Gregorian chant
• plainsong or plainchant
• Gallican chant
• Christian hymnody
• hymn
• Exclusive psalmody
• Gospel [source: libguides.swu.edu]

On the same shelf:

•  Religion and Spirituality in Cyberspace Artistic Research – Künstlerische Forschung
• A WORD SEARCH GAME, COVERING WORLD RELIGIONS @ religioustolerance.org
• Searching for salvation and Investigating religious information searching by  Bernard J. Jansena, Andrea Tapiaa, and Amanda Spink 

`God' Word Usage Counted as Harvard, Google Scan Digital Books

The history of publishing industry in the Google age has a different turn. It is not anymore quantifying the frequency of titles/articles published by authors, subjects, countries, decades, and centuries--aka bibliometrics. It is now about the socio-psycho-liinguistics, semantics, usage, keyword frequency, etc.

The following is one sample of this emerging scenario:

• `God' Word Usage Counted as Harvard, Google Scan Digital Books Bloomberg
• Changes in language and word use reflect our shifting values, UCLA psychologist reports, Study analyzes more than 1 million books published over 200 years, By Anna Mikulak and UCLA Newsroom
• Language in books shows how we have grown more selfish, By Richard Gray, Telegraph
• Google Book Tool Tracks Cultural Change With Words : NPR