I’ll be participating on a panel tonight, “Sharing Sacred Space in Jerusalem,” at Fordham Law School’s Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer’s Work. The panel will address how religious space in Jerusalem has been shared historically, how religious communities have interpreted customary law, and how they have engaged each other to resolve conflict. I’ll be discussing relations among Christians at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City. Details are here. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and say hello.
Movsesian at Fordham Law School: “Sharing Sacred Space In Jerusalem”
Crossroads: Professor Goldford to Lecture on Interfaith Understanding in America
In relation to my recent post, Goldford: The Constitution of Religious Freedom, Professor Dennis J. Goldford, of Drake University, will be speaking on March 16 at the Interfaith Alliance of Iowa monthly series, Crossroads: A Project About Civility. Prof. Goldford will discuss his recently published book, The Constitution of Religious Freedom: God, Politics, and the First Amendment (Baylor, 2012). Please see the Interfaith Alliance’s announcement for more details.
Imago Dei & the (Forgotten) Roots of Human Rights
Campbell Law Review (Regent University Law) recently published Looking For Bedrock: Accounting for Human Rights in Classical Liberalism, Modern Secularism, and the Christian Tradition by Professor C. Scott Pryor, also of Regent Law. 33 Campbell L. Rev. 609 (2011).
Professor Pryor argues that the corresponding rights and duties of prototypical Western “human rights” were not free floating: In Christian, Hebraic, and even Roman civil law traditions they originated in grounded conceptions of human nature. These notions defined the human being and the rights others owed to him or her and the corresponding duties he or she owed to others. While the Western conception of human rights has continued to develop, Pryor asserts that knowledge of these rights’ foundation has eroded; as memories fade, consensus as to what are human rights and their implications becomes harder to reach. When this consensus becomes more remote, human-rights-based arguments lose their salience. Pryor’s discussion of the weakening of rights discourse is analogous to Alasdair MacIntyre’s bleak premise in After Virtue (3d ed. 2007) that, over time, “the language of morality [has reached a] state of grave disorder.” Id. at 2. (In my post criticizing Richard Dawkins’ overly bellicose rhetoric, I discuss After Virtue in greater depth.)
For further discussion of this problem and Pryor’s solution, please follow the jump. Read more
Abraham Joshua Heschel: Social Activist & Proponent of Interfaith Dialogue
“If you want to know God, sharpen your sense of the human.”
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)
Earlier this year, Susannah Heschel, professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth, published Abraham Joshua Heschel: Essential Writings (Orbis 2011), a collection of works by the volume’s namesake—her father. The elder Heschel—born in Poland into a Hasidic family with a long connection to the rabbinate—escaped Warsaw for the U.S. only weeks before the Third Reich invaded in 1939.
Through his subsequent career, Heschel advocated interfaith understanding and was active in many of the leading social issues of his day—marching with Martin Luther King Jr.; protesting the Vietnam War; observing Vatican II in an official capacity; and challenging the Catholic Church to amend its occasional strains of anti-Semitism, both past and present. The publisher’s abstract follows the jump.
Benedict XVI: Message on Interfaith Understanding & Peace in the Holy Land
On November 10, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI addressed the Israeli Religious Council—a committee comprising leaders of Israel’s primary religious communities—at a Vatican meeting. (Significantly, Benedict addressed the Council on the 73rd anniversary of Kristallnacht (1938).) Among those present were Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Yona Metzger, and a delegate described as “the head imam of Israel.” This was the first time a Pope, according to Romereports.com, has held such a summit. (See a video report of the meeting here.)
Founded in 2007, the Israeli Religious Council is a body consisting of representatives from eighteen different communities in Israel—including Jews, Muslims, and Christians—and its purpose is to foster interfaith awareness and dialogue.
The Pope’s message emphasized interfaith understanding to the end of promoting peace, particularly in the Middle East. He differentiated, on the one hand, between violence motivated directly by religion and, on the other, violence that is simply the consequence of modern secular society. In Pope Benedict’s view, simple interfaith understanding—which would theoretically end direct interfaith violence—will not generate lasting peace in the world; rather, an understanding of divine love and justice will be the source of lasting reconciliation in modern society, regardless of the mediating faith through which one chooses to understand such divinity.
For excerpts of Benedict’s address, please follow the jump.
Among the Creationists: What’s so Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?
Early next year, Jason Rosenhouse, associate professor of Mathematics at James Madison University, will publish Among the Creationists: Dispatches from the Anti-Evolutionist Front Line with Oxford University Press.
Rosenhouse, a believer in evolutionary theory, was puzzled—as am I, admittedly—that so many Americans still insisted that God created the world and human beings 10,000 years ago precisely as described in Genesis (in December 2010, Gallup reported that a staggering 40% did). In the hopes of understanding why, Rosenhouse began attending Creationist events around the country. In fact, Rosenhouse did so for ten years.
What he discovered challenges the conventional characterizations of Creationists as uninquisitive Bible-thumpers; rather, Rosenhouse encountered Creationists of many stripes and, through congenial discussion, learned their views could enrich his own, even if his belief in evolution remained intact.
Rosenhouse’s approach exemplifies the laudable objective of mutual respect that figures like Richard Dawkins sorely lack (see my Commentary posts on Dawkins here and here). Rosenhouse did not become a Creationist in his journeys, and I speculate that he did not convince any Creationists that evolution was valid. But I admire Rosenhouse’s genuine attempt to understand and treat with respect views different from his own.
Read OUP’s description of the book after the jump. Also, read Rosenhouse’s brief description of his book here. Read more