Category Archives: Religious Diversity Kit

Religious diversity in the workplace and interfaith projects in the community.

Authors A-H, Religious Diversity Kit, Social Issues

Unity in Diversity: A Model for Advancement of Civilization – by Vahid Alavian

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Today’s political and social climate in the world and in the United States seems to accentuates disagreement in thoughts and ideologies, give rise to disunity, create a sense of fear and insecurity, and in some cases even loss of human life and destruction. Chaos and confusion are reaching such intensity that they are affecting the fundamental structure of society; uprooting its time-honored constitutions and institutions; destroying the bonds of human relationships; and driving its inhabitants away from their homes as refugees. To counter these forces, significant productive and constructive energy will be required to sustain human societies. One way to look at our community, country, and the world for a path forward is to practice the concept of Unity in Diversity. The American Diversity Report provides an effective avenue for meaningful discourse on the subject.

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Levine articles, Religious Diversity Kit

Managing Religious Differences When Demonizing Drowns Out Listening – by Deborah Levine

Anyone listening can hear the loud, raucous controversies surrounding religion and our religious differences. The conversation is rife with words such as terrorism, hate, threatening, ungodly, illegal, and inhumane. The effect of this volcanic environment is to make our adrenalin run so high and long that we are virtually unable to hear the human beings involved. As hyperbole and exaggeration are added, we are witnessing a vicious cycle of protests and counter-protests, threats and counter-threats. Can this cycle be broken, or at least interrupted long enough for us to stop yelling, listen effectively, and initiate some major problem solving?

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Authors I-Q, Religious Diversity Kit

Interfaith Panel in the South: A Community Responds – By Gay Morgan Moore

interfaith panelIn a time when racial, political, economic and religious divisions in the United States are increasingly obvious, the people of one southern city, Chattanooga, Tennessee, are attempting, through dialogue, to understand the religious beliefs of one another. On a chilly November Monday evening a group of over fifty people gathered at a Hindu temple for the Sixth Interfaith Panel Discussion. The attendees and panelists were ordinary people, with extra-ordinary beliefs concerning the value of gaining knowledge and understanding of the faith traditions of one another.

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Authors I-Q, Of Women, Religious Diversity Kit, Southern Culture

My Contra-cultural Marriage and Religious Chaos — by Micki Pelusi

It’s 1959. I’m a Southern religious teenage girl raised on the fire and brimstone of the Baptist Church. My boyfriend is a second generation Italian Catholic. My mother, recently divorced from my step-father, transforms from a “Betty Crocker’ housewife into a bird set free from a gilded cage.  This turn of events leads to her elopement with one of her many men friends to Elkton, Maryland. Butch and I go along as witnesses. After spending the night in her Buick at the A&P parking lot, waiting for the courthouse to open, we finally walk out of the wide court doors—married—all four of us. Mom and Sal drive off to Florida, I move in with a girlfriend and Butch goes back to his home, as if nothing stupendous happened.

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Around the world, Authors A-H, Religious Diversity Kit

About Devali — by Iftikhar Chaudri

The holiday season for the Hindu Community all over the world is marked by the ‘The Fesitival of Lights’- Devali. The myth and story of Devali lies the significance of the victory of good over evil; and it is with each Devali and the lights that illuminate our homes and hearts, that this simple truth finds new reason and hope. From darkness unto light — the light that empowers us to commit ourselves to good deeds, that which brings us closer to divinity. During Devali, lights illuminate every corner of India and the scent of incense sticks hangs in the air, mingled with the sounds of fire-crackers, joy, togetherness and hope.

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Levine articles, Religious Diversity Kit, Social Issues

Interfaith Response to Violence – by Deborah Levine

A few years ago, Chattanooga was traumatized by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. After shooting at a recruiting center, he drove to a U.S. Navy Reserve Center and opened fire again. Before he was killed by police in a gunfight, four marines and a navy sailor were killed. The FBI determined that the shootings were inspired by terrorist propaganda. Chattanooga responded with memorials across the area and an interfaith service that was memorable, inclusive, and high-profile in a city with little interfaith infrastructure.

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Levine articles, Religious Diversity Kit

The Majestic One and the E-Book Pirates – by Deborah Levine

I discovered that I was Majestic last week when I finally decided to publish my book, Teaching Curious Christians about Judaism, as an e-book on Amazon’s Kindle. I’d resisted creating a kindle version of the paperback for years. Originally published by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in the mid 1990s as Teaching Christian Children about Judaism, the book was long out of print when I updated it in 2013. Much to my surprise, I discovered that it had been used for the past twenty years by Monsignor Al Humbrecht at his church in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. We sat down and mapped out the update to replace his few remaining copies.

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Authors A-H, Religious Diversity Kit, Social Issues

Creating Cultural Tolerance, One Meal at a Time – by Elisabeth Falcone

My daughter came home from Middle School where they were studying the Holocaust and asked me “Mommy, was grandpa a Nazi?” How do you answer such a question? Easy! I said “No”, because all of my life I had heard my parents rail against the Hitler regime. They sent my father to the Russian front and my mother to the basement for shelter from the Allied bombers attacking Berlin. But thirty years later, a fifth-grader in my French class, who was also learning about the Holocaust, asked me, “Why are the German people so awful?” Now the answer was not so easy, because the student unwittingly used a stereotype painting all present-day German people as Nazi criminals. Without going into the history of WWII, I briefly explained that not all Germans are awful, just like not all Americans are awful. Still, seeing an opportunity for a lesson, I taught the French words for “war and peace” (la guerre et la paix) and went on with class.

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