Fuller Theological Seminary faculty have led in the development of the just peacemaking paradigm and have been involved in key conversations with Jewish and Muslim scholars and religious leaders over the last several years. Fuller involvement includes convening the Conflict Transformation Project, which produced two books: Resources for Peacemaking in Muslim-Christian Relations (Fuller Seminary Press) and Peace-Building by, between, and beyond Muslims and Evangelical Christians (Lexington Books).
Many from among the Abrahamic faith traditions are now upholding the ten practices of just peacemaking as the right ethic for our and their needs, yielding first a monograph for the U. S. Institute of Peace and then the new book: Interfaith Just Peacemaking. On October 1, 2012, we hosted Susan Thistlethwaite and Najeeba Syeed-Miller in conversation with Glen Stassen about the Just Peacemaking paradigm and the perspectives in the new Interfaith Just Peacemaking volume with contributions from 27 Jewish, Muslim and Christian scholars and religious leaders (including the three present for this conversation).
Articles about Interfaith Just Peacemaking
- The Boston Bombing: A Pastoral Letter from a Georgian Friend - By Malkhaz Songulashvili Editor’s Note: This is an open letter the editor received through the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. Since its initial distribution, it has been posted elsewhere. Threefold Grief of Mine (A letter to my American Friends) Millions of people have been grieved by the bombing in Boston. I suppose I am [...]
- Will Obama’s Second Term Be Worth Dancing For? Revisiting the 2009 Cairo Speech - By Martin Accad Editor’s Note: This column first appeared on the Institute of Middle East Studies blog (Will Obama’s Second Term Be Worth Dancing For? Revisiting the 2009 Cairo Speech) and is used here with permission. On June 4, 2009, about 8 months after he took office for his first term, US President Barack Obama [...]
- “Actual Peacemaking” at All Saints in Pasadena - Watch Susan Thistlethwaite and Najeeba Syeed-Miller interact at All Saints Church in Pasadena the day before our conversation with them and Glen Stassen at Fuller Theological Seminary.
- How To (and Not To) Respond to the Current Crisis in the Middle East on JonHuckins.net - By Jon Huckins Editor’s Note: This column first appeared on Jon’s blog (How To (and Not To) Respond to the Current Crisis in the Middle East) and is used here with permission. My heart is heavy. Every day for the past week, every social media outlet has told their version of the current uprising stretching [...]
- Just Peacemaking, Spirituality, and the Environment, Part 3 - By Peter M. Sensenig Editor’s note: This is the final post in a series of three on just peacemaking, spirituality, and the environment. Find the first post and the second post at these links. What does it mean to have a relationship of mutuality with the environment? American poet and environmental activist Gary Snyder tells [...]
- My view on Israel/Palestine is Inspired by a Jew | The Institute of Middle East Studies - By Martin Accad Editor’s Note: This column first appeared on the Institute of Middle East Studies blog (My view on Israel/Palestine is Inspired by a Jew) and is used here with permission. Biblical citations between quotation marks are from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV). IMES has just run its 9th annual conference: [...]
- Jewish Peacemaking Program in Jerusalem Creates a Niche on Haaretz - By Lauren Gelfond Feldinger for Haaretz Pardes Center for Judaism and Conflict Resolution is world’s first international center to teach Judaism and conflict resolution. When Rabbi Daniel Roth was a teenage yeshiva student, he heard a joke that would trouble him through the years. “How do you know the prayer book has a sense of [...]
- Just Peacemaking, Spirituality, and the Environment, Part 2 - By Peter M. Sensenig Editor’s note: This is the second post in a series of three on just peacemaking, spirituality, and the environment. Find the first post and the final post at these links. In the first post of this three-part series I argued that climate change has made the practices of just peacemaking more [...]
- Building Interfaith Dialogue Through Relationships on EthicsDaily.com - By Martin Accad Editor’s Note: This column first appeared in The Voice Magazine, then at EthicsDaily.com (Building Interfaith Dialogue Through Relationships), and is used here with permission. It was a Muslim friend of mine, a cleric, who once pointed out to me how artificial our practice of Christian-Muslim dialogue was. Our usual idea of interfaith dialogue is [...]
- Just Peacemaking, Spirituality, and the Environment, Part 1 - By Peter M. Sensenig Editor’s note: This is the first post in a series of three on just peacemaking, spirituality, and the environment. Find the second post and the final post at these links. David Augsburger writes in the forthcoming book Spirituality for Grownups, “unless we direct our lives toward meeting our physical world and [...]
- Just Peacemaking in Israel-Palestine: Practice 11 - By Peter M. Sensenig Practice 11: Engage Traditional Forms of Reconciliation I propose an eleventh practice for just peacemaking, building on the arguments of John Paul Lederach, Marc Gopin, and Mohammed Abu-Nimer. This is to explore, engage, and prioritize traditional cultural forms of reconciliation. Lederach’s framework relies on a web of local actors, whose approaches [...]
- Nick Brown on Jesus and the Land - Editorial Note: This is the third of three in a series of posts from the “Why the Jewishness of Jesus Matters” event at Fuller Theological Seminary on May 23, 2012. Nick Brown, PhD candidate at Fuller Seminary, discusses Jesus’ relationship to the land. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
- Jen Rosner on Jews and Jesus - Editorial Note: This is the second of three in a series of posts from the “Why the Jewishness of Jesus Matters” event at Fuller Theological Seminary on May 23, 2012. Dr. Jen Rosner, adjunct professor at Azusa Pacific University and Fuller Theological Seminary, explores how Christians can learn about Jesus from Jews. Part 1 Part [...]
- George Hunsinger on Jewish-Christian Unity - Editorial Note: This is the first of three in a series of posts from the “Why the Jewishness of Jesus Matters” event at Fuller Theological Seminary on May 23, 2012. Dr. George Hunsinger of Princeton Theological Seminary discusses the relationship between Jews and Christians: Is there a third option beyond supersessionism (replacement theology) and a [...]
- November 16: A Conversation with Joseph Montville on Interfaith Just Peacemaking - Wednesday, Nov 16 11am – 1pm Psych 314 Dr. Glen Stassen and Dr. Joon Lee invite you to a public forum hosted by their Faith and Politics class. Joseph Montville is that rare former foreign service officer of the U.S. State Department who understands the role of religion, and also the need for healing in relations between [...]
- October 3: Charles Kimball Lecture - From Lame to Lethal: Religious Diversity in Judaism, Christianity & Islam A Lecture by Prof. Dr. Charles A. Kimball, Director of Religious Studies, University of Oklahoma and author of When Religion Becomes Lethal. October 3, 2011 at 6:30pm Travis Auditorium A collaborative presentation from SIS Islamic Studies and the Just Peacemaking Initiative
- Tonight: Pasadena Human Rights Forum - To be Muslim in America or even in our City is to know suspicious glances, looks of distrust and to feel a certain level of unease. For a country whose founding principal was religious freedom and tolerance we have become a nation divided by intolerance. We have forgotten that with our own freedom comes the [...]
- Coming in November: Interfaith Just Peacemaking - The forthcoming book, Interfaith Just Peacemaking (Palgrave Macmillan: Fall, 2011), features essays by ten Christian scholars, ten Muslim scholars, and ten Jewish scholars. All 30 reached consensus to support the ten practices of just peacemaking, and there is an essay by a scholar from each faith supporting each practice.
- March 2: Jihad Turk to Address PJA - On Wednesday, March 2 (1-2pm in the Garth), Jihad Turk will address the Fuller Peace and Justice Advocates. Jihad has been serving as the Religious Director at the Islamic Center of Southern California since 2005. In addition to serving the religious needs of his community, he focuses much of his attention on interfaith work. He [...]
- January 19: Kärkkäinen to Speak at PJA - Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen will address Fuller’s Peace and Justice Advocates on January 19, from 1-2pm in the Garth at Fuller Seminary. Kärkkäinen joined the Fuller faculty as associate professor of systematic theology in 2000 and was named full professor in 2003. He also holds a teaching position at the University of Helsinki as Docent of Ecumenics. [...]
- Small Practical Steps for Large-Scale Effective Peacemaking - Edited by Martin Accad 12 Suggestions by Jared Holsing: I assume the best of my Muslim friends and of Muslims in general, taking them at their word and taking their statements as genuine reflections of their honest beliefs (rather than assume they are just being politically correct or hiding some sinister beliefs that I am [...]
- Engaging, Not Burning the Qur’an: Two Reflections from a Fuller Doctoral Student - By Ayman Ibrahim Please, Pastor Jones: Don’t Burn the Quran on Sept. 11 Terry Jones, senior pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., plans to burn the Quran on Sept. 11 in an attempt to urge Americans to “stand up “against the threat of Islam. He wants his church to “be strong.” [...]
- Martin Accad on a Reductionist Perception of Islam - By Peter M. Sensenig Martin Accad, Professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Seminary, addressed the Fuller Peace and Justice Advocates on November 7. He began by noting a parallel between 9/11 and the recent threatened Qur’an-burning stunt of Terry Jones; in both instances, an extremist can take captive an entire faith group. As faith communities [...]
- Formation for Life Conference: Martin Accad on Global Religious Challenges - By Peter M. Sensenig Martin Accad, Professor of Islamic Studies at Fuller Seminary and Director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, Lebanon, began his address by asking: What hard skills can be learned to work for peace in the face of global religious challenges? The obstacles to peace [...]
- Formation for Life Conference: Marc Gopin on Living at the Border - By Peter M. Sensenig Marc Gopin, Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University, outlined in his address how the Ten Commandments seek to cultivate the discipline of day-to-day moral formation. This is particularly relevant with regard to peacemaking; diplomacy often focuses on the dichotomy of war and peace, ignoring the [...]
- Lessons to be Learnt from the Aborted Qur’an-Burning “Stunt” - By Martin Accad, September 9, 2010 Wow! Mr. Jones certainly “pulled a stunt” that earned him worldwide fame! Not that this sort of fame is anything that the average person would long for. But certainly the sales of his offensive book and T-shirt must have sky-rocketed over the past few weeks. Jones managed cunningly to [...]
- Top Evangelical Leaders Pledge Support for NYC Islamic Center’s Interfaith Peacemaking Effort on FaithInPublicLife.org - By Rich Cizik, David P. Gushee, and Steven Martin September 9, 2010 In an article in Wednesday’s New York Times, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf explained the purpose of the proposed Cordoba House in New York to be the cultivation of “understanding among all religions and cultures.” He said “Our objective has always been to make [...]
- An open letter to Pastor Terry Jones in Florida on ForwardSyria.com - By Father Elias Zahlawi I have read your call for a worldwide burning of the Holy Koran during the upcoming commemoration on September 11, 2010. In this call it says you are a pastor at one of the churches of Florida in the United States. Being an Arab Catholic cleric from Damascus, I wondered why [...]
- The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Oppose the Qur’an Burning - By Peter M. Sensenig A Florida minister’s plan to burn a Qur’an on September 11 has sparked a global outcry. Only something so incendiary could prompt both Angelina Jolie and the Vatican to issue statements of protest. It is right that Christians, Jews, and others worldwide should condemn such a hateful act.But the language used [...]
- NYC Mosque: Some Perspectives from Sojourners - Troy Jackson, “Mosques, Churches, Terror, and Love” Julie Clawson, “Forgiveness, Fear, and the Mosque at Ground Zero”