Passover is a time for love. This might be a source of confusion to many Jews.

Continue »

Two things worried me one recent Thursday evening as I entered the United Methodist church in Burke, a suburb in northern Virginia.

Continue »

Strict observance of Lent was not a significant feature of my religious heritage. To be an Episcopalian in my Mississippi hometown a half-century ago was to be a member of a congregation of few members and low-church liturgy. Heavy thinking about religion was for Baptists and Catholics.

Continue »

Once more, let it be said:

Biblical scholars, historians, archaeologists all agree: Jewish religious
authorities did not execute Jesus.

Continue »

Once every few years, Greek Easter falls the same week as “American Easter,” as it was called when I was growing up.

Continue »

We do not know exactly why Tariq Ramadan cannot set foot in the United States. But given what we do know, that policy is a disaster.

Continue »

We have ample reasons to be concerned.

The atrocities of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent “war on terror,” terrorist attacks throughout the world, tensions arising from social problems or from immigration have combined to portray Islam and Muslims as a threat to the West.

Continue »

I am always asked if someone can be Jewish and Buddhist at the same time. And my answer is yes, but there are too many holidays.

Continue »

The past few weeks, I have been traveling in the U.S. – Los Angeles, Hawaii, New York City, and Washington, D.C. – to meet with a variety of church groups, political groups, and nonprofit organizations.

Continue »

As a Tibetan Buddhist, I do not know if I am able to answer the question "Can a Christian, Muslim or Jew embrace Eastern spiritual practice.”

However, as I am a product of Christian missionary schools in India, when I enthusiastically studied the New Testament as a young refugee, I may offer a unique perspective.

Continue »

First, there is no consensus about what constitutes the laws of the God of Abraham, with the possible exception that there is but one God. Those laws are set forth in the Torah, the New Testament, and the Qu’ran, so not only are there the three distinct major “Abrahamic” divisions, there are innumerable denominations and sub-divisions within them.

Continue »

Apologies covered in the national and international media have doubled in frequency since the early 1990s. This increase, based on my study of over 2000 public apologies, has been accompanied by a plethora of fraudulent and ineffective apologies.

Continue »

Today we have yet another sad reminder of the fact that we live in a fallen, cursed world: News that 32 people have been murdered (and 15 injured) at Virginia Tech.

The shooter is believed to be among the dead. University President Charles Steger was quoted as saying that the shootings are “a tragedy of monumental proportions.”

Continue »

Like most Americans, I was overwhelmed by the images of Monday’s shootings on the Virginia Tech campus. My heart ached for parents around the nation who sought only to know if their children were safe. I will be sending a daughter to college this fall, and I cannot comprehend the thought that she may someday face a situation such as the one that occurred Monday.

Continue »

Muslims in America today seem to have lost the right to be individuals. We are treated as a collectivity – responsible as a group for any crime committed by another Muslim or done in the name of Islam.

Shortly after 9/11, I wrote an article stating that Muslims have the greatest obligation to reject terrorism and political violence committed in the name of Islam. I still believe this is the case. Islam does not have a centralized authority; there is no universally recognized council of scholars or clerics who speak on behalf of all Muslims.

Continue »

In the just-published paperback edition of American Theocracy, I replaced the old 9-page introduction with a new 40-page version. Part of the reason was to update the book in the light of the 2006 elections and the passage of another year relative to oil, debt and the Middle East. But a second motivation was to clarify how and why the book was written.

Continue »

I will celebrate "Earth Day" and encourage Christians of all denominations and traditions to do so. Why? We believe that God created the earth, entrusting its care to man, and that He will one day recreate it in "the new heaven and new earth." We are called to "witness" to our faith as believers.

Continue »

Before I answer this week's question, let me be very clear: This question is exceptionally offensive and borders on religious bigotry. That a group as good-willed and open-minded as the On Faith moderators would even consider asking a question like, "Is Islam a violent religion?" reveals the astounding depth of prejudice and ignorance about Islam that is rampant in American society and media today.

Continue »

As an Egyptian Muslim living and working in the West, I am keenly aware of the growing tensions afflicting Western-Islamic relations. Contributing to these tensions is the western assumption that somehow Islam, as a faith and as a way of life encourages or at least tolerates violence as a means of achieving political, spiritual or other objectives. This is in stark contrast to the prevailing view shared by one billion followers of Islam who see themselves as peaceful adherents of a great faith who have been the victims of western exploitation and domination over the years.

Continue »

Ask any serious Christian about forgiveness, and you are likely to hear what Jesus taught—that we are to forgive others, not once or twice, but countless times; that God only forgives us to the extent that we forgive one another. Yet later, Christians made one famous exception: Judas Iscariot.

Continue »

For his entire life, as he delved into the mysteries of the cosmos, Albert Einstein harbored a belief in, and reverence for, the harmony and beauty of what he called the mind of God as it was expressed in the creation of the universe and its laws. Around the time he turned 50, he began to articulate more clearly—in various essays, interviews, and letters—his deepening appreciation of his belief in God, although a rather impersonal version of one.

Continue »

There was a time, and not long ago, when slow communications, the hardships of travel, and the mystery of the East all separated us from other major world religions. The world is now a global village and that era is ended forever.

Now the Mosque is erected in the shadow of the Church, and the Hindu temple is adjacent to the Jewish Synagogue, and all are on American soil.

The contemporary philosopher of religion John Hick, from whom I have learned a great deal about pluralism, offers the metaphor of a journey.

We have been like a company of people marching down a long valley, singing our own songs, developing over the centuries our own stories and slogans, unaware that over the hill there is another valley, with another great company of people marching in the same direction, but with their own language and songs and stories and ideas; and over another hill yet another marching group — each ignorant of the existence of the others. But then one day they all come out into the same plain, the plain created by modern global communications, and see each other and wonder what to make of one another. You might think that the different groups would then simply greet one another as fellow companies of pilgrims. But in fact that is made difficult by part of the content of our respective songs and stories. For if we are Christians, we have been singing for centuries that there is no other name given among [hu]mankind, whereby, we may be saved, than the name of Jesus. And if we are Jews, we have been singing that we are God’s only chosen people, a light to lighten the world, and if we are Muslims, we have been singing that Muhammad (peace be upon him) is the seal of the prophets bringing God’s latest and final revelation. And if we are Buddhists or Hindus, we have been singing yet other songs which imply that we have the highest truth while others have lesser and partial truths.
God Has Many Names

Continue »

In the April 2 issue of Newsweek, Michael Lynton and his friends rated “The Top Fifty Rabbis in America” according to fame, media savvy, influence, and size of constituency. Though many of the “chosen” are superb rabbis, the list – not surprisingly, given those hyper-muscular criteria – contains 45 men and five women.

Continue »

It does take a village to raise a child, but what if the village is in crisis?

Continue »