Archive for July, 2008
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry that works against homlessness and poverty. They invite people of all backgrounds, races and religions to build houses together in partnership with families in need.
Recently, an article about a “House of Abraham” project caugh my eye, or rather my newsfeeds. The project to build an affordable Habitat house for a local family was planned, funded, and built by a local group of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. A little further web research shows that there are numerous other similar projects both underway and completed throughout the US.
What a fantastic idea, a grand project, a great way to bring people together to work together for something that’s literally constructive.
Dave
July 8th, 2008
Chicago Public Radio recently ran a story on Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb’s interfaith mission to Iran.
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is the Director of Interfaith Inventions and Co-founder of the Shomer Shalom Institute for Jewish Non-Violence and the Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk. She often leads delegations to the Middle East as part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. She is ordained in the Jewish Renewal movement, and has been rated in the top 50 American rabbis.
Jews have lived in Iran since 586 BCE. Despite the Iranian government’s well-documented hostility toward Israel and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s holocaust denial, Gottlieb reports that Iran is “a country of mystics”, and she was welcomed as a Rabbi with open arms by the Iranian people.
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July 6th, 2008
The Telegraph reports that a recent survey shows that “just over a third of people thought religions like Christianity and Judaism would still be practiced in Britain in 100 years’ time,” but in contrast, “… the number of actively religious Muslims is predicted to increase from about one million today to 1.96 million in 2035.”
I’m not sure how much credibility to give public surveys, in that the pollsters are questioning members of the public who generally lack specific knowledge. As one anonymous pundit put it, “Opinion polls measure the public’s satisfaction with its ignorance.”
Given that only 33% of Britons consider themselves religious, these results come as no surprise. Rumours of religion’s demise are premature …
Dave
July 1st, 2008
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