During each of her nearly 20 years working for the United Nations, Dr. Azza Karam, now secretary general for the organization Religions for Peace, would take in “the awe-inspiring moment” along with prime ministers and presidents as the U.N. General Assembly got underway each year.
In the atmosphere of celebrating International Women’s Day on March 26, the Presbytery of Kigali organized a daylong workshop to remind women church leaders to continue fighting against the pandemics of COVID-19 and HIV/AIDS. Forty religious leaders were invited from the Rwandan Muslim Association, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Association of Baptist Churches, the Reformed Baptist Church and the Free Methodist Church.
God of our weary years and our silent tears,We are shattered by the deaths of 49 Muslim neighbors in New Zealand, cut down in the midst of Friday prayers.We are horrified, angry, despairingWe struggle with a knowledge that our prayers alone are not enough our silence in the face of intolerance and fear is complicity a fear that we do not know a way forward that will help an emptiness: we have been here before, too many times,and we know we will walk this bloodied path again.
It’s been a good year for hate. Melanie Rodenbough, a lifelong Presbyterian, lives in North Carolina. In early 2017, she learned from the news that the FBI was beginning an investigation after an audio recording of a meeting of conservative activists near Winston-Salem revealed death threats against Muslims living in the area.
Dear mother wearing the hijab in the children’s museum: As-salamu alaykum. Peace be upon you. When I have traveled to distant lands, hearing just one word in my cradle language has felt like having a familiar coat wrapped around me. So I speak peace to you.
The Presbyterian Mission Agency’s office of Interfaith Relations invites you to join Rick Ufford-Chase this Thursday, June 15th at noon eastern time, for a Facebook Live event as he interviews Susan Smith, a Muslim resident in the Community of Living Traditions at Stony Point Center, about her recent trip to Iraqi Kurdistan with Christian Peacemaker Teams.
The Most Rev. Paul S. Sarker, moderator of the Church of Bangladesh and Bishop of the Dhaka Diocese, visited the Presbyterian Center recently to celebrate the first 25 years of formal partnership between the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Church of Bangladesh (CoB). The visit also provided an opportunity to discern God’s direction for the future of the partnership.
In its commitment to provide a variety of opportunities and platforms designed to build and foster relationships with people of other religious traditions, the Presbyterian Mission Agency’s office of Interfaith Relations is continuing its new Facebook Live series, “Third Thursdays — Multifaith Conversations on Concerns of Our Time.”
Vandalism in two Jewish cemeteries in recent weeks has not only caused concern in the Jewish community, but also among interfaith partners working to confront religious-based violence. Members of the Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy in St. Louis and the Presbytery of Philadelphia have come alongside Jewish partners to offer support.
“All of us have to educate ourselves. All of us have to make an extra effort to understand the other.” That’s the crux of the message Dr. Sayyid Syeed, national director for the Office for Interfaith and Community Alliances for the Islamic Society of North America, brought to Redwood Falls, Minnesota, when he spoke at the First Presbyterian Church and other locations in that community Sept. 15-17.
