Amid COVID-19, we stand to benefit from interfaith dialogue

Genrietta ChurbanovaDecember 1, 2020 | 6:52pm EST

Spontaneous interactions are rare during the COVID-19 era. Our conversations, except for those that occur with the people we live with, are decidedly deliberate. College publications ranging from The Harvard Gazette to The Daily Princetonian have highlighted college students’ loss of impromptu conversations and casual community during the pandemic.

The loss of one particular type of on-campus exchanges, however, deserves special attention: interfaith interactions.

Although Princeton is a secular institution, and many Princeton students do not identify as people of faith, the University’s campus is conducive to interfaith interactions. Princeton students come from a wide variety of faiths, including Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam, among many others. Official data about Princeton students’ religious affiliations is not readily available, but the recent frosh survey from the ‘Prince’ provides a glimpse into the Class of 2024’s religious composition. Of the 713 first-years who disclosed their religious affiliation on the survey, 38.3 percent identified as Christian, 8 percent as Jewish, and 4.9 percent as Hindu. For comparison, in the United States at large, 70.6 percent of individuals identify as Christian and 5.9 percent as holding a non-Christian faith. For students hailing from religiously homogeneous communities, their first meaningful interfaith interactions may well occur at Princeton.

Unfortunately, informal interfaith settings are difficult to recreate online. Take the Center for Jewish Life’s Shabbat dinners, which Princeton’s Jewish Chaplain, Rabbi Julie Roth, called “one of the high points of the week at the Center for Jewish Life.” According to Rabbi Roth, last academic year, from September to March, one thousand students attended a Shabbat dinner. Approximately five hundred of Princeton’s undergraduates are Jewish. These dinners, which were fruitful sites of interfaith dialogue, have been suspended during the pandemic, as have many other interfaith events. As Rabbi Roth noted, “we can’t really replicate that Shabbat dinner experience online.” She further explained that “the Princeton-affiliated chaplains still meet on a monthly basis, but we haven’t had as much interfaith programming in this Zoom environment.”

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Marvel’s first on-screen Muslim superhero — Kamala Khan, Ms. Marvel’s alter-ego — inspires big hopes

Amid the stress of a rising second wave of COVID-19, comic book fans found something to celebrate this September. Marvel Studios announced the casting of its first on-screen Muslim superhero, Kamala Khan, the alter-ego of Ms. Marvel.

Much like Canadian teen actress Iman Vellani who was plucked for this role, Kamala has been a virtual unknown outside of comic fandom despite being a sensation since her series debut at the top of comic book sales charts in 2014.

It should be no surprise then that Marvel Studios decided to capitalize on this success and signed Kamala for her own TV series on Disney+ for an anticipated debut in late 2021 or early 2022.

As a researcher who has examined Muslim superheroes in American comics, I find Kamala to be the most intriguing of all American Muslim superheroes. She has an ability to destabilize stereotypes of Muslims while reinforcing ideas about American exceptionalism. In the hands of different writers in various comic iterations, she has appeared as multi-dimensional and stereotype-breaking, but also as a one-dimensional figure that advances Islamophobic themes.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE CONVERSATION

Majority Of Muslims Voted For Biden, But Trump Got More Support Than He Did In 2016

A woman wears a hijab and an American flag mask during an Election Day celebration at Times Square on Saturday, Nov. 2020 in New York, NY. Joe Biden received a record-breaking 75 million votes during the 2020 Presidential Election against Donald Trump. (Photo by Erin Lefevre/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

It was almost two years ago that Shahid Shafi, a surgeon in Southlake, Texas, was targeted by members of his own political party for his Muslim faith.

A few Republican precinct chairs lobbied to remove him from his post as vice chair of the Tarrant County Republican Party. But they lost in a vote of 139-49.

“When I was attacked by a handful of people on the fringes of the Republican Party because of my faith, the entire leadership of the Republican Party, as well as the rank-and-file members, stood up to support me,” Shafi said.

The support of the majority of the party is what stayed with him, not the attack on his faith by a minority.

He was attracted to the party and public service when he became a citizen in 2009.

“I was born in India and grew up in Pakistan, and I came of age in Pakistan under a brutal military dictatorship,” Shafi said. “Growing up in that environment, I saw the overreach of the government, how it can invade and take over every part of a person’s life — from opportunities for education, to work, to where you can live, to whom you can marry, and where you can start your business.”

FULL ARTICLE AND AUDIO CLIP FROM NPR

Anti-Muslim bigotry fueled by Trump has a ripple effect that hurts all Americans

Reflecting on the damage done to our country during the Trump presidency, the worst of them was the division he caused through his hateful rhetoric against minorities, including his extensive anti-Muslim diatribes.

– In 2011 and 2012, Donald Trump suggested that President Obama was secretly Muslim. It wasn’t true, but what if he were? Was this an insult?

– At a rally in 2015, Trump nodded along when a supporter told him, “We have a problem in this country, it’s called Muslims. When can we get rid of them?” Trump replied, “We need this question — we’re going to be looking at a lot of things”

– In 2015, Trump falsely claimed that thousands of Muslims cheered the 9/11 attacks.

– In 2015, Trump makes his infamous call to ban all Muslims from the United States. A few days later, he tweeted the United Kingdom was “trying to disguise their massive Muslim problem”

In 2016, Trump claims, “Islam hates us.”

After taking office, he appointed many Islamophobes to his team and inspired many others to come out and show their bigotry openly. One of them did so here in South Florida, declaring herself a “proud Islamophobe” and, sadly, was nominated by local Republicans to represent a South Florida district in Congress. She lost, but, tellingly, more than 150,000 people voted for this “proud Islamophobe”.

Taking inspiration from Trump’s hateful rhetoric, a terrorist in Christchurch, New Zealand, killed 51 people at two mosques last year. The killer cited Trump as a “symbol of renewed white identity.” Sadly, the White House failed to describe these attacks as the acts of terror that they were.

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE MIAMI HERALD

Recommendations for the Biden Administration on Engaging With Religious Communities

The Biden administration will face many challenges, including the urgent and overlapping crises of the coronavirus pandemic, systemic racism, a devastated economy, and climate change. America’s diverse religious communities care deeply about these issues and have the potential to aid the new administration in healing the nation and the world. The Biden administration should seriously explore the opportunity to work with faith communities to advance human dignity and the common good. This issue brief outlines recommendations for robust engagement between religious communities and organizations and the administration to best lead this effort and champion specific policies to advance true religious liberty.

The following are top-line recommendations for the incoming Biden administration:

1. President Joe Biden should deliver a speech on religious freedom and religious pluralism early in his administration.
2. Together with Pope Francis, the Biden administration should organize a global gathering of religious leaders to discuss climate change and refugee issues.
3. The administration should work with Congress to pass legislation that will uphold religious liberty, including the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act and Do No Harm Act.
4. The Biden administration should make it clear through its policies and public engagement that the federal government has a compelling interest in nondiscrimination and that there is no hierarchy of protected classes.
5. The administration should ensure that its outreach efforts reflect the religious diversity of American communities and engage them around a wide variety of issues.
6. The Biden administration should reestablish the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships (OFNP) as part of the Domestic Policy Council and ensure sufficient staffing for religious community outreach in the Office of Public Engagement (OPE).
7. The administration should revitalize America’s international religious diplomacy

FULL ARTICLE FROM AMERICANPROGRESS.ORG

‘We’re all children of Abraham’: The patriarch that unites Jews, Christians and Muslims

By Rickey Ciapha Dennis Jr. rdennis@postandcourier.comOct 6, 2018 Updated Sep 14, 2020

In preparation for Sunday’s sermon, the Rev. Cress Darwin reviews the biblical book of Genesis.

He finds the story where God orders Abraham to leave his home and promises him numerous descendants comparable to the sand on the seashore and stars in the sky.

Darwin, who leads Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, admires Abraham for his obedience and faithfulness. 

“The hope that I take is that if God can use some of these characters, he can certainly use us,” Darwin said.

Abraham isn’t only revered by Christians. He’s a central figure in Judaism and Islam as well.

While the faiths are unique in their religious beliefs, customs and practices, Abraham is the common forefather that shows the religions have a lot more in common than what some may think.

Abraham is considered the patriarch of monotheism. According to the story recorded in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts, he was instructed by God to leave his native land where his family worshipped pagan gods.

Texts say that Abraham had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac. The former founded the Arab people from which the Prophet Muhammad came and founded the Islamic faith. From the latter, Judaism manifested and Jesus Christ is eventually born thousands of years later to initiate Christianity. 

FULL ARTICLE FROM THE POST AND COURIER

Joe Biden Has Promised to End Trump’s Muslim and African ‘Travel Ban’. But Its Legacy Will Be Felt for Years

TOPSHOT – Demonstrators protest President Donald Trump’s executive immigration ban at O’Hare International Airport on January 29, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. US President Trump signed the controversial executive order that halted refugees and residents from predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States. / AFP PHOTO / Joshua LOTT (Photo credit should read JOSHUA LOTT/AFP via Getty Images)

Afnan Salem’s father, a Somali citizen living in Malaysia, has been waiting three years for United States immigration authorities to allow him to come to Ohio to live with his family. But Trump’s severe travel restrictions on many visas for those with citizenship from more than a dozen predominantly African and Muslim-majority countries, including Somalia, means he is, at least temporarily, barred from entry.

Under previous Administrations, Salem’s father would likely have been able to come to the U.S. without complications: Salem’s brother is a U.S. citizen and has filed for a visa on their father’s behalf. Trump’s travel ban—often referred to as the Muslim and African ban—changed that calculus, making it much more difficult, and often impossible, for family members from certain predominately Muslim and African countries to gain entry to the U.S.

Salem, a Somali-American 22-year-old student at Ohio State University, says the stringent restrictions send a message to her and those like her that Africans and Muslims are not welcome in the U.S, that “you don’t have the right to be reunited with your family because of your faith or where you come from.”

President-elect Joe Biden, who is expected to be inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2021, has promised to revoke the Trump-era travel ban on his first day in office—a commitment that families like Salem’s are desperately hoping he follows through on.

FULL ARTICLE FROM TIME MAGAZINE