Peace and religions

By David Loy Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only good and evil, but success and failure, rich and poor, even the duality between enlightenment and delusion. Originally posted in Tricycle’s Magazine in spring 2002, here If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? Alexander Solzhenitsyn Because it emphasizes mindfulness of our thought processes, Buddhism encourages us to be wary of antithetical concepts, not only good and evil but success and failure, rich and poor, even the duality between enlightenment and delusion. We distinguish between the opposing terms because we want one rather than the other, yet the meaning of each depends...

By Dr. William R. Polk June 27, 2019 Exclusive: Many Americans and Westerners are baffled by the violent rage expressed by many Muslims, but the reasons for their anger are real, deriving from a “deep history” of anti-Islamic wars and colonial exploitation of the Middle East, as ex-U.S. diplomat William R. Polk describes. Originally published by Consortium News on August 15, 2015, here The issue of terrorist attacks on America has been so politically sensitive that most commentators have simply wrapped themselves in the flag and closed their eyes and ears. Yet, even in fairy tales, ostriches were never saved by burying their heads in the sand. It is not a good defensive posture and it wouldn’t be wise for real-life Americans to behave like make-believe ostriches. If we want to be safe rather than sorry in the dangerous world we now inhabit, we need to be clear-headed, logical and informed. Those...

There is much diversity.  Let us praise that mega aspect of our world as multipolar, passive but peaceful, coexistence of civilizations: Anglo-American; Latin American-Caribbean; Islamic; African pre-, post-colonial; European from Ireland to Russia Far East; West Asian Islamic; with Israel Jewish; Iran Persian; South Asian, SAARC, Hindu and Islamic with India; Southeast Asian, ASEAN, Buddhist, Christian, multi-cultural; Northeast Asian daoist-shinto with China and Japan; Asian-Pacific, multi-cultural, with Maoris, Aborigines, Polynesians, Micronesians, Melanesians from one rim to the other. 14 civilizations.  Others stop counting at 8, 10.  Around that. What a wonderful, diverse, polyphonic world!  Not monophonic US or European all over, as they both have wanted and maybe still want. It should be celebrated as part of a formula for endurance and duration. The other side of this is symbiosis.  Man-woman diversity is fine; the other part is man-woman symbiosis – that is probably celebrated in half of world literature?...

Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking against the Vietnam War, St. Paul Campus, University of Minnesota | 27 April 1967 . (Image by Minnesota Historical Society| Creative Commons)   By Robert Burrowes, Australia April 4, 2018 Fifty years ago, on 4 April 1968, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated The night before he died, King gave another of his many evocative speeches; this one at the packed Mason Temple in Memphis. The speech included these words: ‘Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. Now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and non-violence in this world, it is non-violence or non-existence. That is where we are today.’ In clearly identifying this stark choice and having been inspired by Mohandas K. Gandhi’s wide-ranging social concerns, King’s concerns were also broad: ‘The Triple Evils of poverty, racism and...

    This present Pope – Francis – is probably the most powerful man in the world, in the round. Stalin once asked when confronted with the argument about the Pope’s reach and influence, replied, “How many divisions has the pope got?” He missed the point. The pope does not work these days in the world of hard power. He is a peddler of soft power. Francis has much more power, maybe because of the strength of his convictions than any of his predecessors, with the exception of the Polish pope, John Paul 11, who played a front-line role in triggering the events that brought down communism. John Paul 11 set his sights high. How could this youngish pope have such an impact? It was drive, personality and an intuitive knowledge of how power worked. He was also enormously charismatic and could summon up a crowd of half a million people...

    What do we in the West know about Islam? Perhaps more than we did before 9/11 but not much. When Tony Blair was prime minister of the United Kingdom he was photographed walking along holding the Koran. President George W. Bush said repeatedly that Islam was a religion of peace, even though at that time one of the most influential American political writers, Professor Samuel Huntington of Harvard University, had written that it wasn’t fundamentalism that was the problem, it was Islam itself. He argued in his best-selling book, “The Clash of Civilizations” that “The twentieth century conflict between liberal democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting superficial phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relationship between Islam and Christianity.” He foresaw nuclear war between the West and Islam. This seems to me to be extravagantly over the top. Yet there are many Islamic scholars who make,...

  – Pope Francis sent out a message that should have created headlines everywhere. It advocated a journalism for peace. The discussion of fake news has spread around the globe and there are all kinds of proposals on how to detect fake news and combat it – as the truly civilizational threat it is. Indeed one could day that fake is the debate 2017-2018. A quick DuckDuckGo search – no, I don’t use Google Search anymore because of its tracking and blatant censorship – reveals that a few leading US media took up the story, so did a series of religious media, of course, but the amazing statement didn’t obtain much attention. Objectively speaking, that is particularly strange since any editor and journalist should be professionally observant of a statement on their own profession from the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. But what can surprise you anymore...

Pope Franciskus’ Message for the 50th World Day of Peace   1. At the beginning of this New Year, I offer heartfelt wishes of peace to the world’s peoples and nations, to heads of state and government, and to religious, civic and community leaders. I wish peace to every man, woman and child, and I pray that the image and likeness of God in each person will enable us to acknowledge one another as sacred gifts endowed with immense dignity. Especially in situations of conflict, let us respect this, our “deepest dignity”,[1] and make active nonviolence our way of life. This is the fiftieth Message for the World Day of Peace. In the first, Blessed Pope Paul VI addressed all peoples, not simply Catholics, with utter clarity. “Peace is the only true direction of human progress – and not the tensions caused by ambitious nationalisms, nor conquests by violence, nor repressions...

  By Rev. John Dear 15 Jan 2018 • It was early 1968.  Since the previous spring Martin Luther King, Jr. had been pursuing a course that for many was unthinkable.  He had deliberately connected the dots between the  movement  for civil rights and the struggle to end the war in Vietnam, and had paid the price. Originally published by Transcend Media Service here He was roundly criticized by the Johnson administration and the media, as well as people in his own movement. From the right he was attacked for having the gall to question US foreign policy.  From the left he was lambasted for losing focus and not keeping his eyes on the prize. He even got it from a childhood friend who stopped by the house one afternoon to vent. “Why are you speaking out against the Vietnam War?” he carped. King put aside his customary oratory. “When I speak about nonviolence,” he patiently explained, “I mean nonviolent all the way.” As David Garrow’s classic biography of King, Bearing the Cross, reports, he went on to say: “Never could I...

Farewell Seminar SCAR, George Mason University, Arlington-VA 6 Dec 2017 • Two basic institutions in Western history and individual lives: Christianity offering Salvation to those following Laws, Commandments, and Science offering Truth to those who believe in scientific laws. After Enlightenment ushered in a godless world, one is waning and the other vexing, seen as antithetical to each other. Is evolution being contested by “intelligent design”? By “diversity and symbiosis”? Neither one nor the other?  Or both? We do not know, nor do we come to grips with evolution beyond homo sapiens. Neither did Christianity. Via transcend.org But we are used in history to successors carrying the imprints of predecessors, and vice versa.  We are used to plus ça change plus ça este la même chose (the more it changes, the more it stays the same). And the more intended Italian cambiamo le cose affinche se mantengono le stesse (we...

  By Rabbi Michael Lerner • In case you who missed it, here’s Rabbi Lerner’s talk at Muhammed Ali’s funeral. If it inspires you, please read below for how to be an ally with Rabbi Lerner to help build the world he describes. To read the transcript of his speech, click here. Wondering why Rabbi Lerner got invited and how to respond to the handful of naysayers who have been upset by Lerner’s powerful message? Please read below. Muhammad Ali had known Rabbi Lerner as a friend and ally in the 1960s and early 1970s when both were indicted by the U.S. government for their roles in opposing the war in Vietnam. He then wrote Rabbi Lerner to praise his book with Cornel West Jews and Blacks: Let the Healing Begin. Approximately seven years ago, he decided to invite Rabbi Lerner to represent the American Jewish community at his memorial service. Rabbi Lerner...

  By Joseph Lumbard Assistant Professor of Classical Islam at Brandeis University and former advisor for interfaith affairs to the Royal Jordanian Court, is a general editor for The Study Quran. His other publications include Islam, Fundamentalism, and the Betrayal of Tradition and Submission, Faith and Beauty. Joseph Lumbard, Love for the Prophet Muhammad: A Key to Countering Islamism and Islamophobia. Tikkun 1 August 2015; 30 (3): 46–48 at Duke University Press Non-muslims often struggle to understand Muslims because they fail to grasp the role that the Prophet Muhammad plays in our lives. Failing to realize the breadth of the Prophet’s teachings and the depth of love for the Prophet throughout the Islamic world, many non-Muslims are quick to believe ISIS, the Wahhabis, and other militant groups when they claim that it is they who adhere to the precepts set by the Prophet Muhammad and are thus the true followers...