This book is meant for every family member, colleague, and airplane seatmate who has asked me a variation of the following question: “Why is the world like this? What can I do?” Being human is a messy endeavor. We are made to be in relationship—built for community, craving to be known and seen and heard, better together. And yet, some flaw in us allows us to dwell on difference and allows diversity to become divisiveness. We fear the unknown. We resist the new. We turn strident and hateful when made to change. Why is this? I believe that leaning into the unknown is a transformative skill. We can practice becoming okay with difference. We can become virtuosic at embracing the unknown. When we learn that diversity will indeed transform us—body, soul, and nation—we can systematically name, teach, and celebrate the practices that help us persevere in shaky places.

Everyday Wisdom is an introduction for lived religion, interreligious studies, and interfaith engagement and leadership. Tying together the aims and learning objectives of interreligious-studies courses, the book proposes a framework for interreligious studies and interfaith leadership, aiming to be a core text in undergraduate and graduate study.

This book introduces the theory of interreligious resilience as a means to developing deeper and more effective interreligious engagement and resilience. Michael S. Hogue and Dean Phillip Bell advocate for interreligious resilience as the ability to grow through encounters with religious difference. They argue that rather than the capacity to endure change and return to a normal status quo, a deeper, more complex resilience is characterized by an ability to learn through disturbances, disruptions, and uncertainty. This book integrates theory and practice by situating the practical tasks of interreligious engagement in theological and social contexts. It is systemic and multidimensional, rather than staying focused on isolated interreligious issues or interpersonal interreligious encounters. This book is essential reading for all religious leaders and other community leaders working with religious people in an interreligious world.

The world cries out for ethical leaders. We expect the best, but we are often left profoundly disappointed. While leadership programs may feature ethics as part of their curriculum, the approach is often either simplistic or overly esoteric. This second edition addresses this scarcity of resources for training ethical leaders, providing a primer of several ethical frameworks accompanied by extended examples to help inform decision-making. It also addresses several leadership models that claim an ethical component. The new edition also includes new chapters on the ethics of care and toxic leadership, and new case studies for all chapters. By providing a consistent case analysis based on the Five Components of Leadership Model, readers benefit from a comprehensive approach to understanding ethical leadership.

A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious lines In this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonality—in their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today.

This is an open access book. Wael B. Hallaq, a renowned sharia scholar, has called sharia an ‘episteme’ that suffered a ‘structural death’ following the dawn of modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Hallaq 2009, 15–16). Yet, its resurgent is remarkable across a number of jurisdictional fault-lines: from Muslim-majority nations in Middle East and Southeast Asia to Muslim-minority societies in Western Europe and North America. Across these jurisdictions, the relationship between sharia and state law is central. It includes sharia-state encounters, notably in the form of (state) Islamic law, in the field of family law, which is often asserted as the ‘core’ or ‘last stronghold’ of sharia (Moors 2003, 2; Coulson 1969, 115–6), and other substantive areas of law, such as Islamic economics and Islamic philanthropy and also jinayah (Islamic penal law). Regardless of their differences in their own specific context, these areas somehow manage to secure an importance place in the modern days. It involves different loci of authority to interpret, legislate, and enforce sharia, or parts of it that not only flourish but also being challenged around the Muslim world. Equally important are implications of the increasingly unsettled authority of apparently agreed-upon substance of sharia. To contribute on these issues, we would like to invite scholars from diverse discipline including law, anthropology, and Islamic studies, working in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts, to present their works in our International Seminar on Sharia, Law, and Muslim Society (ISSLaMS).

This comprehensive volume brings together a distinguished editorial team, including some of the field’s pioneers, to explore the aims, practice, and historical context of interfaith collaboration. Explores in full the background, history, objectives, and discourse between the leaders and practitioners of the world’s major religions Examines relations between religions from around the world, moving well beyond the common focus on Christianity, to also cover over 12 major religions Features a wealth of case studies on contemporary interreligious dialogue Charts a long-term shift away from a competitive rivalry between belief systems, and a change in focus towards the more respectful, cooperative approach reflected in institutions such as the World Council of Churches Includes up-to-date commentary on the growing dialogue of recent years, written by some of the leading figures working in the field of interfaith discourse

Rooted and Rising is for everyone who worries about the climate crisis and seeks spiritual practices and perspectives to renew their capacity for compassionate, purposeful, and joyful action. Leah Schade and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas gather twenty-one faith leaders, scientists, community organizers, theologians, and grassroots climate activists to offer wisdom for fellow pilgrims grappling with the weight of climate change. Acknowledging the unprecedented nature of our predicament—the fact that climate disruption is unraveling the web of life and threatening the end of human civilization—the authors share their stories of grief and hope, fear and faith. Together, the essays, introductory sections, and discussion questions reveal that our present crisis can elicit a depth of wisdom, insight, and motivation with power to guide us toward a more peaceful, just, and Earth-honoring future. With a foreword by Mary Evelyn Tucker and a special introduction by Bill McKibben, the book presents an interfaith perspective that welcomes and challenges readers of all backgrounds.

Describes the impacts of toxic poisoning and environmental pollution on indigenous communities and communities of color.