Here’s Hoping People Will Look Beyond the Turban
This column is modified from a piece I wrote that appeared in the San Antonio Express-News. Last weekend, a 100-year old man finished a marathon in Toronto, Canada. Thousands gathered to celebrate his record-breaking feat, and he’s quickly become a global icon. Fauja Singh’s bright yellow turban and flowing white beard made it easy to pick him [...]
Taking No Pleasure in Death
Though I didn’t lose a leg that night, I did lose something else: a naïve belief that my body was somehow exempt from death. My time as a student chaplain in the hospitals of Oxford taught me to cognitively recognize the universal mortality of the human condition, but it was not until the needles were taped to my skin, the doctors were reading my charts, and the purple, atrophied leg was my own that it hit me. If not now, then some day, I will die. Yesterday at 11:08 PM someone did die.
Of 9/11 and Learning to Love the Other
For me, 9/11 began with religion: after my clock radio alarm gave me the first hint that something had gone terribly wrong, I knelt by my bed to pray that God would watch over the affected people. Then I went and turned on the TV just in time to see the first tower fall. Religion [...]
9/11 – 10: A Decade Lost for Immigrants
America’s collective unconscious cannot confront the anxiety of recognizing the central conflict: We are a nation of immigrants, but 9/11 would not have happened had we let the right immigrants in.
Not Free To Learn
Article first published as Not Free to Learn on Blogcritics. This time of year in America is the graduation season. Thousands of young people march to the sounds of Pomp and Circumstance and receive their diplomas. It is a time of celebrating achievement and looking forward to the future. It is a time of caps [...]
Inquiry to Delta Airlines
The following is the text of a message I sent to Delta Airlines in response to the incident of two Imams being removed from a Delta flight at the behest of one of their pilots. More information about the incident is available here. Hello, I am writing in regards to a customer care issue not [...]
Peter King Hearings: A Crystallizing Moment for the Interfaith Movement?
The hearings Representative Peter King recently held on the supposed “radicalization” of American Muslims are widely considered to be the most counterproductive in recent history. They single out the American Muslim community and misuse one of the highest offices in the land to bolster Islamophobia — or at the very least inaccurate generalizations about Islam [...]
E-Islamophobia: The New Hatewave
“My student just sent 500 of his closest friends and me an e-mail that says Obama is a radical Muslim only pretending to be a Christian. He wrote that if Obama becomes president, our country will be run by a terrorist. How should I respond to his e-mail?” This was the last question – the [...]
Contributing Scholars
Valarie KaurA third-generation Sikh American, Valarie is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and advocate who speaks out on race, religion, gender, and power in America. You can read more about her work here: www.valariekaur.com/blog
Junaid SulahryJunaid Sulahry is a lawyer and graduate student of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary, where he focuses on Islamic Law.
Danielle Elizabeth TumminioThe Reverend Danielle Elizabeth Tumminio is ordained in The Episcopal Church and has taught a variety of educational institutions, including Yale University. She is completing a doctoral degree in practical theology at Boston University, where she researches reproductive loss and assisted reproductive technologies. She is also the author of "God and Harry at Yale: Faith and Fiction in the Classroom" (Unlocking Press, 2010).