Martin Luther King Jr.'s Faith Background Key To His Drive For Justice

Lauren Markoe and Adelle M. Banks

WASHINGTON (RNS) Fifty years to the day after Martin Luther King Jr. knocked on the nation’s conscience with his dream, religious leaders gathered in a historic church to remind the nation that he was fueled by faith.

Later, in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial where King thundered about America’s unmet promises, King’s children joined the likes of President Obama and Oprah Winfrey to rekindle what Obama called a “coalition of conscience.”

In redemption days hoping for better

Arzu Kaya Uranli

“If the brain and the belly are burning clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire. The fog clears, and a new energy makes you run up the steps in front of you.”
-Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi

Celebrating the Spirit of Ramadan from Turkey to America

Joshua W. Walker

Growing up the son of a protestant pastor and valuing the role that my Christian faith plays in my own life, it often comes as a surprise to my friends when I tell them that Ramadan is among one of my favorite religious holidays. While Christmas and Easter are seminal to my faith tradition and represent some of my fondest memories growing up, they are one-day celebrations that in the American modern era sometimes lack the communal feel that the holy month of Ramadan offers in the Muslim world.

Oklahoma Muslims Aid In Tornado Relief In Bid To Build Bridges

Omar Sacirbey

(RNS) Oklahoma is probably one of the tougher places to be a Muslim in America, but Muslims have stepped in to help with the cleanup of a massive tornado that killed 24 people.

“As Oklahomans, we’re part of this community, and our hearts just break for what happened,” said Adam Soltani, executive director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, one of several Muslim groups collecting donations.

Sacramento church will celebrate Easter at Muslim center

Bill Lindelof

A large Sacramento Christian congregation soon to be without a home will celebrate Easter at an Islamic center.

Spiritual Life Center of Sacramento, whose lease expires March 31 at a downtown church, will be conducting Easter services at the Sacramento Area League of Muslims (SALAM) property near American River College.

Can religion prevent violence?

Jim Roope

When tragedies happen like the shooting at Newtown, Connecticut, the question of faith often comes up. How can horrible events like that be allowed to happen?

St. Boniface Church In San Francisco Lets Homeless People Sleep In Pews

Zoe Mintz

For the city’s homeless, San Francisco’s St. Boniface Church is seen as a safe haven.

The nonprofit known as the Gubbio Project partners with the Roman Catholic church to let the city’s homeless sleep on its pews during daylight hours, even during Mass, and provides a host of services to hundreds of those who are forced to leave when homeless shelters close in the morning, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Freedom of Religion and the Right to Be Respected

Amb. Ufuk Gokcen

As the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's Ambassador to the United Nations in New York, I have recently attended for the second year in a row a special commemoration event at the Park East Synagogue in New York in conjunction with the U.N. International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every year, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the respected and veteran interfaith dialogue contributor, brings together his congregation with the members of the U.N. diplomatic community, including the U.N. Secretary General, to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, pay tribute to survivors and underline the commitment of the international community not to allow religious persecution and genocide.

Huntsville's Osher Lifetime Learning class offers history, culture of Islam

Kay Campbell

Gulsum Kucuksari, at left, talks with
Carol Codori and Bill McAlister after
one of the Islam: Rumor and Reality class
she taught for the Osher Lifetime Learning
Institute held in Huntsville at the
University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Kucuksari will teach the class for OLLI
again during the Spring 2013 semester.
(Courtesy of Linda McAlister)

When Gulsum Kucuksari, who was raised as a Muslim in Turkey, came to the U.S., she heard some surprising things about her faith.

“People were telling me about these 77 virgins for terrorists, and I didn’t understand it – in all my life, I have never heard this,” Kucuksari said. "The Quran does not promise virgins for terrorists."

She was describing the class on Islam she teaches for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Huntsville. “I thought it was funny.”

Eboo Patel explores religious pluralism

Manya A. Brachear

Honor religious freedom by respecting the red, white and blue, says Patel

Eboo Patel (Photo: Armando
L. Sanchez, Chicago Tribune)

Eboo Patel is an idealist. A hopeless romantic. A dreamer. The Chicago-based founder of the Interfaith Youth Core and one of President Barack Obama's faith advisers doesn't believe people of different faiths should just all get along. They should work together. But there's another attribute that has grounded Patel's optimism and led him to develop one of the nation's leading non-profits devoted to interfaith cooperation. Eboo Patel is a patriot. If pairing a so-called “foreign” name with the concept of American loyalty makes some bigots cringe, Patel's latest book will make them cringe cover to cover. In “Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America,” Patel confronts the challenges of living up to America's high ideals, takes on the bigots and explains how he briefly lost hope for his cause, only to find it once again.

All Saints Church, Hosting Muslim Public Affairs Council Convention, Receives Threats, Hate Mail

For the first time in its history, the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) is holding its annual convention at a Christian church. But now the council's host, All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., is facing vitriolic backlash.

Our History of Religious Intolerance Must Come to an End

Rev. Gary R. Hall,
Amb. Thomas R. Pickering,
and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf*

Although religious freedom is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, religious intolerance still exists in this country. Thanksgiving reminds us that the Pilgrims came to America to escape religious persecution. But the Puritans did not welcome other religions into their colony. All through American history, most religions arriving on our shores have had to fight suspicion and intolerance.

The five biggest misconceptions about secularism

Jacques Berlinerblau *

As far as the Republicans are concerned, President Barack Obama is secularism’s go-to guy in Washington. Newt Gingrich refers to him as a “secular-socialist.” Mitt Romney charges that his opponent advocates a “secular agenda.” And Rick Santorum frets that Obama is imposing “secular values” on “people of faith.”

The president, however, seems not to have received the whole him-being-a-secularist memo. American secularists have thrown up their hands in frustration over his supersizing of George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. They roll their eyes at his God talk. As for his recent call for days of “prayer and remembrance” to commemorate 9/11, well, would the late Rev. Jerry Falwell have done it any differently?

An Interfaith Journey Across the United States

Christopher P. Scheitle and Roger Finke took a trip across the 50 United States in an interfaith journey of self-discovery. The two talk about their travels and share some beautiful photos in the Huffington Post here. A belief that “underneath this veneer of homogeneity lies a rich and varied topography of American religion” led them to this journey.

On their journey they realize:

Immigration has understandably had a persistent role in shaping America’s religious geography. Catholics began arriving in large numbers by the middle of the 19th century and settled in Boston and other East Coast enclaves, while Chinese and Japanese immigrants began to shape the religious composition of San Francisco and other West Coast communities. Religious innovation and creativity has also played its part in America’s geography.

These changes continue into the present day. We have all experienced these changes in our daily lives but this journey made by two Americans and their reflections on this journey remind all of us the importance of not only accepting the different religions in our communities but to also experience them, and to learn about them.

These changes are continuing and we need to become not only more tolerant but more open minded and embracing. As the two point out in this piece these changes in American religious topography is continuing to change:

Hispanic immigrants, not to mention Asian, African and Middle-Eastern immigrants, are reshaping the religious landscape once again. Religious groups are also still innovating, establishing megachurches and so-called ‘parachurch’ nonprofit organizations.