The Daily Show: Interview with Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer 29 October , 2009

Last night there was an interesting interview with Mustafa Barghouti and Anna Baltzer.  Mr. Barghouti was a candidate in the last Palestinian election, winning 18% of the vote on a democratic, non-violent platform.  Ms. Baltzer is a Jewish American activist who has worked extensively in Israel and Palestine.

While this isn’t a topic that World Faith is directly involved with at this point, there were several interesting things that can be noted in this interview.  First of all, Mr. Barghouti, when addressing non-voilence activism, referred to historical activists of varied faith traditions, such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi.  He also corrected John Stewart when John spoke in identity terms.  He Barghouti said, “This is not a Jewish issue, an Arab or Muslim issue, but a human issue.”

Also in the wider scope it was revealing.  Candid discourse on the Israel and Palestine peace process is infrequent in the American media.  It came to little surprised that when this discussion happened, that it wasn’t seen in political or polemic terms, but in shared religious values and common human dignity.

Check out the extended interview on Hulu, or go on the Daily Show Website!

Frank Fredericks Speaks at Q Conference 9 April , 2008

Frank Fredericks was invited by Gabe Lyons to speak at the Q Conference in New York, on the topic of being Christian in a plural society.  The Q Conference is a Christian meeting initiated by the Fermi Project.  Eboo Patel also spoke.

Faith, Religion, and Identity 17 October , 2007

For those who want a summary of what is to  come in this post, it is most easily classified as a rant.  Be warned.

 Faith and Religion are two words I often see used interchangeably, but I fear this may only be a sign of detriment of the current vanacular to explain phenomona which see outside the self, thus, religious people have been removed from the discourse.  This appears to be a product of the fact that in the name of freedom of religion, we have developed the concept of freedom <em>from</em> religion.  Beyond the obvious fact  that religious views have been removed from the conversation of the society, it also poses a second problem. <!–more–>

When the interaction exists in a discourse, the indentity of of a religious person is set in an idealogical framework.  Faith.  Faith in  this case is a indentity bound to philosophy.  The being is as such.  However, with the current situation, religious identities are not represented intellectually in the public discourse, therefore the society can easily create the identity on practices.  Religion.  Religion is seen a system of practices by which one can be identified.  Without the interaction and only practices to base assumption off of, manifestations of stereotypes should be of no surprise, as faith identities have been denied the opportunity to reveal their relative dynamicism.  This opens up a whole new discussion, as now the non-religious have grouped the people of faith identities in a single stereotype, for instance, of uneducation.  This gives birth to fabricated oxymorons, things completely possible and congruent yet considered anomalies.  Liberal Christian, White Muslim, or American communist.  Granted the desire to remove religion from conversation by means of making appear as folly is nothing new, the communities of faith have only fed the image by devoting what reach they have had on attacking eachother (especially those philosophically most similar), rather than uniting for a campaign of improving the image of faith in general.  Faith translates well, it takes faith to believe Marxist-Lenninism, Secular Humanism, etc, all the same of religions.  Religions are essentially theistic philosophies.  I would go as far to say it requires at least an equal ammount of faith to believe there is no god than to embrace theism, even in its most elemental form.

to be continued…