April 26, 2012
Eboo Patel, an American Muslim and founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, addresses a group of Christians at the Global Faith Forum at Northwood Church. He talks about the increasing challenges of living in the U.S. as a Muslim and the need for people to protect and respect people from other faiths. Patel encourages people to promote peace, not in spite of their faith, but as a response to the robust peacemaking teaching found in their religious texts.
April 24, 2012
Today on the blog, we have something a bit different. This post was written by Christen Hansel, a friend of Peace Catalyst's, for her personal blog and we're reposting it here with her permission. It's very personal and a bit different than what we usually post, but it is a powerful story and one we hope will move you as much as it did us.
April 19, 2012
We've recently added a collection of resources to our website called the Peacemaker's Popcorn Guide. In short, it's a collection of short online videos that we think are excellent for provoking thinking and promoting peace. We'll be posting one video a week on the blog, along with some reflection questions to go with each. Watch them on your own, or get a group and talk through the questions together. Let us know what you think too - we'd love to hear your thoughts and what kinds of discussions you have after watching these.
April 17, 2012
In Peace Catalyst International, we aspire to launch a global movement of Jesus-centered peacemaking communities. To that end, our PCI team in Raleigh has helped to catalyze a significant movement of Muslims and Christians who are moving beyond unhelpful stereotypes and are building bridges of friendship and trust. Back in the fall, however, things took a major twist for us. A well-respected local rabbi reached out, basically saying that he had heard about our work in bringing Muslims and Christians together and that he wanted his Jewish congregation in on the fun.
April 12, 2012
I was privileged to view an extraordinary documentary recently that presents a very different picture of Christian-Muslim relations than that which is promoted by the media and religious extremists. The name of the documentary is Different Books, Common Word, produced by the Baptist Center of Ethics in 2009.
April 10, 2012
Are today's evangelical Christians going to miss the opportunity to be peacemakers in this generation? Generational blind spots have caused many Christians to miss the blessing of following Jesus as a peacemaker in the issues of their day-slavery, human rights of Native Americans, Japanese who were interned in camps during WWII, minorities during the civil rights era, etc. Is the issue of how we treat our Muslim neighbors nearby or around the world going to be another one of those missed opportunities?
April 4, 2012
Recently, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of North Carolina homeschoolers and then leading them on a tour of their neighborhood mosque. A few minutes before we would go across the street to the mosque, I asked the kids if they had ever been to a mosque and how they were feeling about our pending visit.
April 3, 2012
People like learning from experts. And better yet, experts who not only know their stuff but who give good advice based on personal experiences. As we learn from them and experience for ourselves the truth of what they have to teach, they become more credible. They are teachers we can trust. In Indonesia we have a phrase for people like this: sudah makan banyak garam, which literally means people who "have eaten much salt." People who eat much salt have a lot of life experience and know what they are talking about.