Univ. to host summit of faith leaders this summer
Idea for conference born out of Yale’s response to Muslim leaders’ call for increased understanding
Following a call from both Muslims and Christians for increased contact and dialogue between the religions, Yale will host an unprecedented conference in July — designed to bring together up to 300 Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders in hopes of fostering peace and bettering relationships among them.
#2
By Issa A. Saliba (Unregistered User)
10:05pm on March 30, 2008
I am delighted to learn of the upcoming conference of Christian and Muslim leaders. We desperately need more communication and understanding among leaders of the world's monotheistic religions. This exchange should go beyond the academic level and include practical issues facing leaders of active faith communities. More power to you!!
Sex, religion and the pursuit of blankness
When I was a student at YDS 1976-80, the Divinity School's heir to the RSV Committee, called the Inclusive Language Committee, proposed changing the patriarchal words "Our Father which art in heaven" to androgynous or at least gender-neutral words "Our Parent which art in heaven". The proposal failed.
If the Divinity School's excellent Muslim/Christian conference is not to fail, it must resist the temptation to paper over theological disputes with
anemic prose as the Inclusive Language Committee tried unsuccessfully to address the patrichal/phallocentric "Our Father" with "Our Parent".
Two such problems which must be faced head on are the dubious Supremacy of Christ and the resultant 1000+ years of hubris which can fall loosely under the heading The Supremacy Christianity: and, second, the equally dubious translation of "virgin" in in the Muslim vision of Paradise and its lure for suicide bombers.
Paper over these issues and you will be whistling past a graveyard, or to modernize the metaphor, whistling past the wreckage of future suicide bombings.
Paul D. Keane MDIV '80