Description
Book SynopsisViolence committed by religious young people has become a regular feature of our daily news reports. What we hear less about are the growing numbers of religious young people from all faith backgrounds who are committed to interfaith understanding and cooperation. Building the Interfaith Youth Movement is the first book to describe this important phenomenon. Contributions include concrete descriptions of various interfaith youth projects across the countryfrom an arts-program in the South Bronx to a research program at Harvard University to a national organization called the Interfaith Youth Core based in Chicagowritten by the founders and leaders of those initiatives. Additional chapters articulate the theory and methodology of this important new movement. This book is a must-read for college chaplains, religious leaders who work with youth, and students and scholars of contemporary religion.
Trade ReviewThose working in higher education, or with similar aged youth, will find this volume a valuable resource across campus divisions: administrators in preparing mission and strategic planning, faculty in the classroom, administrators in student affairs, and chaplains in campus ministry offices to name a few. Perhaps [this book can be] most effectively used as a reference book for working groups exploring ways to foster interfaith action. * Collegium: A Colloquy of Faith and Intellectual Life *
This is a truly 21st century story that focuses on a new set of movements for social change that are bringing together young people across lines of faith for the work they can do on behalf of all of us. Readers will find programs to emulate, understandings that will sharpen their thinking and tremendous encouragement to add their thoughts to this emerging dialog. -- Ruth Messinger * President, American Jewish World Service *
This collection of essays is...to be welcomed....Many of the principles that can be drawn out of them...have universal relevance and can be seen in other initiatives around the globe. -- Elizabeth J. Harris * Journal of Contemporary Religion *
With the publication of their breathtakingly comprehensive and creative profile of the emergent interfaith youth movement, Patrice Brodeur and Eboo Patel have both disclosed and helped to create an increasingly coherent social force that exemplifies what Brodeur calls "the global"—the unfolding of global dynamics in local communities. This volume, glistening with new ideas and energies, gathers one innovative voice after another—27 in all—to provide vivid testimony to the progress and potential of various initiatives that can eventually produce a truly transnational youth movement. The world will be the better for the empowerment of religiously alert, tolerant young people who welcome diversity and pluralism as an opportunity rather than a threat. -- R Scott Appleby, Institute for International Peace Studies, Professor of History, University of Notre Dame
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Acknowledgements Chapter 2 Preface Chapter 3 Introduction Part 4 CONTEXTS OF INTERFAITH YOUTH WORK Chapter 5 Affirming Identity, Acheiving Pluralism Chapter 6 Young Adult Development, Religious Identity, and Interreligious Solidarity in an Interfaith Learning Community Chapter 7 Theologies of Interreligious Encounters and Their Relevance to Youth Part 8 INTERNATIONAL INTERFAITH ORGANIZATIONS Chapter 9 Towards a Transnational Interfaith Youth Network in Higher Education Chapter 10 The Gujarat Young Adult Project of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) Chapter 11 Youth Leadership Chapter 12 The Next Generation Part 13 HIGHER EDUCATION Chapter 14 Youth and the Pluralism Project Chapter 15 Seminarians Interacting Chapter 16 Towards a Multifaith Community at Wellesley College Chapter 17 Bringing Interfaith to the University of Illinois Chapter 18 Ariculating What is at Stake in Interreligious Work Part 19 SECONDARY EDUCATION Chapter 20 Teaching World Religions Chapter 21 Secondary School Teacher Training in Religious Studies Chapter 22 Training Teachers in American Religious Diversity Part 23 COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECTS Chapter 24 The Interfaith Youth Core Chapter 25 Interfaith Youth Leadership Council of the Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston Chapter 26 The High School Youth Program of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington Chapter 27 The Sacred Stories of the Ghetto Film School Part 28 IMMERSION PROJECTS Chapter 29 Spirit into Action Chapter 30 E Pluribus Union Chapter 31 The Chicago Interfaith Service House Chapter 32 Face to Face/Faith to Faith Part 33 PASTORAL WORK Chapter 34 Ask Pastor Paul Chapter 35 Conclusion Chapter 36 Epilogue Chapter 37 Index Chapter 38 About the Contributors
