Five interfaith leaders share readings and resources that inspire them, give them hope and offer solace in turbulent times.

Decades of silence, stigma, and structural barriers to treatment and testing have allowed the epidemic to spread, claiming the lives of far too many of our Black friends and families.   

In the final months of her mother's life, the Rev. Jennifer Bailey found that "writing became a sanctuary for me when words failed to take shape in my mouth."

A Methodist-affiliated Louisiana college granted tenure to Andia Augustin-Billy, a professor of French and Francophone studies who grew up in Haiti as the daughter of missionaries. She hopes her story "will spark very needed dialogue about having Black scholars in academia."

For my son, a 10-year-old boy of mixed race living on the South Side of Chicago, Muhammad Ali’s story carved a path of identity and belonging, of possibility and promise.

The home temple, or puja mandir, has been part of Hindu culture for centuries. Even for those who are not very religious, it can be a space for meditation and reflection.

Catholics leaders have urged vaccination to "protect the most vulnerable," and studies show this outreach is helping improve vaccination rates among Latino Catholics.

The articles and videos are by and about inspiring Latinx/a/o interfaith leaders from diverse religious communities.

The new PBS documentary on Muhammad Ali is worthy of the man, Eboo Patel writes, and it’s the role of his Muslim faith that he found most moving of all.

A Bible used during the study session at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on the night when nine people were killed is among the religious artifacts in a new exhibition on the Reconstruction period,

As a scholar of religious studies, I frequently use critical race theory as a tool to better understand how religion operates in American society.

The Fellows are activists, artists, and thought leaders who created compelling media pieces that are published on Interfaith America.

I find discomfort celebrating Juneteenth which is the honoring of the day/s that the formerly enslaved found out that they were no longer owned by someone else.

Interfaith coalitions have long taken up racial justice causes, most famously in the civil rights movements of the '60s, Yet, interfaith organizations themselves have often not taken racial equity work seriously.

I hear my sisters and brothers calling out in cacophony, “Aint I a Human?” When Sojourner Truth considered the ways in which white women were revered and protected; when she witnessed the ways their gentility and femininity were affirmed and nurtured; when she experienced the contrast in how she was treated relative to those who shared her gender but not her color, she was compelled to ask, “Aint I a Woman?”

"Over the years, people have asked if I was 'called' to be a rabbi, and the truth is I don't know, but what I do know is I did listen to an inner voice which I now believe was a holy voice. That holy voice led me to listen even when I doubted..."

At this time of year, I am particularly struck by the language we use in the academy. Our concept of Commencement is especially meaningful as it marks the physical end of a journey but in language simultaneously marks a new beginning.

It is in this spirit respeaking memory and finding time to etch it into the future that I offer the following exercise. It is designed to do with your friends or folks – preferably three or more. Take some time with it. Use it as a catalyst to...

The past four years have devastated communities across the United States with issues including police violence, climate change and environmental degradation, racism, anti-Semitism  anti-Muslim bigotry, and political upheaval.

Musa explores and analyzes data related to the growing irreligiosity and declining religious affiliation in America.

While the motive for last week’s rampage remains under investigation, leaders and members of the Sikh community say they feel a collective trauma and believe more must be done to combat the bigotry, bias and violence they have suffered for decades.

Anna, Racial Equity Media Fellow and Dean's Fellow at Harvard Divinity School (HDS), interviews Charlotte Zelle, a 3rd-year M.Div candidate at HDS, about how faith leaders can both prevent and respond to issues of intimate partner violence.

'Montero' is the anthem of a Black gay man roaring back from years of self-hate caused by anti-LGBTQ+ theologies. As a queer child of the Black church, it’s an anthem that resonates with me.

"In my mind, COVID represents Mitzrayim, the narrow place, our place of enslavement, the place of trauma and pain. As more of us are vaccinated and we move toward freedom, we find ourselves at the edge of the sea thinking about our past, our pain..."

Twitty's family's experience of emancipation connects him to the Jewish Passover traditio

In his third installment of "Master Peace," Nathan tells the story of Benjamin- a character who is treated like "an Urban Mistake" but became "an Urban Mystic."

According to The Wall Street Journal, he targeted these businesses “in retaliation” for feeding what he called his sex addiction.

While the motive behind Tuesday's rampage remains under investigation, some see it as a wake-up call to stand up against a rise in violence against the community.

Robert Aaron Long, 21, has been arrested in connection with the killings of four women at a spa in Cherokee County, Georgia, and four additional women in two other spas in northeast Atlanta, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

In addition to raising $100 million for descendants and racial reconciliation efforts, the initiative maintains a longer-term goal of raising $1 billion, according to America Magazine.

Without the fervent belief that things could be different, there would be no reason to embody rage. Without a clear vision of a more just world, rage would be futile.

Modah Ani is said immediately upon rising essentially before we get out of bed and should be the first words we utter every morning. When we recite Modah Ani we are essentially thanking God for giving us another day. We wake up grateful instead of...

Raja writes about the usefulness or appropriateness of the term "BIPOC" - Black, Indigenous, People of Color- in discourse about race and justice, and how it relates to and reflects the politics of race and racism in the United States.

Higher education remains highly unequal and racial divides persist. How can these realities be explained in a context defined by wokeness?

Do a quick Google or YouTube search for tarot, and you’ll find the two main things people tend to inquire about are love and money. Underlying these inquiries is a belief that a tarot reading can tell the future, which begs the question of whether...

"Black residents make up a little under half of Washington’s population, but constitute nearly three-fourths of the city's COVID-19 deaths."

In the last few weeks, I’ve seen too many social media posts claiming outright disbelief at the attack on the U.S. capitol and the democratic process of counting electors. Why is this surprising to us? Is this not what James Baldwin was talking about

Kaddish is the Jewish prayer we say when we are in mourning. I wrote my version of this Kaddish during the summer of 2015. When it seemed to me that day after day, unarmed black people were killed. Many of them were killed by police...

"The empire crucified Jesus and holds its actions as righteous and necessary. Instead of witnessing the crucifixion, we are organizing instruments of torture, deepening ghettos and excusing racism. Whiteness in its superiority cannot straddle both.."

What does it look like to stare down a monster and take back the power you once gave it? I believe many communities across the country are asking some form of this question these days. Please bear with me as I attempt a creative analysis tying...

I’ve been thinking about my death more than ever lately. Not suicidally, but quite frankly, it’s eventuality. I wish the world could understand what it means to be Black during the middle of a pandemic. Like pulling petals off a flower...

While the spirit of the Capitol was very confrontational the spirit of the Lincoln Memorial was conciliatory. While the atmosphere of the Capitol felt hazardous the other was healing. I guess those “better angels of our nature” reside there with...

If higher education is going to help at all in the present moment, it won't be by reinforcing student and faculty tendencies to smugly disparage 'those people' as stupid, ignorant, racist, sexist, whatever.

"In the prayer we have the words ‘Ufros Aleinu Sukkat Shlomecha’ it’s a plea asking God to provide protection over us, to provide a shelter of peace. And with everything that has transpired in this last year, we could use some shelter."

. Especially at this time and in these seasons, I am aware of so many for whom death has come too soon and for whom the sacred ritual of death has been interrupted or deemed impossible.

When it is your time it is your time. There is no power that you can muster that will prevent death from calling on any of our souls. This has been a year of death. For me it was ushered in before the pandemic when my “Irish twin” sister Jehan passed

In a Zoom interview, Anna sat down with Walae Hayek to discuss how she turned her passion into action, the inspiration behind Arabs Against Oppression, and the vision she has for the future of her advocacy work.

I have been deeply touched and inspired by what has resulted. Yet, I have been struck by the fact that what happened to George Floyd was actually stunning to people. For as long as I have been alive my community has lifted its chorus to condemn...

"...dictatorial rulers, corruption, voter suppression, police brutality, and innumerable unwarranted deaths. These are but a few descriptors that comprise “everyday” in 2020. What does an everyday God look like in a stretch of time that defies..."

As a queer and gender-fluid kid, I never felt comfortable being myself with family and found any excuse possible to avoid the performance required for me to look happy and “normal” as my mother used to say.

“You can’t just jump to hope,” the presiding bishop said afterward. “There’s a process you have to go through. There are no shortcuts to it.”

"...In retrospect, that switch to the New Testament forecasted the role tarot plays in my life now. Though a bleak beginning, I was discovering that spirituality was something I would have to co-create with God for myself."

"The inner lives of young people today abound in apparent paradox. The most wired generation on record is also the loneliest; desire for non-partisan political exchange is soaring even as opportunities to engage in it are shrinking..."

Addressing violence requires the voices of all who are affected by it. No group has the cultural expertise to do it alone.

Hip hop music, art, the movement for Black Lives, and faith-rooted activism are topics at the center of Azmera Hammouri-Davis’s work and witness.

This song is our rallying cry, to never give up, remember the struggle, and always strive to see each other as created in the image of God because when we do, we treat each other with love, dignity, and respect.

Have you ever known you were indubitably correct on an important topic that people have debated for years? In the confidence of your accuracy, has someone ever presented a counterargument that made you complicit in wrongness?

Jackson’s work as an inside voting organizer was funded by Pillars of the Community, a faith-based criminal justice advocacy group led by Black Muslims in southeast San Diego. Leaders of the group say they want to see an America without prisons.

Unfortunately, underlying this partisan consensus lies a stark reality: Muslims do face significant discrimination within the United States.

"Honest, uncomfortable conversations can be the catalyst that leads educators to commit to concrete actions to create anti-racist schools."

"More than ever, we believe that coalition-building and effective training for a new generation of leaders are the imperatives of the moment."

The work of Gwendolyn Brooks – the commitment to citizenship, the commitment to equity, the commitment to artistry, and the commitment to education – is ongoing.  It is just as essential today as ever before in these disruptive times.

50 years ago, members of the Black Student Union (BSU) marched on stage at the Memorial Auditorium at Stanford during a campuswide convention on White Racism in America and read aloud a list of demands for racial justice on campus.

Laurie Patton and Eboo are hosting a series of webinars on Interfaith Studies as a way to support faculty as they negotiate rapid changes in higher education and shifting campus environments. The first focusing on racial equity and interfaith work.