With any new human endeavor, errors and failures are inevitable. In With the Best of Intentions more than three dozen scholars and practitioners of many faiths explore cases of missteps and outright failures of interfaith encounters. Each case also provides critical discussion of what went wrong, and why.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Preface
Francis X. Clooney, SJ ix
Introduction xiii
Part I
First Impressions
1. Sweating the Small Stuff
When Minor Missteps Have Major Impact
Lexi Gewertz and Kathryn Lohre 3
2. What’s in a Name?
On Acknowledging the Individual before Us
David D. Grafton 12
3. Deflecting Myself
A Failure of Leadership
Hans Gustafson 18
4. Always Ask
Reflections on the Boundaries Religions Set
Aida Mansoor 24
5. A Sikh and a Jew at the Airport
Lessons on Handling Misinterpretations Or N. Rose 29
6. The Tour
Lessons from an Interfaith Itinerary
Marcia Moret Sietstra 32
7. Discerning a Dual Identity
A Case of Tightrope-Walking
Jon M. Sweeney 38
Part II
Presumptions
8. The Power of Prayer (to Make Things Awkward)
On Learning Interreligious Leadership Jack Gordon 45
9. Relics in the Chapel
On Dangers Inherent in Experiential Learning
Soren M. Hessler 49
10. Rude Awakenings
A White Buddhist Reflects on Religious and Racial Equity
Wakoh Shannon Hickey 53
11. An Acorn Is Not a Tree
Avoiding Assumptions in Faith-based Coalitions
Rachel S. Mikva 59
12. Not in the Name of Jesus
On Being True to Ourselves
Hussein Rashid 64
13. Interreligious Origin Stories
To Begin, and to Begin Again
Heather Miller Rubens 68
Part III
Conversations
14. How Did You Wake Up?
Missteps on the Journey toward an Ethos of Honesty, Curiosity, and Sensitivity Daniel Berman 77
15. The Problem with What I Said Next
A Question of Intrafaith Solidarity
Nancy Fuchs Kreimer 82
16. When the Head Gets in the Way of the Heart
An Interreligious Conversation that Went Wrong
Jeffery D. Long 88
17. What Did He Just Say?
The Importance of Knowing Why We’re Here
Nisa Muhammad 94
18. Radical Interdependence
Making Meaning through Difference
Anthony Cruz Pantojas 99
19. Why Did I Not?
Reflections on a Challenge to Celebrating Diwali
Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh 102
Part IV
Competing Values
20. Ashes on the Forehead
Appreciation as an Approach to Religious Difference
Preeta M. Banerjee 107
21. Adaptive Facilitation
A Requirement for Interfaith Discussions of Israel/Palestine
Yehezkel Landau 112
22. Bach and the Indelible Stain
When a Cultural Project Exacerbates Old Tensions
Christopher M. Leighton 119
23. Toward Strengthening the Civic
Interfaith Work in an Era of Competing Concepts of Justice
Eboo Patel 125
24. Breaking Bread
A Breach of Intra-Religious Boundaries
Jennifer Howe Peace 128
25. Recalling the Boston University Confucian Association
Bittersweet Stories, Lessons Learned
Bin Song 132
26. Coexistence Wasn’t Good Enough
Learning from Blunders in Interfaith Spaces
Jaxon Washburn 139
Part V
Power Dynamics
27. An Iyánifá’s Missteps in the Land from Where Day Dawns
The Invisibility of First Nations, the Hypervisibility of Blackness, and the Need for Interreligious Justice M. Ajisebo McElwaine Abimbola 147
28. Cases of Covering and Uncovering At the Border of Interreligious Missteps and Racism
Bilal Ansari 155
29. By What Authority?
A Spiritual Caregiver-in-Training and the Problem of Power
Danielle J. Buhuro 165
30. Testing Perceptions
Interreligious Engagement with Gen Z
Maggie Goldberger 170
31. Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard
Recentering the Marginalized, Welcoming the Unknown
Chenxing Han and Andrew Housiaux 177
32. Pathways for Leadership
Uplifting Women’s Voices and Challenging Male Misconduct
Cassandra Lawrence and Wendy Goldberg 185
33. Curricular Conundrums
Best Intentions, Diversity-Equity-Inclusion, and the Classroom
Vrajvihari Sharan 193
34. Antisemitism and Israel
Tales from the Interreligious Dialogical Mine Field
C. Denise Yarbrough 200
Afterword Mahan Mirza 207
Editors and Contributors 209
Index 215
