FRIENDSHIP—MORE POWERFUL THAN HATRED
WE ALL NEED a reminder of this potent truth about the power of friendship. Remember when a call for “love”—for friendly relationships—touched off peaceful revolutions across Eastern Europe in the late 1980s? Millions rose to change the world. Czech activist Vaclav Havel made this message his personal banner: “Truth and Love Prevail over Lies and Hate!”
And, right now, religious leaders around the world are allowing a nonprofit interfaith group to promote this message, once again. Rabbi Dr. Alon Goshen-Gottstein, director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute which helped organize the joint statement, calls the appeal “a significant novelty from a theological perspective.” The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said, “We don’t deal with difference by pretending it doesn’t exist. We deal with it by building relationships.”
The appeal to “make friends” certainly caught the world’s eye. Here is US News coverage of the appeal. Here is coverage in The Times of Israel, the Huffington Post, the National Catholic Reporter, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Detroit News, by our friend columnist Neal Rubin.
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RAMADAN
& MORE ON ‘SHARIA’
RAMADAN, covered this year by Holidays expert Stephanie Fenton, continues through most of this week with many Muslims gathering to break the month-long fast on Sunday morning, June 25, 2017. Family festivities related to Ramadan’s end—referred to commonly as “the Eid”—are likely to continue into June 26 and 27. Remember that these families, this year, have suffered through an unusually high level of anti-Muslim activism in the U.S.
OUR REGULAR READERS understand that the current anxiety about “Sharia” in the U.S. is fueled mainly by anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant groups. All of the world’s great religions promote codes for faithful living and “Sharia” is the name of the Muslim pathway to which most of the world’s 1.8-billion Muslims aspire. This spring, we recommended a helpful overview of “Sharia,” reported by several of the world’s top religion writers, headlined simply What Sharia means and how it is understood around the world. Now, an occasional contributor to ReadTheSpirit, Victor Begg, has published his own overview of the issue for Americans in one of the USA Today news sites, headlined Anti-sharia protesters are selling phantom threats. You may want to share Victor’s column with friends who remain confused about Sharia. And, Victor: Thanks for sharing this link with us!
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HOLIDAYS & FESTIVALS
Want to see all the holidays? Remember the simple address: www.InterfaithHolidays.org.
.JUNETEENTH
FREEDOM did not come easily after the Civil War, which is why many African-American communities nationwide still observe a holiday called “Juneteenth.” Stephanie Fenton has the story about how slaves in Texas finally attained freedom in that state—and how they started an annual remembrance of that milestone.
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LITHA, SOLSTICE, MIDSUMMER
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE—Billions of people north of the Equator are celebrating “the longest day of the year” in a host of traditional ways. Holidays columnist Stephanie Fenton has the story. Did you know? Though harvest is not in full swing yet, many wild herbs are mature for picking and, thus, Midsummer is known as “Gathering Day” in Wales and in other various regions.
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FILM & FAITH:
ED McNULTY, for decades, has published reviews, magazine articles and books exploring connections between faith and film. Most of his work freely published at VisualParables.org.
Ed supports his work by selling the Visual Parables Journal, a monthly magazine packed with complete study guides to films. This resource is used coast-to-coast by individuals who love the movies and by educators, clergy and small-group leaders.
Among Ed’s latest free movie reviews are:
- WONDER WOMAN—Overall, Ed praises this new movie—as have many film critics nationwide—but he declines to give it 5 out of 5 stars because, as he points out, the movie continues to offer violence as the main solution to global conflicts.
- THE LOVERS—”The title might mislead viewers into mistaking writer-director Azazel Jacobs’ film as a good candidate for a date movie. Nothing could be further from such light fare,” writes Ed, giving the film 3.5 stars.
- CARS 3—”Director Brian Fee, who served as a story artist on the first two films of the Pixar series, redeems the franchise after the critics’ drubbing of Cars 2,” writes Ed, giving the film 5 stars!
- MEGAN LEAVEY—Featuring Kate Marla in her best role yet, this “based on a true story” film is part military and part redemption themed, as well the bonding of pet and mistress. (4.5 stars)
- THE DINNER—A battle of words rages back and forth over the different courses of a gourmet dinner—as well as in different rooms of an old mansion housing the restaurant. (4 stars)
- BORN IN CHINA—It’s appropriate that Disney engaged Chinese director Lu Chuan to helm this beautiful nature film, most of which was shot in the China highlands. (4 stars)
- WHITE HELMETS—”We are indebted to Netflix for making documentarian Orlando von Einsiedel’s short film so widely available,” Ed writes. (5 stars)
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