Welcome to Our First Issue

Welcome to the first issue of Interfaithings -- a bimonthly electronic

newsletter seeking to promote interfaith understanding in the Twin Cities

metropolitan area.

Interfaithings is published by IBI, the Interfaith Bridging Initiative. IBI is a three

year pilot project, launched in the summer of 2006 by the Mall Area Religious

Council or MARC and the Minnesota chapter of the Parliament of the World's

Religions. The project is made possible by a generous grant from the Otto

Bremer Foundation. IBI's objective is to create an infrastructure that will

facilitate communication and cooperation among Twin Cities interfaith

organizations. To that end, IBI is publishing this newsletter, constructing a

website (complete in June, 2007), and implementing a number of other

projects to be described in later issues of Interfaithings.

In the pages of Interfaithings, you will find

news of interfaith events, profiles of specific

interfaith organizations, and resource

information pertaining to interfaith work

locally, nationally, and internationally. In every

issue, you will also find substantive essays --

essays that address sensitive issues with which

many of us are grappling. These essays may

take stands that are controversial. In such

cases, we will endeavor to offer alternative

viewpoints -- mindful that disagreement need

not entail disparagement. We are engulfed on many sides by cant and calumny.

It is of central importance to this venture that what we publish here model both

the honesty and the dignity-conferring heartfulness without which interfaith

dialogue becomes distressingly superficial or defeatingly inauthentic.

Table of Contents

MAY/JUNE 2007 VOLUME I, ISSUE I

Copyright © 2007 Interfaithings Magazine. All rights reserved.

Created by Heather Muller Design

To Interfaith: To enter into respectful dialogue regarding beliefs, values,

and practices with adherents of religious world views other than our own.

We encourage

your feedback

and assistance.

“Welcome” continues on page 2

Articles

Welcome to Our First Issue

by Ira L. Gordon

p. 1

“EVERYONE

IS GOD SPEAKING”

Editor's Preface

p. 3

by Bishop Charles Curry

p. 4

Israel/Palestine: Two Responses

Editor's Note

p. 6

by Rabbi Amy Eilberg

p. 7

and by Father David Smith p. 9

Announcements

A Sacred Season

p. 2

4th Annual Muslim

American Society Minnesota

Convention

p. 6

Interfaith Prayer Service

for Darfur

p. 8