Category: Portico
Knowledge About Religions is Good—But Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy is Better
August 27, 2024 • Portico
In our world today we continue to see alarming degrees of religiously-motivated conflict, religious and political polarization, politicization of religion, politicization of irreligion, religious nationalism,…
Read MoreForging Genuine Unity amidst Deep Conflict in Myanmar: Prospects and Challenges
June 6, 2024 • Portico
Shifts in the Strategic Landscape Three years have passed since the Burmese military seized power through the coup. The backlash from society has crossed ethnic,…
Read MoreBuilding Neighborly L.O.V.E. in Vietnam Through Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy
April 27, 2024 • Portico
Last summer I had the privilege of participating in a unique convening at the Fetzer Institute in Kalamazoo, Michigan on cross-cultural religious literacy (CCRL). I…
Read MoreOn the Importance of Religious Minorities for Ukraine’s Present and Future
March 8, 2024 • Portico
Many have been taken aback by the verve with which Ukrainians have responded to the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. The invasion triggered…
Read MoreWhat Can Chaplains Teach about Cross-Cultural Religious Literacy?
January 30, 2024 • Portico
In June of 2023, I gathered with some of the authors of The Routledge Handbook of Religious Literacy, Pluralism, and Global Engagement to talk about…
Read MoreThe Nexus Between Human Dignity and Religious Freedom
January 22, 2024 • Portico
Peace is a fruit of justice. The core of justice is based on the respect of fundamental human rights. And the foundational principle of human…
Read MoreThe Need for Trust-building in a Post-Coup Future Myanmar
January 17, 2024 • Portico
Achieving unity poses the greatest challenge for Myanmar, given the systemic division among diverse religious and ethnic groups that has persisted during seven decades of…
Read MoreThe Grand Bargain of Religious Freedom and Religious Responsibility: The Mennonite Example
October 31, 2023 • Portico
As the Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) has long argued, an environment of religious freedom will only become sustainable when there is a grand bargain…
Read MoreNew Pathways to Positive Engagement in Afghanistan
September 5, 2023 • Portico
The tenor of American engagement with the Taliban remains uncertain at the second anniversary of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. I was in…
Read MoreFighting the Good Fight: Then and Now
March 18, 2016 • Portico
“The enemy is of two kinds: the tyrant dictator, and the religious fanatic. To act against the first is feasible…but to act against the second…
Read MoreThe Last Gasp of the Cradle Christians?
June 9, 2015 • Portico
Next Step Re Iraq & ISIS: Declare & Defend the Nineveh Plain as Safe Haven for Sunnis, Christians, and Yazidis It seems that the situation…
Read More5 principles for a post-ISIS plan in the Middle East
April 14, 2015 • Portico
In the words of Bayan Sami Abdul Rahman, Kurdistan Regional Government-Iraq representative to the United States (as told to me last month), “We are all…
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