The co-editor of the new on line Journal of Interreligious Dialogue, Joshua Stanton, has a post on the blog, On Faith, hosted by the Washington Post. This is worth reading. It is a great story of what a young person can accomplish in a relatively short time with a great idea whose time has come. You can read the whole article or just the excerpts below:
“The Journal has been more than eight months in the making. …With the notion that religious leaders might gain greatly from regular interactions with colleagues of other denominations, I began sending letters to seminaries, non-profit organizations, and scholarly associations to see if there was interest in an online academic journal tailored specifically to the needs of present and future religious leaders and scholars. In the process, I met Stephanie Hughes, the student body president of Union Theological Seminary, Together we set out to build what we hoped would become not only the first peer reviewed electronic journal for religious leaders, but also a virtual inter-religious community.
After working to form an inter-religious (and inter-generational) staff of dedicated students and practicing theologians, we approached top thinkers from different religious traditions to serve as peer reviewers and advisors on our Board of Scholars and Practitioners. These leaders showed no hesitation to promote tolerance and little fear that their work to do so might undermine their personal religious practices. These leaders include Sayyid M. Syeed, Director of Interfaith and Community Alliances at the Islamic Society of North America, Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, Director of the Religious Studies Department at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Eboo Patel, Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, Reginald Broadnax, Dean of Academic Affairs at Hood Theological Seminary, and Robert Hunt, Director of Global Theological Education at the Perkins School of Theology at the Southern Methodist University, among many others.
This March, we formally launched the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue™. Board members are currently reviewing submissions for our Spring 2009 edition. And our website is up and running, with a number of articles already available for readers. The time is now right to invite seminarians, lay leaders, and believers (and those without belief) of all denominations to join our network.”
I encourage our readers to check out the website and to become community members.
