With the Best of Intentions

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