Multi-Faith Dialogue on ‘The Golden Rule’

Several Board Members of Monmouth Center for World Religions and Ethical Thought helped launch and participate in the first “interfaith dialogue” held at Brookdale Community College.  The Brookdale Newsroom published a detailed account of the event, including a portfolio of photos. Below is a highlight from the article:

Dozens of local religious leaders, advocates and community members came together in a spirit of commonality and mutual respect on April 20 for the first ever “Multi-Faith Dialogue” program, hosted in Brookdale’s Student Life Center in Lincroft.

The program, titled “The Golden Rule,” featured an overview of five different faith traditions and their approach to the centuries-old credo, which encourages individuals to treat others as they wish to be treated.

“The last 18 months, certainly all of us have been concerned with a lot of vitriol in our community. After the elections we saw a rise in hate crimes against many faith groups, including Muslim and Jewish faith groups,” said Janice Thomas, director of Brookdale’s International Education Center, which cosponsored the program along with the Monmouth Center for World Religions and Ethical Thought (MCWRET), the Brookdale Diversity Council, The Center for Holocaust, Human Rights and Genocide Education(Chhange) at Brookdale and the New Jersey Interfaith Coalition.

“At Brookdale, as an educational institution we feel that it is our responsibility to provide opportunities to educate and to learn from one another so that we can help dismiss stereotypes and dispel and demystify this “othering” that is happening in our community.”

Panel members included Fatima Jaffari, founder of the Kumon Learning Center in Howell and cofounder of the award winning Interfaith Youth Leadership Program of Garden State MOSAIC; Sarbmeet Kanwal, Brookdale physics instructor and cofounder of MOSAIC’s Interfaith Youth Leadership Program; Rabbi Lawrence Malinger, member of Temple Shalom in Aberdeen and the multi-faith clergy group Bayshore Ministerium; Rev. Terrence K. Porter, senior minister of Pilgrim Baptist Church in Red Bank and president of the board of trustees for the Red Bank Affordable Housing Corporation; and Uma Swaminathan, a cultural anthropologist, bestselling author, retired educator and advisor to MCWRET.

The panelists – representing Islam, Sikhism, Judaism, Christianity and Hinduism, respectively – each gave an overview of their religion and the ways in which practitioners approach “The Golden Rule.”

To read the rest of the article go to: Brookdale Newsroom