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During our May student trip to Sarajevo, Amra, one of our discussion facilitators, laughed, cigarette dangling from her lips, as she likened the city to a femme fatale—alluring, but with a dark side. It was, we soon learned, an apt description for a lovely and complicated city, one that has been simultaneously strengthened and scarred by its history. Our group, which included fourteen students from Notre Dame was drawn to Sarajevo to study “Religion, Identity, and Peace and the Periphery of Europe.”

Read More about Religion, identity, and peace: Learning through cultural immersion in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina is not a place I had ever pictured myself visiting. This small country in the Balkans had quite simply never captured my imagination. Its allure was less obvious to me, unlike that of western European countries such as France and Switzerland that are often romanticized in globalized pop culture. But thanks to a student trip made possible by the University of Notre Dame and Peace Catalyst International, I recently visited the country—not as a tourist, but as a student of peacebuilding who gained a new appreciation for the role of religion in peace processes and reconciliation. 

Read More about How I learned to appreciate religion’s role in building peace

I applied to Notre Dame’s faculty-led trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina this summer because I wanted to learn more about a part of Europe that is often left out of history books and course syllabi. I wanted to educate myself on the rich history of the country, and the current situation in regards to peacebuilding. This trip did help me accomplish those goals, but the most impactful part of the journey was actually a conversation about my own country.

Read More about Finding hope amid the horrors of violence: Lessons from Sarajevo

For the last decade, I have immersed myself in studying and subsequently developing a better understanding of and appreciation for Islam. I have traveled to Muslim-majority countries such as Bahrain and Oman and developed meaningful relationships and friendships with Muslims—many of whom refer to me as their brother. I’m very fortunate to have Muslim friends throughout the world. I’ve relished intimate tours of mosques, observed prayer times, and enjoyed countless halal dinners. Most recently, I returned from visiting newly made friends and Islamic centers in New Buffalo and Rochester, New York as well as Jacksonville, Florida. This past fall, when I learned that “The Mother Mosque of America…

Read More about Justice and compassion for all: Embracing multifaith inclusion in America’s heartland

Can Captain America be Black? Marvel’s recent Disney+ series, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, tackles this question head-on. The story picks up from the blockbuster . . . 

Read More about When Captain America goes global

Elsa Barron, a University Notre Dame senior, reflects on insights she gleaned from a series of recent discussions exploring faith-based approaches to environmental peacebuilding.

Read More about Practicing What We Preach: Interreligious Dialogue and Futurism in Environmental Peacebuilding

At the heart of it, pluralism invites us to engage with the new questions of the 21st century and to no longer see our differences as daunting borders. Embracing new faith traditions has made me a stronger Christian. By welcoming these traditions into my own religious space, I make more room to understand God as the trinity, as a mystery, and as the presence of all things.

Read More about Identity, Exploration, and Discernment: A Personal Journey to Religious Pluralism

The January 6 insurrection at the Capitol in Washington, DC, is just the beginning. It came as advertised; it was televised; and the perpetrators are promising more to come. We are now transitioning to an administration the rioters have been programmed to view as illegitimate. Combining their sense of disenfranchisement with deep feelings of being disrespected for generations, the rioters place us in danger of seeing the insurrection transformed into an all-out insurgency.

Read More about Capitol crisis calls for a pastor-in-chief

Undertaking research in my Indonesian home removes the somewhat convenient compartmentalization between my private and public lives. It transforms my home into a liminal space in which I experience my Indonesian and American identities within the same place. While this shift can be unsettling, it also has its advantages.

Read More about Spatiality and subjectivity: Code-switching as resident and researcher during COVID-19

For me, as a Christian and soon-to-be seminarian, racism is not a political or social issue—it is a God issue. And anti-racism is a daily spiritual practice. The conversations I’m having with my Omani friends about countering racism as people of faith has not only deepened our mutual trust but expanded my understandings of Islam, Christianity, and God.

Read More about Thresholds: Reflecting on faith, transformation, and countering racism amid COVID-19

This time last year, a mother of two young sons wrote to our campus newspaper urging young women to avoid wearing leggings during Basilica Mass because it was distracting for her sons and other young men. The opinion piece spread like wildfire and found its way into various prominent media outlets, such as the Boston Globe…

Read More about Veils and leggings: Gender roles in Indiana, Oman, and beyond

Once I was displaced from my familiar American surroundings at the University of Notre Dame where Christianity is built into the very bricks of the school, I wrestled with these notions of religious freedom and tolerance throughout our time in Oman. The conversations I had with classmates have challenged me to rethink how many assumptions I carry about my own country, and to recognize what I take for granted in being part of the preferred religion of the United States.

Read More about Your freedom, my restriction: Rethinking religious freedom at home and abroad

I started writing this blog at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, here in a cosmopolitan city that has been known by many names: Byzantium, Constantinople, Nova Roma, Istanbul. Or “Islambul,” according to the folk etymological preference of the current president to highlight the Islamic character of the city. I am sipping Turkish coffee at a café overlooking the Bosphorus, after a hurried visit to Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom). This wonder of Byzantine architecture was built in 537 CE and was once the largest cathedral in all of Christendom.

Read More about Amid a pandemic, exploring Islam and migration in Istanbul

The second caliph of Islam, ‘Umar b. al-Khattab (r. 634-644 CE), is reported to have said that even if a dog were to die on the banks of the Euphrates River, he would be held accountable. Other reports say he spoke of a camel or sheep, or perhaps the Nile instead of the Euphrates. These details don’t change the meaning. As the leader of the fledgling Muslim community, it was ‘Umar’s responsibility to provide for the sustenance and care for all beings, even the very least of them, to the farthest stretches of his authority.…

Read More about From Mecca to Mitt: Religion, politics, and COVID-19

The ship of capitalism set sail centuries ago. Its goods have reached the four corners of the world. The sands of the desert have become the silicon for microchips. Technology has changed the world, most certainly for the better, but pandemics remind us of our precarity. Are we going too fast? Can we build more resilience into our global system? Can its fruits be better shared among all? On the shores of Oman, at the crossroads of Africa and Asia, we were reminded of these questions, as we experienced a different rhythm of life, where, for a few days, strangers became like family, and we saw the possibility of a different world.

Read More about From silicon to sand: Engaging religion in a global classroom

Over the course of the next few weeks and months, the Ansari Institute will engage in online conversations on questions relating to the human condition and to global affairs. Our conversations will include local and global partners, students and educators, and journalists and educators, as we explore how religion can serve as a force for good in the world. 

Read More about Engaged: Religion and the common good