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Ansari Institute launches 5-year strategic plan, promoting scholarship and engagement

Author: Josh Stowe

Strategic Plan Announce

The Ansari Institute for Global Engagement with Religion has launched a five-year strategic plan to continue its work to study, learn from, and collaborate with religious communities worldwide. The plan, which was recently announced at a public gathering on the University of Notre Dame’s campus, envisions the institute as a “crossroad of religions” where voices from multiple faith traditions can engage with one another, and with secular actors and institutions, in respectful dialogue that will help to build a better world.

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Engaging Religion for the Common Good in a Fast-Changing World

Author: Ansari Institute

Gemini said This professional headshot features a man with dark, salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly groomed grey beard and mustache, smiling warmly at the camera. He is wearing black-rimmed glasses and is dressed in a white collared shirt, a teal patterned tie, and a dark black vest. The photograph is a medium close-up set against a softly blurred indoor hallway with light-toned stone pillars, creating a polished and academic atmosphere.

Recently, Ansari Institute Executive Director Mahan Mirza visited Westminster Presbyterian Church in Dayton, Ohio to present its third annual Lecture on Faith & Civic Life. In his Sept. 25 talk, “A Life of Faith Beyond Individual Worship—To Work for the Common Good,” Mirza made the case (drawing on his recent work exploring interreligious dialogue, peacebuilding, and the need for religious and scientific literacy) that Muslim scripture and tradition envisions a kind of individual faith that translates personal piety into public action.

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September 11 policy conversation series launches with calls for new security paradigm

Author: Josh Stowe

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The terrorist attacks of September 11 and the response to them have shaped the world in profound ways, creating a global climate of conflict that now hangs over a new generation of rising leaders. Now, twenty years later, is it possible to change the conversation and better work toward peace and justice? A new Keough School policy conversation series explores this question, bringing together a diverse group of experts to share insights that can inform public conversation and inspire activists, academics, government officials, and policymakers to work for change. 

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New book shares stories from grassroots Christian peacebuilders in East Africa

Author: Hannah Heinzekehr

In Their Own Words

The newly published book, In Their Own Words: Christian Leadership for Such a Time as This, presents the stories of eight Christian peacebuilders and leaders from the East Africa Great Lakes region. The stories were shared during interviews with co-authors Emmanuel Katongole, professor of theology and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and Marie-Claire Klassen, a Ph.D. candidate in theology and graduate minor in peace studies.

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A Q&A with Faculty Fellow Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Author: Josh Stowe

In this conversation, Professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings explores the importance of a global perspective to her work as director of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, and highlights her efforts as a historian to elevate stories of women and people of color. She also shares some recent highlights from her teaching experience at Notre Dame, and considers the opportunity President Joe Biden has to articulate a vision for the United States that draws from his Catholic faith. 

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

Author: Thanh Nguyen

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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.

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Capitol crisis calls for a pastor-in-chief

Author: Mahan Mirza, Ansari Institute Executive Director

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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.

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