Judaism? Well, we share the Old
Testament.
Islam??? Yep, that's insanity.
David
If
you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do
read the newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark
Twain
On 6/9/2010 2:04 PM, bil...@aol.com wrote:
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-claremont-20100609,0,4360922.story
latimes.com
Claremont seminary reaches beyond Christianity
[ into insanity ]
Calling multi-faith expansion the next step, the school will
offer training for Muslims and Jews in a program that strains its
historic ties to the Methodist Church.
By Mitchell Landsberg, Los Angeles Times
June 9, 2010
In a bow to the growing diversity of America's religious
landscape, the Claremont School of Theology, a Christian institution
with long ties to the Methodist Church, will add clerical training for
Muslims and Jews to its curriculum this fall, to become, in a sense,
the first truly multi-faith American seminary.
The transition, which is being formally announced Wednesday, upends
centuries of tradition in which seminaries have hewn not just to single
faiths but often to single denominations within those faiths.
Eventually, Claremont hopes to add clerical programs for Buddhists and
Hindus.
Although there are other theological institutions that accept students
of multiple faiths, or have partnerships with institutions of other
religions, Claremont is believed to be the first accredited institution
that will train students of multiple faiths for careers as clerics. The
275-student seminary offers master's and doctoral degrees.
"It's really kind of a creative, bold move," said David Roozen,
director of the Institute for Religion Research at the Hartford
Seminary in Connecticut. "It kind of fits, to some extent,
California.... I think there will be a lot of us who will be watching
that experiment."
Claremont's administration sees the multi-faith expansion as the wave
of the future in American theological training. But it is straining
relations between the school and more conservative elements of the
United Methodist Church, which this year was expected to provide about
8% of Claremont's $10-million budget. The church suspended its support
for the school earlier this year pending an investigation.
Marianne E. Inman, president of the church's University Senate, which
oversees Methodist seminaries, declined to comment on Claremont's
plans, referring a reporter to a January statement in which she took
the school to task for failing to consult with the church body on
budget matters and on "a substantial reorientation of the institution's
mission."
Mark Tooley, a conservative Methodist who is president of the Institute
on Religion and Democracy, a Washington-based ecumenical organization,
was more outspoken in his criticism.
"Claremont seems to be moving away from its responsibility to the
United Methodist Church," Tooley said. "It almost seems that they're
trying to fulfill the stereotype that many in the church have of
liberal Methodism on the West Coast."
Claremont President Jerry Campbell said he is optimistic that the
University Senate will relent and restore funding. Partly to meet those
concerns, the school is establishing the Muslim and Jewish programs as
separate entities under the larger umbrella of what is being called the
University Project. Regardless of the Methodist decision, he said, he
intends to launch the new programs this fall, relying on a $10-million
pledge from philanthropists. A decision from the church is expected
later this month.
"We want our future religious leaders to understand the landscape in
which they will be leading," Campbell said in remarks prepared for
Wednesday's announcement. "We want them to be able to see 'the other'
as neighbor, friend and co-worker. We want to be able to facilitate
love among our different traditions in order that we can begin to solve
the big problems."
In making the announcement, Campbell identified the Muslim and Jewish
organizations that will partner with Claremont to create the programs:
The Islamic Center of Southern California, a well-established mosque in
Koreatown, will help oversee the Muslim curriculum, and the Academy for
Jewish Religion-California, a 10-year-old, nondenominational rabbinical
school in Westwood, will be the Jewish partner.
The Muslim curriculum is expected to become one of the first programs
in the United States to train imams, the clerics who lead Islamic
prayer. Zaytuna, an Islamic college in Berkeley that is scheduled to
open this fall, also plans to begin clerical training.
Previously, most imams at U.S. mosques have either emigrated from
predominantly Muslim countries or have been sent from the United States
to train in those countries. Scholars and some Islamic leaders said
there has been a growing need for training imams that will reflect the
particularities of Islamic society in this country, where there is a
movement toward a more progressive approach to Islam, with a greater
emphasis on a pastoral role by the imam.
"Our community is growing," said Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of the Fiqh
Council of North America, a body that issues interpretations and
answers questions about Islamic law. "And many people are realizing
that we need to have locally trained, homegrown imams."
Jihad Turk, director of religious affairs for the Islamic Center of
Southern California, said he did not expect any opposition from Muslim
groups to the mosque's new partnership. "There are always going to be
those who are uninterested and mistrustful of working with other faith
traditions, and so we don't expect participation from those," he said.
"But we're not anticipating any kind of backlash or controversy."
It is not entirely clear how much time students at Claremont will spend
with students of other faiths and much of the new curriculum has yet to
be determined. Participants in the project said it is important that
the school provide authentic training in each faith. Some classes will
have obvious crossover potential: All three faiths, for instance,
include the Hebrew Bible in their scriptural canon. Other classes, such
as a class in prayer, would be specific to a given faith.
Rabbi Mel Gottlieb, president of the Academy for Jewish
Religion-California, said he is excited about the potential for
students to learn about other faiths, and to create lasting bonds with
the future leaders of different faiths. But he said it was paramount
that students receive a solid grounding in their own religion.
"In no way are we going to water that down," he said.
His organization already faces, in microcosm, some of the challenges
awaiting Claremont. The academy is open to Jews from all four of the
major branches of the religion, but Gottlieb conceded that Orthodox
Jewish graduates do not qualify for ordination as Orthodox rabbis, and
few graduates wind up leading major congregations of any branch.
Most of those involved in the project acknowledge that there will be
difficulties. There are those in every faith who believe that theirs is
the only true way, a position that could lead to obvious tension. Many
Christians believe they have a duty to try to "save" those who have not
accepted Jesus as their savior. And there will be inevitable political
tensions, especially surrounding events in the Middle East.
Still, there is growing interest in multi-faith dialogue in many
theological institutions. The Assn. of Theological Schools, the main
accrediting body for Christian seminaries in the United States and
Canada, recently launched an effort to reconsider how Christian
theological institutions should teach about other faiths.
Roozen, at the Hartford Seminary — which has begun its own program to
provide continuing education to Muslim imams — said liberal
Protestants in particular have been growing more interested in
multi-faith dialogue, which he sees as part of a continuum that
includes race, gender and sexual orientation. "Multi-faith is the new
'other,' " he said. "It's kind of the next step."
mitchell.landsb...@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times
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