Muslim Resources for Dialogue

Karen Matthias-Long, the resource center director of our partner synod, Northeast Pennsylvania, posted this very helpful email today in the Association of Lutheran Resource Center Directors List Serve.

I agree both with her assessment and her thankfulness for Professor Grafton's list of helpful websites. I'll share those resources in my next blog post.

Thanks Karen for sharing this with all of us. This is my way of sharing it with all of the congregations in our synod.

Here is Karen's email to us this morning:

I have been really disturbed by the misinformation, misplaced fear, and hate that have bubbled to the surface in a big way around the Muslim community center being planned near (not AT) ground zero. I decided that it would be helpful for congregations to have HELPFUL information about Islam/Muslims and our relationship with them. David Grafton, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations at LTSP, provided me with a wonderful list of resources. I thought you might be interested in these resources, too (although some – such as organizations and people resources – are probably most helpful for those living in NJ/PA).

Are any of you familiar with the NPR series, “This I Believe?” I found a link to Eboo Patel sharing a piece on what he believes for one of these “episodes.” For those of us who were fortunate enough to hear Eboo speak at the Communicator’s Conference, this story will be familiar. But, it is a story worth sharing here for those who didn’t hear him in Chicago – and it bears repeating for those of us who were there (it’s only 4 ½ minutes long):
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4989625

Blessings,
Karen Star