AAi Seminars

AAi partners with world-class Jewish, Christian, and Muslim scholars to teach peacebuilding seminars to our respective communities in order build lasting bridges of peace, understanding, and cooperation. These seminars are designed to move participants from ignorance, insecurity, and suspicion to understanding, confidence, and respect in order to humbly unite side-by-side with each other for cooperative service to the poor, suffering, and marginalized.

Philosophy of Peacebuilding Education

AAi seminars are designed not to replace but complement a wide variety of peacebuilding initiatives. Some excel in the science of conflict transformation but exclude thorough studies about the culture and faith of other religious communities. Others focus on the common ground shared while avoiding deeper issues of difference which often prove divisive. Nonetheless, a wide range of perceptions about our differences often lie at the root of social division, disrespect, dehumanization, and even demonization. Many conclude the other is terribly mistaken about their interpretation or acceptance of sacred texts and prophets. Such conclusions are a powerful force to keep people ignorant about that community, especially when fearing that an empathetic presentation of the other's faith and culture may inadvertently encourage coreligionists toward syncretism, heresy, or even conversion. Such fear devalues interreligious learning and stigmatizes "interfaith" activities that require an openness to learn from the very people others believe are terribly mistaken—or even deceived. AAi offers an alternative approach.

Inter-religious learning works best when participants are secure enough in their own faith to not fear it will be jeopardized by the encounter. Effective inter-religious learning also requires a level of openness and humility often frowned upon by conservative religious communities. We must therefore first help ground participants in their own religious traditions while preparing them to respond with both confidence and humility to the challenges faced when dialoguing with faithful members of another. We must also inculcate a level of security that enables participants to safely listen to members of the other religion without feeling threatened. This is necessary not only to learn from the exchange effectively, but also to experience the paradox of actually being inspired by members of another religion to be more faithful members of our own, what some call "holy envy" (i.e., admiring elements in another religious tradition that you wish could, in some way, be more reflected in your own).

AAi seminars are designed to begin this process by providing a safe environment where participants can learn about the faith and culture of Abrahamic neighbors from respected members of their own religious community, skilled at teaching their own sacred text in the same faith-vernacular as their students. Because seminar leaders are insiders of the religious community they teach, participants can freely ask any question without fear of sounding politically incorrect in interfaith environments. In addition to grounding participants in their own religious tradition while preparing them for inter-religious dialog, seminar leaders build respect for the faith and culture of the other by exposing unjust stereotypes and vast areas of common ground through helpful parallels with participants' own traditions and history.

Outsiders can at best only present a helpful introduction to another community's faith and culture, preparing students to continue learning relationally through personal interaction and friendships. Nonetheless, a respectful introduction from a trusted member of one's own community often results in students gaining both the confidence and sensitivity to finally participate directly in inter-religious peacebuilding, without the fear and apprehension that once inhibited such engagement.

For example, when AAi teaches "Loving Muslim Neighbors" seminars to Christians in the United States, Islamophobia is often replaced by an openness to serve the poor alongside the Muslim community. This in turn results in the formation of friendships between members of both communities. Once Christians begin to learn about the Muslim community in a context of compassion and genuine friendship, they are better able to see how Islamophobic stereotypes have hindered their obedience to prophetic commands to love their neighbors. Significant religious differences will remain, but proper understanding of the other can prevent perceptions of these differences from degenerating into disrespect and contempt. Personal experience with virtuous Muslim friends helps Christians refute disrespectful stereotypes that they will likely hear in their own church community.

Clearly, the same approach is equally effective to refute anti-Semitism and anti-Christian hostilities. It's easy to disrespect those we do not know. Many need assistance crossing the social barriers that separate communities, especially when navigating through divisive complexities in theology and culture. AAi seminars provide this assistance in the safe environment of one's own community.

Nonetheless, the purpose of AAi seminars is not merely to inform people about the faith and culture of other Abrahamic communities, but also to sensitize them to matters of intense importance to the other in order to avoid offensive behaviors and faux pas so easily committed by majority populations who tend to be ignorant of minority sensitivities. Minimizing offense helps maximize peacebuilding opportunities. AAi seminars therefore function to orient and prepare Abrahamic communities to unite side-by-side with each other to pursue common goals together, for as Muqtedar Khan well stated:

"... most advocates of dialogue assume that conflict is a consequence of misunderstandings and therefore, dialogues can foster understanding and eliminate conflict. Perhaps just understanding the other might not be enough. Even inculcating respect for the other may not douse the fires of conflict. At the core of all conflicts are competing and incompatible interests that may have material as well as moral basis. Conflicts will dissipate when understanding is followed by the replacement of competing interests with common interest. In simple terms, it is not enough that we talk. We must find common goals to pursue together."

AAi seminars then are designed to help Jews, Christians, and Muslims better understand each other so they can pursue a common goal together: obedience to divine commands to serve the poor, suffering, and marginalized. The sheer immensity of meeting human need is too great and complex for any one community to accomplish by itself. We need each other and are better together. AAi has been working to develop six core seminars from world-class scholars:

1. Loving Muslim Neighbors (taught by a Christian to Christians)
2. Understanding Muslim Neighbors (taught by a Jew to Jews)
3. Loving Jewish Neighbors (taught by a Christian to Christians)
4. Understanding Jewish Neighbors (taught by a Muslim to Muslims)
5. Understanding Christian Neighbors (taught by a Jew to Jews)
6. Understanding Christian Neighbors (taught by a Muslim to Muslims)

All seminars have the same objectives. Different titles reflect what is most "suitable" to respective communities. For example, "Loving neighbors" sounds "too Christian" to many American Jews and Muslims, so Jewish and Muslim seminar titles have been adjusted accordingly. 

Seminar Objectives

AAi understands that all seminar content will be determined by instructors, those most familiar with the unique needs of their community. Seminar objectives may, therefore, differ slightly. For example, unlike Christianity and Islam, most Jewish communities do not actively proselytize. Jewish seminars, therefore, may not need to address peacemaking and peacebreaking approaches to outreach. Nonetheless, the following objectives are used for content development of all seminars, illustrated and illuminated with personal anecdotes and stories, and grounded in the authority of the instructor's own sacred texts through numerous quotations so that students are not just informed about the other, but inspired to love and honor them in obedience to divine commandments.

I. Knowing the Other
In the first 90 minutes, AAi seminars must provide students with the minimum they need to know about the faith and culture of the other community to avoid conflict or offense when collaborating with them in compassionate service to the poor. In other words, educate your community about the sensitivities of the other so they don't do or say awkward things that could cause conflict or offense. What could go wrong when a well-meaning person of your community (who doesn't have many friends from the other community) meets the other? What should your community know about to avoid misunderstandings? Weave your answers to these questions into your coverage of the following objectives: 

• Introduce students to the basic tenets and values of the other Abrahamic community with respectful parallels to our own sacred text, traditions, and history.
• Because we all often compare our own community at its idyllic best to the other at its historic worst, describe the other at its best both with personal anecdotes and historical examples, exposing the shortsightedness and myopia of common but unfair stereotypes.
• Gently help students see that disrespectful stereotypes about the other are equally true of our own community when we have been at our worst throughout both recent and distant history. Introduce students to the stories and narratives of the other who have often suffered incredible injustice perpetrated by people who share our (i.e., the student's) religious identity.
• Sensitively help students see their religion and community through the eyes of the other. Include critical opinions of both present and historical belief and practice, then show how our own sacred text can be cited to support their criticisms.
• Survey vast areas of common ground shared by both communities and expressed in our sacred texts.
• Despite the fact our community has often failed to live up to our own ideals, share numerous examples of how the other community has lived up to our ideals, as commanded in our own sacred Scriptures.
• Share stories to illustrate that true virtue exists among faithful members of the other community, who often demonstrate greater obedience to the teachings of our prophets than many active members of our own community.

II. Responding to the Other

Post-Seminar Opportunities

Seminar graduates will be invited to collaborate in compassion with Abrahamic neighbors, demonstrating to ourselves and a watching world that we can not only peacefully coexist, but we can unite to serve the common good.

Qualifications of Seminar Instructors

AAi seminar instructors must be:

• Published scholars in Jewish-Christian, Christian-Muslim, or Muslim-Jewish relations.
• Experienced bridge-builders with another Abrahamic community, not polemicists, proselytizers, or debaters.
• Respected teachers their own sacred texts and traditions to their own religious community.
• Academically able to design a course and lecture series.
• Committed to serving their own community.
• Respectful of the great diversity and different opinions among other communities in their own religious tradition.
• Close friends with numerous members of the other Abrahamic community.
• Familiar with and deeply respectful of the sacred texts of the other religious community.
• Comfortable exegeting sacred Scriptures of the other community in the original language.
• Able to affirm that they are better and more faithful members of their own community because of the meaningful encounters that have enjoyed with members of the other Abrahamic community.
• Committed to AAi Values.

AAi's philosophy of peacebuilding education is an ethnographic approach to peacebuilding. Ethnographers are usually outsiders striving to understand another's culture from an insider’s perspective. Once accomplished, an ethnographer can translate what appears to outsiders as “strange” behavior in ways the outsider can not only understand, but also respect. As such, good ethnography (i.e., translating culture and religious practice in ways outsiders can understand and respect) can promote intellectual empathy. For example, after reading an ethnography on Shi’ite mourning rituals in India, outsiders can finally understand and even respect why many Shi’ites annually mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hussain with such intensity. To be clear, intellectual empathy aims to promote understanding and respect, not necessarily agreement. 

Interested?

Would you like to develop and teach such a peacebuilding seminar to your own community so they can better understand and honor Abrahamic neighbors, then successfully unite with them in collaborative compassion? AAi stands ready to assist you in this process, promote your seminar widely, and provide a grassroots vehicle for you to transform hearts and minds as your seminar graduates unite with other children of Abraham to serve the poor. Contact AAi for more info.

Revised 4 August 2021