You are here

Home

Friendship Across Boundaries in Troubled Times: From Sibling Ancestors to Interreligious Friendships

Submitted to Program Units
1: Religious Reflections on Friendship Seminar

Mugdha Yeolekar, California State University, Fullerton, Presiding

Abstract for Online Program Book (maximum 150 words)

Friendship is a relationship of ethical significance that—while challenged in troubled times—can also intensify, endure, and reach across divides perceived to be unbridgeable. Presenters within this session consider friendship(s) across such divides. Laura Duhan-Kaplan discusses the adult sibling friendship between Ishmael and Isaac, identifying characteristics of sibling friendship and suggesting homiletic directions for discussing traditions of peace between Jews and Muslims. Lindsay Simmons examines ways in friendships between Jewish and Muslim women have been held to account through the period of the (current) Israel-Gaza War. Molly Gower highlights the work of interfaith and ecumenical institutes in Jordan and Jerusalem as she advocates for attentiveness to difference when exploring interreligious friendship and the common good. Wemimo Jaiyesimi focuses on the politics of friendship, drawing on the autobiographies of Charles Freer Andrews and Mahatma Gandhi to illustrate the potential for friendship across difference to actively contribute to peacebuilding and the pursuit of justice.

Papers

  • Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Vancouver School of Theology

    Ishmael and Isaac: Sibling Friends and Parents of Peace

    Abstract

    In this paper, I discuss the adult sibling friendship between two biblical figures, Ishmael and Isaac. Their relationship embodies three characteristics highlighted in contemporary psychological literature. Successful sibling friends make time to enjoy each other’s company. They are mindful of how parents affect their dynamic. And they give each other permission to change. A close reading of Genesis 16-28, enhanced by Midrash Genesis Rabbah, shows these characteristics at play in Isaac and Ishmael’s relationship. Adult Isaac visits Ishmael and eventually chooses to live near his brother. After similar experiences with paternal violence, Ishmael and Isaac support one another. And, after becoming parents, the brothers encourage their children to marry. One purpose of my analysis is to highlight sibling friendship. Another is to suggest homiletic directions for discussing traditions of peace between Jews and Muslims.

  • Lindsay Simmonds, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

    Intimate Catastrophe: Can Muslim-Jewish Women's Friendship in the UK Survive the Israel-Gaza War?

    Abstract

    Through the philosophical-theological lens of the works of Jonathan Sacks, this paper will examine the multiple ways in which inter-faith friendships between Jewish and Muslim women in the UK have been held to account through the period of the (current) Israel-Gaza War. Conflict travels, and in this case especially, has been intimately felt by Jewish and Muslim communities globally. Arguably, friendship is ‘a relationship of ethical significance, with public, political, and spiritual dimensions’ (Ellithorpe, A., 2022) and friends necessarily have differing, often opposing, perspectives; each have complex communal and religious commitments; each wrestle with alternative truths. Inter-State conflict is a time when friendship might be seen to make excessive demands of us — to reach across what could be perceived as unbridgeable divides; this paper argues that although some friendships have inevitably fallen apart, others have been strengthened, deepened and have conspicuously intensified.

  • Molly Gower, Saint Mary's College

    Difference and Devotion: Interreligious Friendship and the Common Good

    Abstract

    This paper brings together theoretical and Christian theological reflection and case studies. First, it reviews some traditional resources for a kind of practical theory/theology of difference. It suggests that attention to difference is an important corrective to the, perhaps more familiar, appeals to common ground in pursuit of the common good and peace. From there, it considers the history and contemporary work of two organizations, the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies in Amman, Jordan and the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. In the end, it argues that interreligious friendship is a productive site for the articulation of a practical theory/theology of difference, considering the so-called "strange," which attention can train us to see, in ourselves and in our friends, in the interest of a kind of personal and political devotion, the common good, and peace.  

  • Wemimo Jaiyesimi, Baylor University

    The Politics of Interreligious Friendship: Remembering The Peaceable Witness of Charles Andrews Freer and Mahatma Gandhi's Friendship

    Abstract

    Interreligious friendships are important not simply for how they enrich the spiritual, affective, and moral lives of the friends, but just as crucially for the way that they participate in important political work in the world. Through attending to the story of the remarkable friendship between British Anglican priest Charles Freer Andrews and Mahatma Gandhi, this paper illustrates how friendship across religious differences can energize peacebuilding and justice projects in the world. Drawing from the autobiographies of both men, I recount the political nature of this friendship. I draw on this story to make a wider theological case for how interreligious friendships serve as forms of Christian political witness in the world.

Business Meeting
Anne-Marie Ellithorpe, Vancouver School of Theology, Presiding
Laura Duhan-Kaplan, Vancouver School of Theology, Presiding
Audiovisual Requirements

Resources

LCD Projector and Screen
Play Audio from Laptop Computer
Podium microphone

Sabbath Observance

Saturday (all day)

Full Papers Available

No
Program Unit Options

Session Length

90 Minutes

Schedule Preference

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Schedule Preference Other

Monday, 3:00-4.30 pm.
Schedule Info

Sunday, 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Tags

#friendship #Hebrew Bible #Ishmael #interfaith #inter-religious #Isaac #siblings

Session Identifier

A24-332