Abrahamic Family Reunion

The Abrahamic Family Reunion project is sending this Extra edition of our normally biweekly AFR Newsletter because of the importance of the news. Today’s formal announcement by Claremont School of Theology President Rev. Jerry Campbell of the collaboration of CST with the Academy of Jewish Religion, California and the Islamic Center of Southern California is a major event in the contemporary history of interfaith efforts and especially of the contractual commitments of respected Christian, Jewish and Muslim educational institutions. The collaboration is part of CST’s University Project that eventually will add other traditions beyond the Abrahamic Family. The story ‘Claremont seminary reaches beyond Christianity’ has been published in the Los Angeles Times.

We are especially pleased and proud of the fact that the first Muslim faculty member at CST is Najeeba Syeed-Miller, JD, whose speeches we have published in this Newsletter.
She is emerging as one of the most important Muslim leaders in the United States with special appeal for young American Muslims working to function well in the culture while honoring the moral values of their religion. Christian, Jewish and Muslim students will be educated at CST in their own traditions. However they will, as the Koran advises, “get to know one another.”

Click here for a video of CST presdent Jerry Campbell’s press conference today where Najeeba rocked, and her Abrahamic colleagues Rabbi Mel Gottlieb of AJR and Jihad Turk of ICSC also spoke movingly. The unifying theme was the shared prophetic guidance of the Abrahamic faiths. “All human beings are children of God.” And “we must love our neighbors as ourselves. There is no religion without compassion.”

We might add, let’s hope and pray that the people who feel compelled to fear and hate their neighbors will one day recover.

Joe Montville