Source: The Plain Dealer

On March 27, 2002, The Plain Dealer featured an article on a Cleveland area Seder, or Passover meal, at Anshe Chesed Fairmount Jewish temple which "fed almost 400 Christians eager to nibble and sing their way through an interfaith Seder. The Reform congregation... welcomed guests from 29 churches... Passover, the most widely observed Jewish holiday, marks the moment when believers say God freed the captive Jews from Pharaoh in Egypt... The Seder means 'order' for the traditional course of the meal's events... Rabbi Melinda Mersack...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 23, 2002, The Boston Globe featured an article on "the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, a coalition of 98 churches, synogogues, unions, and community groups that ranks as one of the country's most successful grass-roots organizations... In its six-year history, the group has successfully lobbied the state" on a wide variety of issues including housing and education. "Since its founding in 1996, GBIO has stayed away from the pie-throwing, sit-in tactics favored by some activist groups, with an eye toward engaging an...

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0319/p14s02-lecl.html

On March 19, 2002, The Christian Science Monitor reported that "education about religious holidays, particularly Christian ones, has long been a lightning rod for parental concerns. But this year, not surprisingly, Islam as a faith has come under particular scrutiny... Study about Islam was already part of many school curriculums. But some parents have raised concerns about...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 18, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the City Council of church-filled Bakersfield [CA] decided to place the national motto... 'In God We Trust'...to the walls of City Hall... 'We are doing something great tonight,' the councilwoman who suggested the posting said when it was overwhelmingly approved a few weeks ago... More remarkable has been the public debate that accompanied her proposal, the letters to the local paper condemning it and the fact that it was not supported by the mayor... The dissension...

Source: Los Angeles Times

On March 18, 2002, the Los Angeles Times reported that "four years ago, a 'ground blessing' celebrated plans to build an interfaith chapel on the campus of Chapman University in Orange [CA]... The 1998 'ground blessing'... included Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Wiccans. The Juaneno Indians provided a tobacco blessing... After a long dispute,... the City Council in January approved another revised plan for the 12,000-square-foot Wallace All Faiths Chapel--the final chapter in a lesson on the difficulties of finding the nexus...

Source: The Denver Post

On March 17, 2002, The Denver Post featured the editorial "Faith, Fear and Public Schools" by Lori Colvin-Hobbs, a parent and business director at The Odyssey School in Denver, CO where middle school students are engaged in an Asian Studies program, which includes studying Asian religions. "For many families, both Christian and non-Christian, this learning expedition was an exciting opportunity for their students... But some Christian families in our school community saw the Asian studies curriculum as a threat - crossing...

Source: The New York Times

On March 17, 2002, The New York Times reported that "from the 8th to the 14th centuries in Spain, Christians, Jews, and Muslims coexisted peacefully in an era that historians refer to as the "convivencia," or living together. On Thursday, the Newark Museum, [in Newark, NJ], will open a 'Garden of Remembrance: A Memorial to September 11,' inspired by the gardens of the convivencia. Baptist, Episcopal, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim religious leaders will participate in the dedication... 'The garden was designed for...

Source: The New York Times

On March 17, 2002, The New York Times reported that "Indians are the fastest-growing Asian community on Long Island, nearly doubling in population from 17,523 in 1990 to 34,333 in 2000, according to the 2000 census. Asian Indians, who include Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Christians, are now the largest Asian group on Long Island, followed by the Chinese and the Koreans... These Asian groups have grown enough in recent years to support their own supermarkets, language schools, churches, temples and mosques on Long Island,...

Source: The New York Times

On March 17, 2002, The New York Times reported that Rev. Billy Graham's "sterling reputation as a healer and bridge-builder" was shattered when the tape of a 1972 conversation with former President Nixon in the Oval Office was made public by the National Archives. "Three decades after it was recorded, the North Carolina preacher's famous drawl is tinny but unmistakable on the tape, denigrating Jews... Mr. Graham, who is now 83 and in poor health, quickly issued a four-sentence apology, but he did not acknowledge making the...

Source: The New York Times

On March 14, 2002, The New York Times featured an article on Carolyn Risher, the mayor of Inglis, Florida (population: 1,400), who "has made international news by banning Satan, by mayoral proclamation, from the Inglis city limits... She has drawn praise and condemnation and has become the butt of jokes. To some people, it is a most heinous violation of the separation of church and state. To others, there was too much separation there already, and it took Mrs. Risher, a 61-year-old from Florida's Gulf Coast, to pinch church...

Source: The Plain Dealer

On March 13, 2002, The Plain Dealer reported that Islamic scholar Abdulaziz Sachedina, famous for his "interfaith work and advocacy for the rights of women,... packed local [Cleveland] mosques with eager listeners and attracted about 300 clergy to his lectures yesterday at Hiram College... Sachedina travels the West Bank and Israel, working for curriculum reform in Islamic and Jewish schools...But Sachedina's central endeavor, as a scholar at the University of Virginia and an adviser to the Center for Strategic and...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 13, 2002, The Boston Globe reported that "the scourge of clergy sexual abuse has afflicted virtually every religious denomination: In recent years rabbis, ministers, and gurus have all been charged with molesting children... But the Catholic Church has been hit with many more allegations of clergy sexual abuse than any other faith or denomination. Recent statistics on the Archdiocese of Boston show "at least 80 priests have been accused of child sexual abuse over the last 50 years, and scholars say as many as 2,000...

Source: Newsday

On March 10, 2002, Newsday featured an article on interfaith marriages in Long Island, New York. "For members of some faiths - particularly Catholics and Jews, whom clergy members say comprise the majority of Long Island's interfaith marriages - there are hard choices to be made... Msgr. Donald Beckmann, diocesan director of interreligious and ecumenical affairs for the Diocese of Rockville Centre... said, 'the most contentious issue becomes the issue of faith in raising the children.... These issues come up because they affect the wider...

Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

On March 9, 2002, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the First Unitarian Society in Milwaukee is marking International Women's History Month by hosting "Standing Before Us," a travelling exhibit of 72 display panels. The exhibit is on influential women in American history who "were Unitarians, Universalists or members of the association that was formed by consolidating the two denominations... Long known as one of the most liberal denominations in the United States, the Unitarian Universalist Association...

Source: The Boston Globe

On March 9, 2002, The Boston Globe reported that the Orthodox Christian "Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said he sees signs of increased openness toward religious tolerance in the Muslim world... As the 'first among equals' of Orthodox patriarchs, Bartholomew claims to be the spiritual leader of 300 million Orthodox Christians... Bartholomew called the terrorist acts of Sept. 11 'exploitation of religion' and said religion must be a unifying force in society... Bartholomew's visit to the United States, which included stops in...