Interfaith Dialogue Goes to College

Beliefnet

Home

Faiths & Prayer

Feiler Faster

Interfaith Dialogue Goes to College

posted by bfeiler | 2:30pm Wednesday January 16, 2008

And not a moment too soon.

After losing out on a $1.5 million chair in Islamic studies last month, Temple University announced it has received a new gift from a local energy executive and former Catholic seminarian to fund a chair in interfaith dialogue.
Harry Halloran, 68, who took just one religion course at Temple 30 years ago, offered $1.5 million to finance the Leonard and Arlene Swidler Chair of Interreligous Dialogue. Swidler has been a professor at Temple University since 1966 and is an authority on ecumenism.
“Len knows so many people and has done such a great job traveling all over the world and having dialogues with different religions,” said Halloran, chairman and CEO of American Refining Group, an oil and alternative energy company. “I thought it was important to continue this work which is irreplaceable.”
Halloran, who lives in Villanova, also is donating $300,000 toward the $1.5 million needed to create the Islamic studies chair. A Muslim organization had offered to fund the chair, honoring a retiring Islamic studies professor, but withdrew after Temple delayed giving making a decision on the money.
Professors, including Swidler, said that trustees and others pressured president Ann Hart to decline the money because it came from a Muslim organization, International Institute of Islamic Thought, which had been included in a government probe of terrorist funding after the Sept. 11 attack. No action has been taken against it.

Source.

most popular

beliefnet

Goodbye!
Dear Friends and Readers, After a wonderful relationship with Beliefnet, I've moved my blog to brucefeiler.com. Please join me there, or check out my new site, councilofdads.com, where I talk regularly about faith, family, and health. Thanks for your interest. Bruce Feiler

posted 2:12:51pm Apr. 21, 2010 | read full post »

The Man Who Started It All
In WALKING THE BIBLE, he's still sitting there forever, behind a cloud of smoke, saying, "People like me don't have time to talk to people like you," then calling me at home that night to introduce me to Avner. Now, nearing 100, he has finally passed.Avraham Biran, an archaeologist of biblical site

posted 10:32:33pm Oct. 06, 2008 | read full post »

Feiler Faster in Denver -- Final Thoughts
The last of my brother's blogs. * * * I was on the floor the other day and came across a man of about forty who wore on his left breast what looked like a military medal. A small ribbon pinned to his chest with a medallion hanging from it. It was the credential that his grandfather wore at the 196

posted 9:16:57pm Aug. 30, 2008 | read full post »

Feiler Faster in Denver -- Day 3
My brother's dailiy blog from inside the hall. * * * President Carter addressed the Georgia delegation this morning. Recently, he said, he'd been interviewed by the editor of the British newspaper "The Guardian" and had been asked whether a President Obama could change America's reputation in the

posted 12:25:22pm Aug. 28, 2008 | read full post »

Feiler Faster in Denver -- Day 2
My brother's latest blog. He's the official photographer of the Georgia Delegation. * * * Considering I described myself yesterday as a pop culture moron, the funniest response I've gotten so far was, "Who's Angela Bassett?" In the wake of opening night there's been a lot of play about Carville and

posted 10:28:13am Aug. 27, 2008 | read full post »

read all»