News Archive
Humanitarian Crises and the Role of Faith
Around the world, many of the most influential local humanitarian actors are religious leaders. What does that mean for secular aid providers?
Video: Healing, Bridge-Building, and Empowerment to Address Gun Violence
A discussion by leaders in the Boston area driving inspiring community-based initiatives to address the effects and sources of gun violence. Speakers Chaplain Clementina Chéry, founder, president, and CEO, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute; Stanley Pollack...
The Word Made Flesh
Professor of Religion and Latina/o Studies Mayra Rivera cares about bodies: bodies sent to war, where they are harmed; bodies relegated to slums that are unhealthy or workplaces that are unsafe; bodies that are the place where flesh and blood meet spirit...
Bending toward Justice, from Abolition to the Oval Office
Professor Dan McKanan discusses how a quote by Boston abolitionist Theodore Parker ended up in a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—and on the floor of the Oval Office.
Examining the Struggle for Human Rights in Latin America
In 2002, two dozen Colombian army officers and former guerrilla fighters gathered at a hotel outside of Bogota. These leaders—representing the opposing sides of a conflict that has lasted 53 years and killed over 220,000 Colombians—arrived on the same...
Listening to Voices From the Human Past
This summer, when you and your kids were sitting through The Secret Life of Pets or some other blockbuster, you were actually watching a pretty sophisticated cultural product. The reason it may not have seemed that way to you is because you grew up with...
Another Way In
It was the mid-1970s and, after one year at Harvard Divinity School, Margaret Rose still had not found her calling. She had a passion for theology and for social justice, but wasn’t convinced that a career as a religious leader was for her, so she went...
Weaving Africa Into the Tapestry of Islam
Ousmane Kane, HDS’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor of Contemporary Islamic Religion and Society, wants to paint a much broader and more accurate picture of Islam. A leader among a burgeoning group of scholars in the field, Kane works to bring the...
The Harmony Sounds Good Together
The education of progressive Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist ministers is literally embedded in Harvard Divinity School’s DNA. The legendary Rev. William Ellery Channing actually penned the 1815 appeal that went out in Harvard President Kirkland’s...
Video: Religious Literacy and Humanitarian Action
What knowledge and assumptions about religion do faith-based and secular international humanitarian agencies have? How do these assumptions impact their work? What kind of knowledge about religion is most useful? Watch A symposium on January 19–20, 2017...
Making Space for Muslims in the University—and America
Celene Ibrahim, MDiv ’11, is one of a growing number of HDS alumni who pursue religious leadership in a tradition other than Christianity—and in a setting other than a house of worship. As Tufts University’s Muslim chaplain, Ibrahim works with students to...
The Real Young Pope
HBO's "The Young Pope," has renewed interest in the actual youngest pope. Professor Kevin Madigan offers insight to TIME magazine.
Finding the Resources
As a Volunteer in Mission with the Presbyterian Church, USA, in Thailand in the late 1980s, Rick Santos found himself in the middle of great socioeconomic and cultural shifts in Southeast Asia. Santos, MTS ’92, now president and CEO of the global public...
Education Through Service
Silvia Mejia came to HDS thinking she would pursue further graduate work in religion. Instead, she ended up having a life-changing experience that led her to discover her passion: serving those who were invisible to her, and to many others. “I took the...
A Summer in Jerusalem
This past summer, through the support of a CSWR Greeley International Fellowship, MTS candidate Shira Telushkin worked as an intern at the Christian Leadership Initiative (CLI) run by the Shalom Hartman Institute of Jerusalem (SHI) and the American Jewish...
The Heart of Human Rights
Like many HDS alumni/alumnae who choose a different path than ordination, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, MTS ’84, shares her classmates' commitment to ethics and values. Donahoe came to the Divinity School to delve deeply into philosophical and moral...
A Shift in Humanitarian Crisis Response
What is the role of religious literacy in humanitarian action? Humanitarian practitioners and leading scholars involved in humanitarian efforts will discuss this question and others during the Symposium on Religious Literacy in Humanitarian Action. The...
Divine Disruptor
Working for durable peace is more or less Susan Hayward’s job description. Where fellow HDS alum Steve Simon keeps his eye on the potential for religiously inspired violence, Hayward, MDiv ’07, director of religion and peacebuilding at the United States...
Radical Dharma
Established with a 2011 gift from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, HDS’s Buddhist Ministry Initiative (BMI) has become a major draw for students from and of that tradition. In fact, there are now more Buddhists at HDS than Unitarian Universalists...
New Congress 91 Percent Christian Despite Shifts in American Religious Makeup
The United States Congress is about as Christian but more Catholic than it was 50 years ago, according to a recent Pew Research Center study. In their “ Faith on the Hill” report released Tuesday, Pew delves into the religious makeup of the 115 th...
The Torah and Philosophy
Professor Jon Levenson writes on the great rewards and grave dangers that come from a philosophical investigation of the Torah.
Harvey Cox's Radicalism
The Nation magazine examines how Professor Harvey Cox has played a profound role in shaping liberal Christianity in America.
Finding and Losing Wisdom in Tagore's Gitanjali
Professor Frank Clooney, director of the Center for the Study of World Religions, discusses finding, losing, and again finding wisdom in Rabindranath Tagore's Gitanjali.
Children First
There is a sacredness in tears," wrote Washington Irving, ". . . they speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues." Perhaps the greatest question of our age is whether or not the world's grown-ups will ever notice the tears of the world's children...
Video: Go Light Your World
From all of us at HDS, we wish you a season of light. 2016 Seasons of Light
Academics and Journalists Unite Against Fake News
On Thursday, Dec. 8, Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, lamented the dearth of good religion journalism in an NPR interview with Terry Gross. On the very same day, the Times's religion reporter, Laurie Goodstein, echoed his concerns...
Video: Religious Literacy in Journalism Symposium
How do journalists cover religion? What makes for good religion reporting? What do journalists need to know about religion to do their job? A symposium on December 8 and 9, 2016, at Harvard Divinity School brought together some of the nation's leading...
When Journalism Meets Religion
Through the Religious Literacy and the Professions Initiative, Senior Lecturer Diane Moore hopes to enhance understanding of religions to undercut bigotry and prejudice.
Envisioning Inclusion
This fall semester, Professor Cheryl Giles joined a number of members of the HDS community in calling for a more conscious religious engagement with injustice. At an October panel discussion, “ Changing the World from the Inside Out: Multi-Faith...
A Social-Justice Christian
Just three weeks into his studies at Harvard Divinity School, Isaac Martinez stood behind a wooden pulpit in Andover Chapel to preach about the parable of Lazarus and the rich man. Martinez, an MDiv candidate, was quick to acknowledge that the familiar...
