Customer Reviews

Beyond Tolerance: Searching for Interfaith Understanding in America (The Documents of 20th-century art)

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Every once in awhile a book transcends paper, ink, and binding to paint a picture. Niebuhr's book does just that -- casting a vision for interfaith understanding and issuing a challenge to engage in a transformative dialogue -- to move beyond the boundaries that limit and constrain us. Our future health, vitality, and sustainability as a global culture lies in collaboration and connection that is greater than any one religious faith or belief system. Too often modern religion is framed in divisive, destructive, and dysfunctional terms, with little regard to the essence of the good, the beautiful, and the true that undergird every major faith. When differences can be set aside in deference to the common good and the shared values of diverse faiths, amazing things can happen. Niebuhr offers an invitation into a new way of being 'religious' in a complex, chaotic, and often contentious world. This is a recommended read for every person of faith who desires to see our world become a place of peace, justice, mercy, and love.

"Beyond Tolerance" is an excellent book for a church adult study group. We are thoroughly enjoying it at our Congregational church and would recommend that you consider it for your group. It is very pertinent for our times.

This is a slim volume, less than 250 pages, but the author has a point to make: "Yes, we can all get along and care for one another, even though we are all of different faiths". This book is a call to our humanity (and humility).

This book is very readable, and has numerous stories of people of different faiths coming together to help each other in times of great need. I didn't feel that this book was overtly political at all. In fact, I felt the author was using these stories as a means to say that we all have a responsibility, as human beings, to lift each other up, help one another, and just reach across all of our differences and unite to make the world a better place for all of us.

It's a great message, and the stories are really uplifting. I really enjoyed this book.

Gustav Niebuhr is an engaging writer. He has a wealth of experience on the subject of religion in America drawn from his personal life and then his professional life (as a journalist first and then from the Academy). "Beyond Tolerance: Search for Interfaith Understanding in America" is a solid resource for those engaged in interfaith dialogue.

What Makes this a good book?

Niebuhr draws from his personal experiences as a religion writer for the New York Times in order to analyze interfaith dialogue in America. "Beyond Tolerance" is a combination of a personal account and a researched/surveyed academic analysis. This unique perspective makes the book engaging and readable while providing very useful facts, resources and insights as well. Niebuhr's personal opinions are included in "Beyond Tolerance" but he distinguishes them from facts.

It is a short book (only 213 pages) and it is a very easy read. While it has six (6) chapters and a conclusion, the preface, introduction, notes and bibliography are integral to the book. The preface and introduction help set the right expectations for the reader by disclosing Niebuhr's personal and professional background, his personal religious affiliation and his own attitude towards interfaith dialogue. Niebuhr notes that he was raised in an observant Christian home where prayer was a part of his family's dail life. Interestingly but not surprisingly he notes that as part of his religious Christian upbringing he was taught that he


"shared the world with a great variety of religious (and nonreligious) identities, all of which belonged to people who deserved as much respect as we ourselves would want."

The notes and bibliography are wonderful resources for additional reading. This is particularly important for a book on interfaith dialogue. This subject matter is not well represented in many public libraries. Book stores do not carry a lot of titles on interfaith dialogue either. Furthermore, many valuable resources for studying and undrestanding interfaith dialogue are found in periodicals and journals and less in books. The notes and bibliography are useful in highlighting some of these resources.

[...]

Gustav Niebuhr created a valuable gift when he wrote BEYOND TOLERANCE. Even the active participants in the interfaith community in Rochester, NY, which has been building community since 1991 through many organizations, are benefitting from Professor Niebuhur's stories of how individual priests and rabbis reached out in neighborly concern to imams and their Muslim members after 9/11. Tolerance is not enough between persons of different faiths. Understanding and mutual respect are far more powerful in transforming a neighborhood's fear into stances of solidarity and helpfulness. If we are going to move forward together as Americans, Muslims and Jews, Christians and Buddhists, Unitarians and Sikhs, nonreligious and religious, we will find both vision and valuable insights in BEYOND TOLERANCE. The fear that the 9/11 fanatics wished to instill in us by their acts of inhumanity on 9/11 is giving way to the love of neighbor that all of our religious traditions teach, and that the individuals in Dr. Niebuhr's stories demonstrate. We plan to use his book in the work of the Interfaith Forum of Greater Rochester, as we mark the tenth anniversary of 9/11, remember loved ones lost, thank first responders for those they saved, and pursue communities of understanding and mutual respect.

BEYOND TOLERANCE: SEARCHING FOR INTERFAITH UNDERSTANDING IN AMERICA tells of religious tolerance issues in the U.S., renowned for its religiously diverse population. This history of religious freedoms in America will find its place not only in spirituality collections, but in any high school to college-level library strong in American civil liberties and history. Chapters consider religious impact and social connections, offering depth and insights suitable for student debate and study.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch