Globalization, Gender, and Peacebuilding; The Future of Interfaith Dialogue (#482) by Kwok Pui-Lan is required Interlude reading for my EfM course. When I read the cover blurbs to my husband after he asked what I was reading, it was enough to make him comatose. And that's a shame, because the text of Kwok's 2011 Madeleva Lecture in Spirituality was actually quite interesting and much easier to read and comprehend than those cover blurbs would lead you to believe.
How do you talk to others whose beliefs are not the same as yours when you are not even allowed to sit at the table where the discussions are taking place? That's one of the points Kwok addresses in the Gender portion of her lecture. And how do you set aside your own personal and cultural biases to approach others' beliefs with tolerance and an open mind? The world is a far different place today than it was even a hundred years ago. Yet if we don't make the effort to do so, what future can there be for a peaceful future with so much violence precipitated by religion?
I certainly don't have the answers, and I'm not sure that Dr. Kwok does either, but at least she's thinking, talking and writing about it. Anything that stretches your mind and opens your eyes is always worth reading. So it is with Globalization, Gender and Peacebuilding.
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