With God on Our Side:
From Rivalry to Reconciliation
The ICJS Radio Project

The three major monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) each operate from some very basic assumptions: We have the truth. We are in a privileged position. Those who don't accept our truth are against us. This line of thinking can create strong communities of people with deep, abiding faith. It can also exhibit its dark side, as evidenced by the devas-tating events in Srebrenica, the West Bank, and the World Trade Center.

With God on Our Side: From Rivalry to Reconciliation is the newest hour-long program produced for the ICJS Radio Series. Through the voices of believers and scholars from all three faiths, the program explores the core assumptions embedded in our traditions. It begins with a survey of feelings about religion by people on the street, then tells three separate and very personal stories from a Jew, a Muslim, and a Christian who found solace in their religion and who were able to mitigate the violence their beliefs could inspire in their lives.

With God on Our Side features interviews and commentary by a distinguished panel of scholars and clergy including Sanford Ungar (President, Goucher College), Bishop Jane Dixon (Retired Episcopal Bishop Suffragan of Washington), Imam Yahya Hendi (Muslim Chaplain of Georgetown University), Rabbi Irwin Kula (The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership), Rabbi David Hartman (Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem), Dr. Abduljalil Sajid (Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Har-mony, London), and Bishop Krister Stendahl (Mellon Professor of Divinity Emeritus, Harvard University).

With God on Our Side: From Rivalry to Reconciliation will be broadcast on public radio stations around the country be-ginning this summer. For a schedule and information, please contact Marilyn Powel at ICJS, 410-523-7227.

Getting Our Stories Straight
The Spring 2004 Congregational Project

The ICJS will hold our annual spring Congregational Conversa-tion at Temple Oheb Shalom on four Tuesdays: April 27, May 4, May 11, and May 18 from 7:30-9:00 p.m.

The controversies ignited by Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ have polarized significant segments of the Christian and Jewish communities. The movie's release provoked a remark-able range of reactions and demonstrated a deep and abiding diversity among Christians. While the problems of anti-Judaism have captured the headlines, the movie raises additional bib-lical and theological issues that go to the very heart of Christianity.

In our current political and religious climate, we share a great sense of urgency for educational experiences that will enable Jews and Christians to get their stories straight and to over-come some serious misunderstandings of one another. We will therefore devote two evenings to study the Exodus and the Passover Seder, and in the next two sessions turn to the stories of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Scholars often refer to these stories as the central narratives of the Jewish and Christian traditions. We will explore the distinctive char-acter of each story, noting how our sacred stories bring us together and how they set us apart.

In keeping with the format of previous years, we will orches-trate our sessions as town meetings. We will begin and conclude each session in plenary, but the heart of the pro-gram will take place in small group discussions. The same groups will meet for all four sessions, enabling individual parti-cipants to develop closer relationships with one another.