Let all Who Are Hungry Come and Eat - 'In Good Faith': Intentional Interreligious Encounter and the Spirit of Hospitality

Chava Stacie  Bahle

Etd

Let all Who Are Hungry Come and Eat - 'In Good Faith': Intentional Interreligious Encounter and the Spirit of Hospitality

Public Deposited

MLA citation style (9th ed.)

Chava Stacie Bahle. Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat - 'in Good Faith': Intentional Interreligious Encounter and the Spirit of Hospitality. rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/b2637ad2-ddb1-4af3-a27a-cf81e6f99db0?q=2019.

APA citation style (7th ed.)

C. S. Bahle. Let all Who Are Hungry Come and Eat - 'In Good Faith': Intentional Interreligious Encounter and the Spirit of Hospitality. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/b2637ad2-ddb1-4af3-a27a-cf81e6f99db0?q=2019

Chicago citation style (CMOS 17, author-date)

Chava Stacie Bahle. Let All Who Are Hungry Come and Eat - 'in Good Faith': Intentional Interreligious Encounter and the Spirit of Hospitality. https://rim.ir.atla.com/concern/etds/b2637ad2-ddb1-4af3-a27a-cf81e6f99db0?q=2019.

Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.

Creator

Chava Stacie Bahle

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Abstract

This thesis-project explores participant experiences in a long-term Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue program. Examined through the theological quests for truth, love and peace, participants reflected on their experiences, placing those experiences in conversation with sacred texts and images from their home traditions. T'shuvah, the Jewish theological act of turning toward the holy, is explored as a transtemporal, liberative and conciliatory gesture, through which the program might create change in the participants' sense of self and other. Reflective storytelling as a method is explored in depth.The author theorizes that t’shuvah did in fact occur, according to participant interviews. T’shuvah in an interreligious dialogue setting may occur in part because of: the phenomenon of multiple “Us-es,” according to the neurobiology theories of Robert Sapolsky; contact theories through dialogue; and the structure of gatherings proposed by Priya Parker. Ethical considerations of intentional interreligious engagement, especially historical wounds and vulnerability, are also discussed. The thesis-project used semi-structured, one on one interviews, and applied a novel, four step Jewish theological reflection method conceived by the author: p’shat, thick descriptions of “what happened”; d’rash, placing those experiences in dialogue with sacred texts and images; t’shuvah, how the experiences may have created individual and cosmic repair among the dialogue partners; and k’dushah, exploring whether and how participation in the program translated into action in the world outside the program. Framing the interviews through the lens of “participant as storyteller” is explored in detail as a potential contribution to sacralizing the lived experience of the program. The rich imageries of shared ancestry, meeting at table, fellow travelers and learning in the presence of the other inform the conclusion that the intentional interreligious engagement of this program may create tikkunim (repairs) in both individual and group to group relationships among Jews, Christians and Muslims.

Year