DiversiFaith — a blog by students of theology
Diversi what…? May be the first question that comes to mind when reading or listening to DiversiFaith. But behind the combination of ‘diversify’ and ‘faith’ is the new, interreligious student blog, which not only raises many questions, but answers them as well! The academic blog was developed – with some guidance – by students of the Faculty of Theology to bring members and interested people of different religions into conversation with each other in a modern and varied way – DiversiFaith.
But who could explain it better than the makers of the blog themselves? Here is the Q&A of the DiversiFaith team:
Interreligious student blog “DiversiFaith” goes online!
On April 1, 2020 it was finally time and our new blog went online! “Many religions, many opinions, one blog”, that is the motto of the interreligious blog “DiversiFaith”. No more reading long, dry texts in seminars and exchanging ideas only on an academic level – here science meets internet culture. On this blog we write interesting, short and yet scientifically sound texts on various interreligious topics.
How was “DiversiFaith” created?
Scientific and yet easy to understand, that was our concern as six students of FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg. We have all been studying at the Faculty of Theology for at least five semesters, some future teachers of religion, some future pastors. In the winter semester 2019/20 we met through an interdisciplinary seminar of religious studies and communication studies at the Department of Intercultural Theology and Religious Studies.
In the weekly sessions of the seminar „Das Christentum aus Sicht der Anderen/Interreligiöse Kommunikation“ (“Christianity from the point of view of others / interreligious communication”) with lecturers Stefanie Burkhardt and Katharina Dönch, the idea was developed step by step in many conversations, presentations and revision phases. We were given the opportunity to try something new: to create a student blog in teamwork! Easier said than done, as we soon found that we had a lot of work ahead of us … but at the end of March the blog was ready for publication. The joint development, design and implementation finally led to a result that we can be proud of today.
blog content:
The blog publishes articles on three topics: “Christianity from a new perspective”, “Non-Christian religions” and “Interreligious dialogue”. The articles are intended to grant new perspectives and promote understanding between members of different religions – and of course also between all people interested in religion! Brief info posts at the beginning of the week provide the blog visitors with food for thought or nice-to-know content. At the end of the month, detailed content on the respective topics follows.
For example, the article “Leiden macht dialogfähig?” (“Suffering makes you capable of dialogue?”) contains the perspective of the Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh on Christianity and shows how Buddhists can deal with the central figure of Christianity, Jesus Christ. There are great differences in the traditions of these two religions, but according to Thich Nhat Hanh there is also a common core: the goal of overcoming suffering in the world. If you want to know more about this Buddhist view of Christianity, please visit our blog!
In the section “News” you will find short articles on current topics. Of course, at the moment those are “Religion in times of Coronavirus” but also “Big Islam, little Space. – a report on our first interreligious dialogue. Have a look!
Join us
We are also happy to accept guest contributions. If you feel like writing an article for “DiversiFaith” or for example reworking a paper that would otherwise disappear in the trash into a blog article, feel free to send us an email to rmw-diversifaith-blog@fau.de!