Introduction to This Issue

One of the things that makes the Journal of Ecumenical Studies special is that the scholarship it publishes is informed by experiences and insights that are cultivated in grassroots activism, civic engagement, and programmatic application. The first five essays in this issue are the product of conversations and experiences that took place over several years, both in the United States and across the globe. Thanks to one of the Dialogue Institute's flagship programs, these five authors had the opportunity to study and experience religious pluralism in the U.S. and engage in dialogue with academic peers from around the world.

Since 2010, the Dialogue Institute has been hosting Study of the U.S. Institutes on the theme of religious pluralism in collaboration with the U.S. Department of State. Over the years, more than 300 students have participated and have come to the U.S. from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Starting in 2017, the Dialogue Institute expanded its programming by hosting religious pluralism/freedom institutes for midcareer scholars. The scholars have typically been a mix of university professors from a range of academic disciplines and faith leaders from a variety of traditions and grassroots initiatives who have been selected by U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. Each of the three cohorts we hosted between 2017 and 2019 had sixteen to eighteen participants, each representing a different country. In total, we have worked with fifty scholars from thirty-two countries.

The institutes have several objectives, including (1) increasing understanding of democratic principles and religious liberty in the U.S., (2) deepening comprehension of the varied landscape of U.S. religious belief and practice, (3) enhancing appreciation for the strengths of a religiously pluralist society and developing awareness of creative responses to its challenges, (4) teaching participants the principles and practices of interreligious dialogue, and (5) creating rigorous, multidisciplinary academic engagement that supports participants in the enhancement of their own teaching and scholarship related to the U.S.

The six-week program is fast-paced, intellectually rigorous, and emotionally intense as participants visit a wide variety of religious communities, attend lectures by top scholars, and travel to diverse regions of the U.S. Drawing on their study and observation of American religious life during the residential program, each participant is required to deliver a presentation on an aspect of their research before an American audience. Community forums were hosted in Philadelphia, as well as at sites visited during the study tour portion of the program, including Arizona and Minnesota. In these forums, scholars had their first opportunity to receive feedback from their peers and also from community members from across the U.S. The presentations enabled the scholars to apply their field of expertise to their experience of religious pluralism in the U.S. and to engage in dialogue with American interlocutors. Most of the five essays published in this issue had their genesis in these initial experiences of dialogue and exchange.

The dialogue continued even after the scholars returned to their home countries. Funding from the State Department enabled the Dialogue Institute to facilitate follow-on activities to engage further with other scholars and their own research. On August 17–18, 2020, while the pandemic raged, the Dialogue Institute hosted a virtual conference for SUSI scholar alumni to present papers on their research. Ten scholars, representing each of the three cohorts, presented papers over two days, while several other scholars offered prepared responses. Time was allotted for dialogical exchanges in Zoom breakout rooms, and each of the conference days concluded with remarks from Professor Leonard Swidler and Dialogue Institute staff. In the weeks that followed the conference, six of the scholars participated in podcast interviews with the Dialogue Institute, some of which are available on the organization's website. The conference was an important venue for the scholars to refine their research and expand their conversational network.

Over the past two years, Rebecca Mays, current Managing Editor, worked with the SUSI scholars to develop the conference papers into essays suitable for publication in the Journal of Ecumenical Studies. Nancy Krody...