Multifaith Musings

Multifaith Musings: The Beauty of Sin

Hello all! My name is Lauren Williams, and I’m a freshman currently enrolled in The Day Course: Idea Development, ART-115, here at Gustavus. Over the semester, our class studies how contemporary artists understand and work with their materials, content, and subject inside a formal, conceptual, and cultural framework. We incorporate these ideas into four of […]

Multifaith Musings: What Mindfulness Means to Aaron Geringer

My name is Aaron Geringer. I am a mental health therapist at the Gustavus Adolphus College Counseling Center. Mindfulness is a guiding principle in my practice in promoting a holistic sense of wellbeing. One of my colleagues and I lead secular mindfulness meditations during Wednesday Sabbath in the Bonnier Multifaith Center. These sessions are open to […]

Multifaith Musings: New Opportunities for Interfaith Engagement

As religious hate crimes escalate around the country, it is heartening to see a similar rise in efforts to promote inter-religious understanding. Below I describe three initiatives that give me hope: a new statewide organization, a community program, and an event here at Gustavus. These are just a few examples out of many. Future posts […]

Multifaith Musings and Introduction to Dr. Kessler

Judaism is the oldest of the monotheistic Abrahamic religions, with roots that go back more than 3,000 years. Core concepts include a covenant between God and the Jewish people, and God’s word as embodied in the Torah and its commentary, including texts like the Hebrew Bible as well as the Talmud and law codes. Religious […]

Multifaith Musings: Reflections from Danann Mitchell ’20

Christianity is the most widespread religion practiced in Hawaiʻi today, represented by Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Mormons. From the arrival of American Protestant missionaries with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1819 on, Hawaiian Protestant Christianity, as a syncretist form of Christianity, has borne witness to both the many sorrows and joys […]

Does God Care Who I Vote For: A Review of an Interfaith Discussion

Religion and politics, the two topics banned from dinner conversations, were finally brought to the same table on December 5th in a panel discussion sponsored by the Chaplains’ Office and Religion Department. Chaplain Siri Erickson and Professors John Cha, Sam Kessler, and Fuad Naeem sought to give insight and stimulate student reflection on the interaction […]

Meet Chaplain Maggie

Chaplain Maggie Falsenschek believes that it’s important to lead from a place of authenticity.   Maggie was raised in the ELCA tradition, but it wasn’t until college that she  really came to appreciate her specific denomination. It was then that she was able to examine scripture, learn about different components of her faith, and study […]

Multifaith Musings: Reflections from Matthew Kalkman ’20

The Roman Catholic Church is the largest Christian Church in the world and has over 1.29 billion members.  It is headed by the Pope and the Holy See in the Vatican in Rome.  The theological foundations of this religion are based on the Nicene creed.  The Mother Mary and saints may be included in prayers […]

Multifaith Musings: Reflections from Grace Love ’19

Neo-Paganism is a modern spiritual movement that does not as yet have a defined universal set of beliefs or a specific structure and authority. Most practitioners, whose numbers are unknown, have a highly individualized form of thought and practice which may overlap with New Age Spirituality and Wicca. Much of the ideology used by today’s […]

Multifaith Musings: Reflections from Anna Duong-Topp ’21

by Grace Love ’19 Mahayana Buddhism is the largest form of Buddhism in the world (about 53% of 520 million Buddhists).  Buddhism began in India between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE and is based on the teachings of the original Buddha (known also as Gautama Buddha and Siddhartha Gautama).  Buddhist religious knowledge comes from […]