The Center for Interfaith Studies & Dialogue

The Center for Interfaith Studies and Dialogue (CISD) promotes research and encourages strategies for living peacefully in a religiously diverse world. This vision is realized through dialogue, education, and community-building efforts.

Every religion demands that we alleviate suffering. Every religion dreams of a better world. Yet each religion offers different means to attain these goals. CISD believes that individuals can learn from each other, understand each other and work together in a respectful way for the CISD attendees discuss at a recent CISD event common good.

The CISD includes individuals who are diverse in religion, faith, ethnicity, race, gender and education. The common denominator is a desire to develop skills to clarify and improve individual and community-wide communications on matters of religion, faith and spirituality; to understand individual and communal faiths; to establish methodology proper to our goals; and to develop the capacity for living in a pluralistic world.

We seek to understand and develop research tools, knowledge and skills to benefit our common humanity.

Our goals are:

To establish an environment conducive to understanding the diversity of faiths in our world and community.
To communicate the skills necessary for people of diverse faiths to live together in peace and justice.
To provide educational resources to aid in establishing an environment of understanding and equality.
To teach individuals, communities and institutions how to live and communicate more effectively with those from other religions and faith backgrounds.