Religion has the ability to bring a diversity of people together in a way that crosses political, social, and economic boundaries, but divides them through conflicting worship practices, rituals, and teachings. This is especially true with the three Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The unique aspect to the Abrahamic religions is that they all claim Abraham as a common ancestor. Unfortunately, over the two millennia since the founding of these religions, interpretations of each religious text has drastically divided the three religions. Guy Stroumsa, Professor Emeritus of the Study of Abrahamic Religions at the University of Oxford, states that after such a long time the "Jewish Avraham is no more the Christian Abraham than the latter is the Islamic Ibrahim… and there is more than one Jewish (or Christian, or Muslim) Abraham." This project is designed to create a multi-faith building that crosses the religious divides in the Abrahamic faiths and encourages inter-faith dialogue by looking at commonly used ritualistic items. Three basic items - water, a meal, and the scripture – all hold reverence in all three religions, but each religion has its own unique rituals and traditions surrounding them. This building attempts to express the similarities and differences through the built environment in a way that increases communication and understanding between the religions and the surrounding community. / Master of Architecture / Religions divide people. Architecture brings people together. Can architecture help bridge the divide between religions? This project is designed to create a multi-faith building that crosses the religious divides in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and encourages inter-faith dialogue between them by looking at three commonly used sacred items and their rituals and traditions.

Nepal’s history is full of civil turbulence and the socio-economic development has been slow, however the last decade the social changes have been rapid. Some of the social changes include the profession of social work and peace initiative through inter-faith. The aim of this paper is to explore the role of social workers in peace-building in order to promote wellbeing and work-life in Nepal. This paper gives an insight into the life and relationship among the community members in Nepal, and an insight of how culture, religion, and history may impact people’s everyday-life. The data collection of this study was carried out through a field visit, with semi-structured interviews with twenty-five different key informants, during the period of February to May of 2018. The interviewees include grass-root to national level faith-leaders as well as social work academics. The result of this study indicates that there is a lack of trust among the community members, between government and its people, and government and its external influences, which effect community’s socio-economical standard. The findings also conclude that Nepali society lacks adequate and effective information-sharing, which seems to impact the community’s health and work-life. his study gives social workers an insight on how social bonds and trust among groups could be established, which could increase the well-being of the people in rural area of Nepal.

Religion has often been viewed as a source of conflict and violence in international relations. Yet history provides that religion has also been a source and inspiration for peace building and non-violent resistance. The role of religious leaders in conflict transformation has been treated as a marginal phenomenon. Appleby (2000) points out that identifying and documenting the roles of religious actors in resolving protracted conflicts remains an unfinished task. This thesis is an attempt to meet such challenge by focusing on religious leaders and their role in search of solutions in deeply rooted conflicts. Working from the premise that religious leaders can make a substantial contribution in conflict transformation, the overarching goal of this thesis is to examine what roles religious actors play and how equipped they are to serve their communities in their capacity as peacemakers.

<p>An empirical study of how Malaysian pluralism is understood through Islam Hadhari, Article 11 and the Inter-faith Commission against the backdrop of current Malaysian political and social history, coupled with a theoretical analysis through John Rawls' Political Liberalism, with particular emphasis on the idea of Overlapping Consensus.</p><p>The thesis is an attempt at applying Rawls' theory on the practical case of Malaysia, as a plural society, while at the same time using the practical case of Malaysia to highlight parts of Rawls' own theory.</p>

An empirical study of how Malaysian pluralism is understood through Islam Hadhari, Article 11 and the Inter-faith Commission against the backdrop of current Malaysian political and social history, coupled with a theoretical analysis through John Rawls' Political Liberalism, with particular emphasis on the idea of Overlapping Consensus. The thesis is an attempt at applying Rawls' theory on the practical case of Malaysia, as a plural society, while at the same time using the practical case of Malaysia to highlight parts of Rawls' own theory.

Intergroup reconciliation involves a holistic change in attitudes and interactions between groups. However, sustainable reconciliation has often times been overlooked from previous research. This paper aims to contribute to the research gap by applying the well-tested contact hypothesis in the context of NGO structure. The positive results in change of reconciliation attitudes suggests thereby that NGOs should not only be evaluated by its external effects but also by its internal effects on its own members. No negative consequences could be found. Combining intergroup contact with youth, providing informal education and combining it with inter-faith projects within a faith-based institution have yielded the best results.