From a young age, Ali Hameed had a deep curiosity about faith. Born and raised Muslim, he felt a calling to uncover more about his religion.
“Religion has always fascinated me,” he recalled. He was particularly interested in how religious communities advanced social justice goals.
After learning more about Union Theological Seminary’s social-justice orientation, he enrolled in the school’s Islamic Studies (IS) program. In the program, he found something special: An ability to critically engage with his faith tradition and ask any question that came to his mind.
According to Dr. Jerusha Rhodes, Associate Professor of Islam & Interreligious Engagement, the program is deliberately designed to provide space for this in-depth inquiry. She was instrumental to the founding of the program.
As she detailed, within the context of Union’s 180+ year history, the IS program is relatively new. It was first formalized in 2016 alongside the Buddhist and Interreligious Engagement Program (BIE).
A few years prior to that, faculty members at Union – a historically Christian seminary – started discussing creating a religious field for interreligious engagement. They recognized the need to prepare students to engage with people of different religious traditions.
Since then, Union has accelerated its commitment to interreligious engagement.
For one, the student body and faculty have grown more religiously diverse. The Union community includes Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Indigenous spiritualities, spiritual but not religious people, and more. And there is a rich diversity of experience within those practices.
Simran Jeet Singh, Assistant Professor of Interreligious Histories at Union Theological Seminary, noted, “We have Buddhist monks in my class, and we have people who are encountering Buddhism for the 1st time… We have students from Muslim-majority countries who have grown up steeped in the study of Islam, and people who have never studied Islam.”
Students also have access to more courses about different religious traditions than ever before. For example, through the BIE program – which has become one of Union’s most popular programs – students can take courses like Introduction to Buddhist Meditation Practices. For their final project, students consider how they could bring meditation training to a particular group of people in a transformational way. Rev. Kosen Greg Snyder also highlighted the “Socially Engaged Buddhism” course, in which students learn how to apply lessons from Buddhist decolonial movements to social justice issues within the United States.
This access has grown through other avenues as well. Union’s collaboration with the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) and Hebrew Union College (HUC) has further served to expand opportunities for interreligious learning. Through cross-registration, Union students can take courses at JTS and HUC, and their students can access courses at Union. This partnership has fostered deeper connections across traditions and disciplines. Notably, JTS housed Union’s Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) program during its initial years, supporting its development until Union was able to establish an independent program.
Additionally, in Spring 2025, The Rev. Dr. John Thatamanil – Professor of Theology & World Religions and Director of The Insight Project: Theology & Natural World – will teach Union’s first-ever introductory theology course that incorporates Hindu and Buddhist teachings alongside Christian ones.
Beyond the classroom, Union aims to provide spaces for interreligious engagement throughout campus life. Hameed recalled one such occasion amidst the Palestine demonstrations on college campuses. Union opened its doors to the community for a Shabbat dinner. Many students who had been suspended from Columbia University attended – and the dinner was full of people of different religious traditions. Hameed described the event as “incredible.”
For the Union community, interreligious engagement is essential to advance social justice.
Hameed shared that he was initially skeptical about taking courses that didn’t directly relate to his Muslim religion. But those courses raised questions that he is still contemplating after completing his degree. He reflected, “Learning some of the basic tenets of other faith traditions has been invaluable for me.”
The Rev. Dr. John Thatamanil explained, “None of the major challenges we face at this moment in history can be solved by an appeal to the resources of any single tradition. To pretend that we can address any significant cultural, political, or social problem from within one lens of vision alone is naive.
Dr. Rhodes echoed this sentiment, stating, “Religion hasn’t become less relevant. It is wildly invoked in politics. It’s used in healthcare settings. It’s used to dictate the calendar and the norms and structure and architecture of our institutions… Interreligious engagement is a top justice concern in the world….It is at the core of what Union does do and has done and will do. It is on par with concerns about environmental justice and racial justice and gender justice, and, in fact, it is tangled together with all of those.”
Ultimately, as Rev. Kosen put it, we’re all trying to address our differences and figure out how we can live together with “fundamental respect and dignity.”