Voices: John Merkle

“The task of fostering interfaith learning and friendship is urgent. Religious intolerance kills! And even when it doesn’t literally kill, it diminishes human beings, tears societies asunder, and provokes inter-cultural hostility. Interreligious understanding, on the other hand, heals and enhances human lives and strengthens the fabric of community and inter-cultural relations. This is what the Jay Phillips Center is all about. For many years the center has fostered interfaith learning and friendship between Christians and Jews—and we at the center remain as committed as ever to that task while we now also embrace the challenge of our expanded mission to do whatever we can to promote interfaith understanding and harmony among people of various religious.” 

- John Merkle, Director of the Jay Philliips Center for Interfaith Learning