An expert in interfaith dialogue and Muslim-Christian relations, Almirzanah has a PhD and master鈥檚 degrees in theology from the Lutheran School of Theology, as well as a DMin degree from Catholic Theological Union, all located in Chicago, Illinois. She earned an MA in philosophy and a BA in comparative religions at State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Almirzanah is also sponsored by the , the William and Mary Greve Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

Almirzanah was carefully selected to meet the center鈥檚 objectives, says CIE Interim Director , who coordinated the logistics of the year-long application process with former director Ed Martin. CIE administrators sought a scholar of unique qualifications from Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world.

CIE and EMU last hosted in the 2014-5 academic year. Professor Amir Akrami, of Iran, arrived in September 2012, and his wife, Professor Sedigheh (Sheida) Shakouri Rad came the next year. That three-year visiting scholar program was funded by the Henry Luce Foundation of New York City.

Expert in interfaith dialogue

Almirzanah was highly recommended by Professor Emeritus , with whom she had taught a class at her home university in Indonesia, as well as Georgetown University professor , founding director of the in the Walsh School of Foreign Service.

She is teaching comparative mysticisms and world religions courses within the Bible and religion department. In the spring, she will co-teach an Asian history course, and join Professor for a course on women, religion and social change in the .

Additionally, she will have opportunities to speak in local Christian, Jewish and Muslim houses of worship, as well as to local social organizations.

Nussbaum says Almirzanah鈥檚 studies and practice will help expand the definition of interfaith dialogue, beyond the stereotype of 鈥渢heologians sitting in a room discussing scripture or holy text.鈥�

鈥淪he brings a bigger picture, an expansion of the idea of interfaith engagement into something more practical and applied,鈥� Nussbaum says. 鈥淟iving as a person of faith in a community is always applied and Shafa does that well with her studies and her practice. Interfaith engagement is not only dialogue, it is also how you live, how you transform conflict, how you treat people near you, how you treat the environment, and how to learn to live together in different cultures and faiths.鈥�

While EMU has hosted many Fulbright Scholars, especially in 2004-06 when the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding partnered with the Fulbright Conflict Resolution Program to provide peacebuilding training, Almirzanah is the first teaching scholar.

A scholar who prioritizes practice

Almirizanah grew up in Indonesia with a mother and father who held different perspectives about their religion. 鈥淚 was never forced to follow one or the other,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 just grew up knowing there were differences.鈥�

For six years through graduation from high school, she attended a progressive Islamic boarding school with opportunities to interact with people of other faiths. 鈥淚t was very close to a Buddhist temple, and there was also collaboration with a Catholic seminary. We often worked together with them, and people from the seminary would stay at the school, so I had many opportunities to encounter non-Muslims.鈥�

Moving into interfaith work after her university studies was a natural progression. From 1996-2001, she was research coordinator for the (INTERFIDEI) which has provided the opportunity to become a practitioner of dialogue. She remains a board member of the organization.

鈥淭eaching is OK for academic people,鈥� she says, with a smile, 鈥渂ut I really wanted to engage with Catholics, Buddhists, Protestants and people of other faiths who want to build a more pluralistic society. The opportunity to teach courses on religion and conflict resolutions, to be among invited experts, to host a workshop on conflict resolution in a conflict area, and hold trainings on harmonious religion 鈥� this is very important to me.鈥�

She has traveled to 23 countries during her scholarly career to speak about these issues, and has been a visiting scholar at several universities, bring with her years of experience teaching on a variety of subjects: approaches and methodology of the study of religions, introduction to Islam, religious minorities, hermeneutics, Sufism, interfaith dialogue in Indonesia, mysticism/Sufism in comparative perspectives, ethics, women鈥檚 roles, and Christian-Muslim dialogue, among others.

Personal growth through exploration of other faiths

Almirzanah says that religion has become the 鈥渂iggest force in the world for worse or for better,鈥� one reason why people need to seek greater understanding.

鈥淚 want to enrich myself and enrich others, so we are learning and always learning. I pass over from my tradition to other traditions to enrich and be enriched, and after that, I have to come back with a new horizon because of enrichment. So that I can criticize myself and our community. We must have the courage to criticize ourselves. But I like to say that 鈥業f you don鈥檛 know others, you cannot love. If you cannot understand the religion of others, you can鈥檛 understand yourself or your neighbor.鈥�

Almirzanah has authored or co-authored nine books, including (Blue Dome Press, 2011), and edited many others. One of her more recent books, When Mecca Becomes Las Vegas: Religion, Politics, and Ideology (Gramedia, 2014), criticized the expansion of pilgrimage infrastructure in the holy city at the expense of its historical sites, a metaphor for the spiritual desert she views many Muslims living within.

She is also an active social commentator, contributing op-ed pieces to the Jakarta Post.

Fatimah Husein, a philosophy professor at Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, will speak twice at EMU on Monday, Dec. 8.

Her first talk, “The development of interfaith work and study: Indonesian experience,” will take place at noon in the west dining room on ground floor of Northlawn residence hall.

The second address, “Challenges of Interfaith Relationships in Indonesia: case study of Muslim-Christian Relations in Java,” will be held 7:30 p.m. in Strite Conference Room on first floor of the EMU Campus Center.

Dr. Husein earned an MA degree in Islamic philosophy from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and a PhD in inter-religious dialog at Melbourne University. She served as associate director of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), a program jointly sponsored by three partner universities. Currently, she is taking part in a special Fulbright “Interfaith community action program” at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Husein was a colleague of Lawrence M. Yoder, professor of missiology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary while he served as a visiting professor at ICRS last spring.

Both talks are open to the public free of charge. Participants may carry in a packed lunch for the noon presentation or purchase a meal in the adjacent university dining room.

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A new research project that Eastern Mennonite Seminary professor Lawrence M. Yoder is undertaking should provide some answers.

As part of that research, Dr. Yoder, professor of missiology at EMS, will conduct a study of "pastoral habits" in an attempt to identify the factors that make some pastors "excellent."

Yoder and a yet unidentified research partner will seek to learn from 25 pastors who have been identified by their conference ministers and the office of Congregational and Ministerial Leadership of Mennonite Church USA as fruitful and effective leaders. Then, using a model created to identify skills and habits needed for church planting, Yoder will begin a series of in-depth interviews.

"The idea is that you talk to a person and you ask them to describe what they do in all different aspects of their work," said Yoder, "not to give you their theory, but to describe what they do from day to day, from week to week, over the range of their ministry.

"We will approach all the interviews in the same way. We will ask the pastors to tell us what they give their time and energy to," said Yoder. "We will get them to tell stories, so that for each person we end up with what we could call a ‘thick description’ of their ministry."

This information will then be compiled and Yoder and his colleague will use it to develop a profile of excellent Mennonite pastoral leadership.

"Our Mennonite seminaries will then review the information and decide if there are gaps in their programs, consider what happens in seminary education and discern to what degree seminaries form, teach and train people in the skills and habits that have been identified as necessary for excellent pastors," Yoder noted.

Through a cycle of colloquies and other exchanges, professors and pastors will create a feedback loop that strengthens the effectiveness of both groups.

Yoder’s research, part of a $1.6 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. awarded to Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary of Elkhart, Ind., has practical implications for both teaching organizations and individual pastors and other church leaders.

"We owe our congratulations to Lawrence for his leadership in designing a piece of the research," said Eastern Mennonite Seminary Dean Ervin R. Stutzman. "This project will help us unlock the secrets of pastoral excellence for seminaries, students and pastors themselves, and in the process help EMS become even more effective in training church leaders."