{"id":6642,"date":"2010-08-11T00:25:38","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T06:25:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=6642"},"modified":"2010-08-08T23:56:09","modified_gmt":"2010-08-09T05:56:09","slug":"interfaith-leader-cites-benefit-of-religious-dialogue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/11\/interfaith-leader-cites-benefit-of-religious-dialogue\/","title":{"rendered":"Interfaith Leader Cites Benefit of Religious Dialogue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Douglas Johnston is president and founder of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.icrd.org\/\">International Center for Religion and Diplomacy<\/a> in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 He is also a US Naval Academy graduate who\u00a0retired as a Captain in the reserves.<\/p>\n<p>Even though he is a Christian, he brings a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sltrib.com\/sltrib\/news\/49996191-78\/johnston-religious-group-leaders.html.csp\">unique perspective to international relations and religion<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Because Islam literally means, &#8220;submission to God,&#8221; Johnston once told a hostile group of 57 Taliban commanders, religious figures and tribal leaders, meeting with him in the mountains of Pakistan, &#8220;we&#8217;re all Muslim.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Johnston undoubtedly has his critics and supporters.\u00a0\u00a0However, he and his organization make one point abundantly clear:\u00a0 religion cannot merely be &#8220;dismissed,&#8221; as some would have it.\u00a0 Sectarian faith is a central to the lives and cultures of billions around the world.\u00a0 The integration of an understanding of faith with government, military, and public operations will benefit nations&#8217; strategic goals.\u00a0 Conversely, ignoring the instrinsic value and importance of faith will hinder national objectives, whether they be diplomatic, military or even humanitarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Douglas Johnston is president and founder of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy in Washington, D.C.\u00a0 He is also a US Naval Academy graduate who\u00a0retired as a Captain in the reserves. Even though he is a Christian, he brings a unique perspective to international relations and religion: Because Islam literally means, &#8220;submission to God,&#8221; Johnston once told a hostile [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[4,855,856,44,124,10,473],"class_list":["post-6642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government-and-religion","tag-churchandstate","tag-douglas-johnston","tag-international-center-for-religion-and-diplomacy","tag-islam","tag-military-academy","tag-religion","tag-usna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}