Interreligious Resilience as a Model for Interreligious Leadership and Engagement

Resilience is often defined as the capacity to cope with disruption or endure change and return to a previous equilibrium or status quo. We believe that there is a deeper, more complex resilience that is characterized by an ability to learn, grow, and lead through vulnerability, disturbances, disruptions, and uncertainty. This more complex form of resilience when applied to interreligious work is what we term interreligious resilience, which can be cultivated and applied through a set of practices that we refer to as VITA—Vulnerability, Intentionality, Trust, and Awareness—key elements to developing deeper and more effective interreligious leadership. In this session, we introduce this framework and ways that participants may apply it in their work within and beyond religious communities.