Today’s anti-Semitism is significantly more complex to analyze when compared to the pure and simple hatred and persecution toward Jews in the past. The killings at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, for example, can be tied back to the anti-immigrant and racially charged rhetoric of the U.S. president. To combat anti-Semitism, individuals must both recognize its historical roots and the various contemporary political, social and religious factors that play a part in its revival.

Humor can be offensive and divisive, especially jokes about sensitive issues, such as race and religion. But research is showing religious humor also can have a big upside, one that can help us move past religious stereotypes that divide communities, nations and regions. If humor works, then a key question becomes: Will we choose to laugh together?

For hundreds of millions of Muslims, Sharia is a way or a path to divine understanding that enables human beings to reach their full potential. So why does so much public conversation about “sharia” or “sharia law” focus on extreme interpretations grounded in intolerance and ignorance? The answers are complex, involving historical, political, cultural, regional and religious factors that need to be understood in context. Yet complexity and reason are often dangerously absent amid the emotion and politics attached to Sharia.

Across the world, billions of worshippers this weekend will be going to mosques, temples, churches and other places of worship hearing messages declaring that the choices they make in this life can affect their eternal destiny. How each of them, and secular individuals, face the great existential question of the meaning of life in the face of mortality can make a major difference in areas from mental health to preventing terrorism and promoting more generous, compassionate societies less likely to experience civil strife, new research shows.

The quiet truth is that the world is in many ways in the midst of an historic period of progress in interfaith dialogue. Yet often what individuals hear about minority religions focuses on the sensational and negative actions of extremists. So what are some of the lessons learned from decades of experience in a movement seeking to promote civility and understanding? Interfaith leaders and scholars share some ways religious understanding and cooperation can be built up or broken down.