In his book “Acts of Faith” Eboo Patel a young Muslim man and creator of the Interfaith youth core relates a story of being involved with the Leaders School at the YMCA. As a part of this he had learned the song “Pass it On.” He sang that song around the house for weeks after. Sometime during those several weeks he overhead his father raise the concern to Eboo’s mother that the YMCA might be trying to teach Eboo Christianity. His mother responded in a beautiful way. She said, “I hope so. I hope they teach the kids Jewish songs and Hindu songs, too. That’s the kind of Muslims we want our kids to be.”
We only have to look around us to realize that we live in a world where interfaith dialogue is important. You can’t turn on the news without hearing about another conflict that is couched in religious terms. In which both sides are manipulating religion to justify some of the most horrific acts that can be imagined. Often times these conflicts are intensified by misunderstandings and sometimes outright lies about the other faith.
Not only this, but we live in a world where telecommunications allows us to instantly talk to someone on the other side of the world. And with the internet and social networking sites it is easy to have contact with those thousands of miles away.
We are not only able to talk to people around the world but do business with them as well. As industry continues to become more global it becomes more likely that we will be working with people that not only have different cultural values with but also religious beliefs.
Even within Christianity there are such a wide variety of faith traditions that dialogue can often be complicated among Christians. If you have ever visited a “Christian” chat room or message board you know how true this is. Often times these “discussions” become nothing but hate filled attacks at one another.
So we live in a time in human history when it is more important issue than it has ever been to be in conversation with those who differ from us. But this is not an easy thing to do because the dominate narrative out there is that conflict between people of different faiths is inevitable. This voice tells us that we must look out for own, we have to circle the wagons, because those other people are out to get us. We are made to believe that “they” whoever they may be are out to destroy the very things that we hold dearest. It’s us vs. them and there will be winners and losers. We are told that we need to come out on the “winning” side.
As Christians I believe that we are to live a different narrative. Our narrative calls us not only to actively be engaged in interfaith dialogue but to stand against that false dynamics that lead to conflict.
We can find the beginnings of this interfaith narrative at the very beginnings of our scriptural journey. In Genesis we find that it explained that Abraham is to be blessed so that his offspring may be a blessing to all other nations. This explanation of for Abraham’s blessing shows up explicitly not once, not twice but three times in Genesis and is implied a number other times. To bless another person means to have to know them, care for them, so that in and of itself makes interfaith dialogue a necessity. It calls us to not only be in conversation, but to be in cooperation to fight the injustices that exist in this world. The call to be a blessing directly leads to being in community with others. It breaks us out of the look out for only your own mentality. It speaks to cooperation instead of conflict. It is a narrative that breaks down fear, anger and hatred, replacing them with understanding, reconciliation, and care for all human kind.
Once we see the importance of collaborating with those of other faith traditions and religious beliefs the question becomes how. What should interfaith dialogue look like. The scripture we read earlier is a good guide. It is one of those scriptures that it is easy to gloss over, because it is a familiar scripture to many of us. But, today I hope we can look at it with new eyes. As Jesus is answering the question about what the greatest commandment is he lays out for us what I think is a really good model for being in interfaith dialogue. Jesus reminds us to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, and all our mind. In other words be grounded in your tradition, our narrative. Be grounded in God. Then love your neighbor as yourself.
Loving ones neighbor means getting to know them, it means knowing their hopes, knowing their dreams, and seeing the image of God that resides within them. It means moving beyond that win/ lose dynamic to a place where we can be in relationship. Jesus sees this grounding in the narrative of our faith and relationship building as so important he says that “On these two things hang all the law and the prophets.” In other words they are at the very core of our faith.
I can attest to the fact that being in true relationship with those of other faiths is truly rewarding. When it is at its best interfaith dialogue it will touch all involved in it. I have often in my life been taught to be a better Christian by those of other faiths and I hope that from our interaction that those people learned something about their own tradition that deepened their walk on their journey in that tradition.
I’m not saying that there are not differences but rather I’m saying that we are not to be afraid of those differences. Rather those differences should be celebrated and understood. Those differences can often help us to see our own faith in a new light.
In 1950 Martin Luther King Jr. was a 20 year old seminary student he heard a sermon on Christian Passivism that spoke about Gandhi as an example of what life lived in Christian Passivism could look like. King was so taken by Gandhi that he later traveled to India to learn about what Gandhi had done. When he got there he discovered that the movement that Gandhi had put together was an interfaith movement. The values that Gandhi had found in his Hinduism, connected with the values that King found in Christianity and that was obvious true about others as well because Gandhi’s movement Seeks, Muslims, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. King was quite taken by this fact so much so that from a pulpit in Montgomery, Alabama he began his prayer this way. “O God, our gracious heavenly father. We call you this name. Some call thee Allah, some call you Elohim. Some call you Jehovah, some call you Brahma." Later when he lead the bus boycott he took the principles that Gandhi had used in India and created an interfaith movement to fight for equality for all Americans.
King could have as easily listened to the dominate narrative that night and walked away saying that because Gandhi was a Hindu he had nothing that could be important. Instead King recognized the interfaith narrative that existed within the Christian tradition. And not despite of his faith but rather because of his Christian faith learned much from Gandhi so that he could better fight the injustices of this world.
If we can see past our differences there is much to be gained. Not only will we learn much about others, but there is a true opportunity to make this world a better place. If we actively engage in interfaith dialogue then maybe rather than fighting each other we could fight malaria and AIDS. Maybe instead of worrying what name we call God, we could worry about those who don’t have clean water to drink. Rather than worrying about who is right, could worry about who is suffering.
I don’t think that this kind of interfaith cooperation is just a dream or an idea. We can engage in it now and work toward a better world. Working together as brothers and sisters. We can share the journey even if we do have different paths. Because in the end just as Eboo Patel’s mother wished for him, I wish for us, that we might became that kind of Christian, the one sing the songs of faiths that are not ours while engaging fully our own faith traditions. May the faith we find in our hearts truly bless others. Amen
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