Religious Tolerance and Education

Religious Tolerance is very much in the news at the moment, particularly following Tony Blair's recently well publicized comments on the subject, including his statement that "The promotion of religious tolerance, both within and between countries will be key to fostering peaceful outcomes around the world in the 21st century."
Of course comments like this inevitably fuel quite a bit of vitriol around Blair's own actions as Prime Minister, along with equally vitriolic comments calling to abolish the so called fairy tales and myths that we call religion. But such comments are really unhelpful. The past is past. Yes we must learn from it but we cannot alter it. And like it or not, the vast majority of the world's population hold a faith which is dear to them, and they are by no means all fundamentalists or ill educated.
Also, the world's great faiths have very much more in common than they have differences. 

It is certainly true that inequalities, and injustices, often revolving around poverty and hunger and health issues fuel political angst which all too readily becomes tainted with religion, and we certainly have to work towards eliminating global injustices, a huge issue in its own right.

Blair is right when he says we must encourage education and religious tolerance if we are to bring about peace in the Middle East and the rest of the world. I believe that education is key to securing a peaceful future for us all. With education comes opportunity for the world's marginalized, and this in its turn helps tackle injustices and inequalities. Reliable data is hard to find, but a massive proportion of the world’s children, by any standards, receive little or no education at all.
If we include within that education a knowledge of the world's different religions then we promote understanding of those different religions and around that understanding can be built not only religious tolerance but more importantly respect for other people's views. We should all have respect for others' views, even if we cannot agree with them.
In this brief interlude from my recent blogs about our pilgrimage to the Holy Land I thought I would mention a few other important interfaith initiatives in addition to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which is doing its own good work to further its aim "to promote greater knowledge and understanding between people of different faiths. This is not a call to faith – it is a call to respect those of all faiths and not to allow faith to divide us but instead to embody the true values of compassion and humanity common to all faiths". 

Another initiative is the Cambridge Interfaith Programme - in the word's of its Director, Professor David F Ford: "Few things are likely to be more important for the 21st century than wise faith among the world’s religious communities. That calls for fuller understanding, better education, and a commitment to the flourishing of our whole planet." Out of the Cambridge Interfaith Initiative has grown the idea of Scriptural Reasoning.
Then there is Eboo Patel's IFYC...

And more recently there has been the Common Word Initiative.
I have written about all these and more from time to time in my blogs and elsewhere.

But I also believe that spiritual literacy is essential for the future; that all young people need to be educated in the ways of spirit and respect and love, because this will be the world’s healing force. 

The former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and later Chancellor of Costa Rica’s Peace University, Robert Muller, wrote in the 1980s of the need for a global education that “must transcend material, scientific and intellectual achievements and reach deliberately into the moral and spiritual spheres.” After extending the power of our hands with incredible machines, our eyes with telescopes and microscopes, our ears with cell phones, radio and sonar, our brains with computers and automation, he wrote, we must now also extend our hearts, our feelings, our love, and our soul “to the entire human family, to the planet, to the stars, to the universe, to eternity and to God.”

If a mosquito can work interfaith, then so can we

I think it's an old African proverb that goes something along the lines that if you think you're too small to make a difference, try spending the night with a mosquito! And then again it was E F Schumacher who helped to get us used to the idea that "small is beautiful" in his wonderful book of the same name, subtitled "A Study of Economics as if People Mattered."
But that's not what really led me to post this blog. It's all about the association of ideas. And it's all about mosquitoes!
My New Year resolution is to stop accumulating "stuff," and in particular the ever increasing piles of paper that seem to grow inexorably while I'm not looking!
And to start that process off, I've spent today plowing through those piles, chucking away loads, and reading the rest!!
And that was when I came across a report on an interfaith initiative in Sierra Leone to combat the serious problem of childhood malaria there - a massive killer, responsible for 29% of all deaths among children under 5 in that country. It was the mosquito headline that caught my eye so I read further into the article.
And what then caught my eye was the comment by Peter Salifu of the Nigerian Inter-faith Action Association (NIFAA), speaking to a crowd of more than 100 Muslim and Christian faith leaders in Sierra Leone, as he tried to build on the success of work going on in Nigeria for interfaith health messaging on Malaria.
Faith leaders can play a vital role in health messaging, because they "have the trust, the community links, the platform, and the recognition" to spread vital preventative healthcare messages to their congregations.
"The same mosquito," Peter Salifu said, "can go to the mosque on Friday and church on Sunday. If a mosquito can work interfaith, then so can we."
You can read much more about this Sierra Leone initiative at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation. OK, perhaps you don't like his politics - not everyone will - but please read with an open mind what the Tony Blair Foundation are achieving in countries such as Sierra Leone through the Faiths Act project and see for yourselves why religions have a vital part to play in our world today.

World Interfaith Harmony Week

It doesn't seem possible that a whole year has gone by but here we are again in the first week in February which every year is World Interfaith Harmony Week. This is based on the pioneering work of the Common Word Initiative, which all began in 2007 and which
I wrote about at some length on 3rd and 5th December last year.
Relationships between the Muslim and Christian worlds are undoubtedly of the greatest importance in forging a more peaceable future for us all, given the sheer numbers involved, and the grievances, differences, prejudices, and caricatures forged out of misunderstandings, that both religions can claim. 
That is why this initiative is so important. We must all hope that the momentum of A Common Word is maintained and that the movement continues to fulfil its promise of ever more understanding and respect between these two great religions. 
So let's all recognise and support World Interfaith Harmony Week and A Common Word. 
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation  is celebrating the week by " showcasing personal stories of interfaith encounter – of people from diverse faiths living and working together, and learning from one another...These stories of "My Friend of a Different Faith" can come from anyone & anywhere in the world. We want to provide the world with powerful real-life snapshots of what religion, faith and belief systems really look like - behind the headlines."
Now that's a great idea - let's all put our thinking caps on and contribute using the link to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation site.  It doesn't matter where we are in the world, I'm sure we all have stories to share.