Coexist House and interfaith tolerance

Not long ago in this blog I wrote about religious tolerance and the importance of education; how respect of different faiths comes from understanding them. For that we need more faith education.

Now I'm fascinated by a venture I read about last weekend in The Times (Michael Binyon: In our global era it is just not viable to "not do God." February 15th p. 85)

parish church Lyme Regis

Basically there is a move afoot to found a centre in London, with international outreach, for the enhancement of the public understanding of religions - from whence interfaith tolerance and respect will come. Of course there are all sorts of hurdles to get over before such a project will become reality, not least of which are the issues of funding, and staffing, and a feasibility study is needed before this will get off the ground. But the idea is supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Inner Temple, and the Coexist Foundation, for a start, as well as Professor David Ford, director of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, (also mentioned in previous blogs), which has been developing this idea over several years. The centre would be called Coexist House, and the intention is for it to hold lectures, conferences and exhibitions, and act as a resource for all information relating to all faiths. What a wonderful project if this can get off the ground. How necessary this is in our multicultural and multi faith societies where respect for each others' beliefs so often seems so dangerously lacking. Michael Binyon tells us that the scheme has "the cautious support of the Bishop of London … and would seek to work with the new Chief Rabbi, senior muslim scholars, leaders of a range of traditions, and politicians."
Bring it on!

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.

Interfaith Initiatives - Interfaith Weeks - and 9/11

We all know where we were, what we were doing, on 9/11.

Curiously, another 9/11, in another century, marked the beginning of inter-religious dialogue, as we now understand it. On that day in Chicago in 1893 the World Parliament of Religions was founded. “From now on,” declared Charles Bonney, “the great religions of the world will no longer declare war on each other, but on the giant ills that afflict [humankind].”A further conference was convened in 1993 on the centenary of the first, and a series of similar conferences have subsequently come together under the new title ‘Parliament of the World’s Religions’.

There is a faith line described by the American Indian Muslim Eboo Patel that is no less divisive and no less violent than the 20th century color line of racial segregation that existed after the abolition of slavery (1)The faith line does not divide different faiths, or separate the religious from the secular. This line is divisive between the values of religious totalitarians, the exclusivists, and the values of the religious pluralists. (Pluralism is not quite the same as inclusivism, which from a Christian perspective takes the view that Christianity is present in all religions, and they are all moving towards Christianity without knowing it. This is an angle not much more conducive to tolerance than exclusivism or totalitarianism!) The totalitarians believe that their way is the only way and are prepared to convert, condemn or indeed kill those who are different, in the name of God. It is this side of the faith line that gives religions a bad press in the eyes of the secular public. The pluralists on the other hand hold that “people believing in different creeds and belonging to different communities need to learn to live together in equal dignity and mutual loyalty.” Patel describes pluralism as the belief “that the common good is best served when each community has a chance to make its own unique contribution.”Patel founded the Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) and this serves to promote and support many initiatives between religions, to foster understanding and therefore respect for the long-term. IFYC has trained thousands of people across continents (Australia, India, Qatar, and across Western Europe for example as well as across America) for the skills needed to transform religious diversity or religious tension into active interfaith cooperation. One way it achieves this is by training college students as leaders to engage with and address topical social issues in an interfaith way, within the college, schools and in the community, wherever there is an identified social need.

We need to build more tolerance between us all, to live and let live, but much more than that, to celebrate and build on our diversities, rather than quarrel about them; because the stakes are now too high, given the deadly weaponry that is available across the world in the hands of those from so many different cultures and creeds. “We have inherited a big house,” said Martin Luther King in his Nobel Peace Prize Lecture in 1964, “a great world house in which we have to live together – black and white, Easterners and Westerners, Gentiles and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Moslem and Hindu, a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interests who, because we can never again live without each other, must learn, somehow, in this one big world, to live with each other.”

This week is interfaith week in / England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Actually this year it is longer than a week, as it runs from 18th - 27th November this year, extended to celebrate our Diamond Jubilee year. There is also a World Interfaith Harmony Week. This was first proposed at the UN General Assembly on September 23, 2010 by H.M. King Abdullah II of Jordan. Just under a month later, on October 20, 2010, it was unanimously adopted by the UN and henceforth the first week of February will be observed as a World Interfaith Harmony Week each year. The World Interfaith Harmony Week is based on the pioneering work of The Common Word initiative. This initiative, which started in 2007, called for Muslim and Christian leaders to engage in a dialogue based on two common fundamental religious Commandments; Love of God, and Love of the Neighbor, without nevertheless compromising any of their own religious tenets. The Two commandments are at the heart of the three Monotheistic religions and therefore provide the most solid theological ground possible. I have written about this in more detail in a previous blog.

So let's observe our interfaith weeks and do all we can to promote their causes. Because therein lies the future of us all.

(1) Warning over 100 years ago by the great African-American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois

 (2) Eboo Patel (2007) Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation, Beacon Press, Boston

Expanded and explored further in Why Religions Work

Spirit in Nature Interfaith Paths

At the end of a rutted dirt road near the small town of Ripton in Addison County, Vermont, on the western slopes of the Green Mountains, a labyrinth of footpaths weaves between the trees and alongside the streams within peaceful and unspoiled woodland. Each path is dedicated to one of the world's religions or spiritualities, and has texts along the way to help the walker connect between the sacred and the natural world. The mission of these Spirit in Nature Interfaith Paths is to provide 'a place of interconnecting paths where people of diverse spiritual traditions may walk, worship, meet, meditate, and promote education and action toward better stewardship of this sacred earth.' There is a sacred circle where the paths all meet, emphasizing the interconnections between the different religions, and between man and his environment.

I think that is such a lovely idea. It is such a lovely metaphor for the common ground that can be found in all the great religions and philosophies - and perhaps even the same Truth that we all seek? There are other similar pathways at a few other sites in the USA but it's a wonderful idea that could be copied across the world.

I found the details of this project amongst many other interfaith initiatives on the website of The Forum on Religion and Ecology at Yale, a brilliant place for browsing for environmental stories linked with faith. The Forum is one of the largest international multireligious projects of its kind and serves to broaden the understanding of the many complex issues involved in today's environmental concerns within a religious and multidisciplinary context that Yale can most effectively provide.

The photos by the way are of the very lovely Dartington Hall gardens near Totnes in Devon