The Journey Begins

Let's go on a journey together.

The past few years have been chocked full of some of the most striking examples of Interfaith dialogue in history, both good and bad. This past month, when Muslim extremists killed 12 people over a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, we saw some of the worst. This event only months after a Christian college student in Oklahoma beheaded another student for practicing witchcraft. But the conflict between religious groups is only becoming harder to avoid as we become even more connected. Especially in the United States, religious diversity is increasing, and we are increasingly forced to face this diversity.

So how do we manage the diversity? Do we strive for political correctness to keep everyone pleased, or do we loosen our strict standards and accept that every once in a while, someone will get offended and that's okay? How can we as individuals work in our lives to make an impact on how the world faces these issues?

Do our actions have the power to change the world around us, from the most intimate encounters of classmates or coworkers of different faiths to the conflict between Israel and Palestine?Can the ways we handle this diversity make a difference? Can understanding these issues as well as possible guides us in changing the world?

That’s the journey we’re going on. It is a journey not just here on this blog, but out there in the world, where these things happen all the time. It’s a journey where we can come together here and I’ll share my piece, and we can talk about it, but the real action happens when we leave, hopefully enriched. It’s a journey where we can use the internet tools at our disposal to learn and grow and change the world by working together.

For though interfaith conflict has been so destructive, maybe cooperation can not only replace the violence, but work towards the restoration of the world. Martin Luther King, Jr, as a timely example, built the Civil Rights Movement based on Mahatma Gandhi’s interfaith movement in India, a movement which gathered a variety of different religious groups to break the British yoke together. Both these movements worked with diversity and changed the world in massive ways, living out the peace their faiths called for.

So who am I and why do I care? I’m a college student who wants to become a pastor in the United Methodist Church someday, and have some crazy adventures on the way. I’m studying Religion, and I run and Interfaith Council on my campus. I’ve participated with Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a national interfaith organization dedicated to the slogan “Better Together.” I’ve heard interfaith scholars like Eboo Patel speak, and I’ve personally been featured both on NPR and on Larry King’s new Faith Network (still in production as I write this) for my involvement in our Interfaith Council. In addition to Interfaith Council, I participated in a evangelical Bible study for three years, am still a member of the Secular Student Fellowship after 3 years (the only person of faith there), have been in both a Torah study and a Muslim study of how to recite the Qur’an, and am now starting my own Progressive Christian fellowship. In short, interfaith is my life.

As a Methodist, interfaith is important to me because working together always trumps working against one another. It is important because I do firmly believe that we can change the world. It is important because my faith calls me to see the divine in everyone, and by extension in every faith. It is important because once the religions of the world turn to solving the problems that face us, I don’t think there’s any limit to what we can accomplish when not mired in conflicts with one another!

But who knows… Is the answer to take faith out of the discussion, or to integrate it? Does interfaith even help at all? Maybe there is no solution other than to learn to live with the conflict. I’m the kind of guy who thinks if we all hold hands and sing Kum Baya, everything will be better… but that’s not too realistic. So join me in this conversation, embark on this journey with me and let’s learn a little more about the importance of interfaith dialogue.