good neighbor
RELIGIOUSLY MOTIVATED hate crimes are on the rise in the U.S. Anti-Muslim marches are held around the country. Synagogues receive bomb threats.
And yet interreligious collaboration is also on the rise. With the Jubilee Assembly, faith-motivated investors are pooling their tithes, zakah, and offerings for a higher purpose. The coalition takes its name from the ancient concept of “jubilee”—a regular season of mandated communal economic redistribution, justice, and equity in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Joshua Brockwell, a member of the Jubilee Assembly organizing team, works at Azzad Asset Management, a Muslim-led investment company. “By collaborating and putting our money where our morals are,” wrote Brockwell, “the Jubilee Assembly provides an opportunity to live out our common values and make an impact in our communities."
The modern era is marked by a tendency to worship such fences, such rules, institutions, doctrines and traditions, simply because they already exist. And oftentimes, the very things we are preserving are products of those with privilege and power—so in sustaining, or even not actively challenging, such systems, we’re actually contributing to the holding-back of those with less of a voice.
Rev. Steve Stone was just trying to be a good neighbor.
Two years ago, the pastor of Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tennessee, on the outskirts of Memphis, learned that a local mosque had bought property right across the street from the church. So he decided some Southern hospitality was in order.
A few days later, a sign appeared in front of the church. "Heartsong Church welcomes Memphis Islamic Center to the neighborhood," it read.
That small act of kindness was the start of an unlikely friendship between the two congregations, one that made headlines around the world. Members of the mosque and church have shared meals together, worked at a homeless shelter, and become friends over the past two years. When Stone learned that his Muslim friends needed a place to pray for Ramadan because their building wasn't ready, he opened up the doors of the church and let them hold Ramadan prayers there.