building bridges
FOR MANY INVOLVED in interfaith engagement, the goal is to seek common ground and values. The assumption is that differences are the source of conflict and peace is predicated on seeing each other as having more in common than different. This is a framing I hear again and again. It is certainly a necessary first step for communities that have narrow ranges of engagement with one another. For instance, it is powerful to watch students in my interfaith classes at Christian seminaries recognize how Islam and Christianity share a reverence for Christ.
But there are reasons we need to move beyond this mere appreciation of commonalities between religious traditions as the foundation for interreligious engagement.
Episodic empathy. Students and community leaders often develop a profound empathy when they engage with another tradition. However, if we don’t teach tools for navigating difference between communities, the empathy can become narrowly tied to the limited episodes of encounter, which are often facilitated by third parties. Does this empathy move from an affect of appreciation in that moment into an operationalized form of engagement across difference? When a crisis occurs and there is a rise in hatred, does the mere “common ground” approach promote behavior of deep allyship for when a community is targeted for hate and violence?
Van Jones could easily have been the Luke Skywalker of the resistance. His CNN comments on the night of the 2016 election, characterizing Trump’s victory as a “whitelash,” went viral. And he wasn’t exactly an unknown before that.
For many years he’s been one of the most highly respected progressive activists in the country, building institutions and leading campaigns around racial equity, criminal justice reform, and a Green New Deal (yes, he was on it before Ocasio-Cortez).
A Quaker community in North Carolina reaches out to its Muslim neighbors.
Do yourself a favor and watch this. It's 7:15 minutes long but well worth your time.
Such a substantive leadership lesson in itself by Bill Hybels as he explains why Howard Schultz withdrew his commitment as a speaker at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit (held on August 11-12). And furthermore, how he and Willow Creek are responding
More Than Equals, co-authored by Chris Rice and the late Spencer Perkins, is considered one of the pivotal books in the Christian racial reconciliation movement that found its greatest momentum in the early and mid-1990s.