Staying Clear About Interfaith Commitment
December 29th, 2007
From Paul Chaffee: From hamlet to megalopolis, interfaith activities are emerging spontaneously across the American landscape, a gift and blessing for us all. As we begin to institutionalize and build local-global connections in the next few years, we will be tempted to let our commitment to multireligious relationships morph into commitment to ‘our’ organization. Then we compete rather than collaborate, and the cause becomes splintered and conflicted.
If interreligion is to help transform a culture of violence into a culture of peace, we must learn to be interconnected and mutually supportive. If the cause we share—developing healthy, vital relationships among people from all religious, racial, and cultural backgrounds—becomes less important than organizational loyalties, everything is compromised. We find ourselves back in the land of winners and losers, betraying our commitment to inclusivity.
In short, we need each other.
The interreligious community needs everyone willing to reach out in friendship to the stranger to be part of the larger circle. Sure, we can’t go to every meeting. There is no need to join every group. But we can appreciate, benefit from, and be supportive of each other’s gifts and successes. Similarly, our organizations can promote and encourage each other’s activities and resources.
In the late nineties, a number of people active in both URI and the Parliament of the World’s Religions saw how these two young international interfaith organizations could end up competitors. So they created The Bridge Cooperation Circle to promote URI-Parliament interaction and mutual support. Many wonderful results came from that first collaborative step, including the invitation at the Barcelona Parliament in 2004 for URI to design a day of group dialogue for all attendees. Instead of competitors, the Parliament and URI became partners.
Whenever we work with each other, interfaith bridge-building is advanced. The task is too large, the challenge of peacemaking too daunting, to rely on any single group or network. We need the synergies that come from sharing.
So I hope you attend the NAIN 20th anniversary gathering in San Francisco, next July, and that you consider attending URI’s next Global Assembly in India in November of 2008, as well as the Melbourne Parliament in late 2009.
Grassroots multi-religious relationship is about inclusivity, respect, and engagement. May our communities and organizations extend the same values to each other as we seek a transformed world.
Paul Chaffee, Executive Director of the San Francisco Bay Area’s Interfaith Center at the Presidio