From The Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue

Written by: Divya Bhatia, Shreya Bhatia, Maria Saraf

In her landmark book, Encountering God, Diana Eck discusses the increasing religious diversity in the world. She notes that “today people of all faiths are more or less aware of one another, and those who articulate the meaning of faith for today must do so in the complicated context of religious plurality.” Taking this reality of religious pluralism one step further, and proactively engaging with such diversity, is the idea behind Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program, established in Sharon, Massachusetts. The program, nicknamed “the YLP” by its high school participants, gives teens the opportunity to learn more about the religious “other,” thereby reflecting upon and developing their understanding of their own beliefs on faith. The YLP gives teens an environment in which they can connect with other teens of different faiths.

Throughout the year, we participate in multiple facilitation and project management trainings to develop the leadership and communication skills we use to plan and run our youth-driven conferences and community events. By using the skills learned in the trainings, we create community programs through which the town embraces cultural and religious differences. As a goal to achieve a more pluralistic society, teens are in the driver’s seat to create the projects themselves, from start to finish. Watching a project fall into place, we enhance our leadership experiences and gain an enormous sense of confidence. The heart of the events we plan revolve around the importance of good communication skills that allow us to increase cooperation among diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups in our community. As leaders, we facilitate understanding among diverse people and encourage people to learn about each other and, by finding similarities and respectfully learning about differences, share ideas that benefit the community as a whole.

One of the main challenges to pluralism is the idea that we should work to understand those with beliefs different from our own. Although there is no simple answer, one way to think of it is that by being a part of the wider interfaith movement, we are not merely representing our own religious traditions, but strengthening our understandings of our own faiths by learning about other religious traditions.

Our meetings take place in various houses of worship in order to ensure that we become familiar with the traditions of others. From our own experiences, the best way to achieve a pluralistic society, one in which people actively engage in religious diversity, is to embrace diversity in our everyday lives. And we do that by attending one another’s events so we can walk away from them with new insights about ourselves, other people, and the world. For example, every spring, during the Hindu festival of Holi, YLP teens play a classic game of Holi by throwing powders of bright, exotic colors and water on each other, creating a vast array of colored shirts (that just minutes before playing were white). By participating in this festival and learning about Devika, whose story provides the foundation for the festival of Holi, we learn about Hinduism by experiencing it first-hand. Furthermore, during Ramadan, we hold an Iftar dinner to break the fast at sunset after a whole day of fasting. Many YLP teens also fasted for the whole day, experiencing directly what it is like for the millions of Muslims who fast during the holy month of Ramadan every year. After a full day without food or water, putting the flavorful biryani and delicious fresh fruit chaat in our mouths, we learned about the hardships faced by many in our world and the luxuries we take for granted. Taking part in these religious experiences, we create diverse groups and have everyday exposure to the religious “other,” realizing the shared values and ethics of various faiths around the world.

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Being part of Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program is not just about learning and experiencing each other’s religion; it is about forging strong bonds of friendship that will last a lifetime. Because of our contact with people of many cultures, we are more accepting, not only as an interfaith community, but as individuals. We ask more questions out of genuine interest. And by asking the right questions, we overcome the problem of ignorance.

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From The Journal of Inter-religious Dialogue

Nivy is a Hindu. She loves Aussie rules football. And her goal is helping others.  When she was growing up in the Middle East, Nivy experienced firsthand how religious identity shaped the way people related to one another.

Recovering in hospital after a serious accident, Nivy’s background as an Indian Hindu all of a sudden became an issue, and had she not also been an Australian citizen it is likely her treatment would have been jeopardized. Now, years on, this experience of prejudice remains with her as a vivid memory. Nivy is a young person in an era of inter-religious conflict, and in understanding just what is at stake she is working to build global interfaith cooperation. She is part of a movement of religiously motivated young people who (although their individual stories are unique) share a common vision.

Nivy is just one of the young leaders helping to build InterAction, a multifaith youth network based here in Australia. InterAction has a mission of fostering mutually enriching relationships and respect for identity by engaging young people in common action for the common good. We are inspired youth from diverse cultural, spiritual & religious backgrounds, working together side-by-side to build a better world. Through collaborative service projects, InterAction links like-minded groups and individuals to make positive contributions to their local communities and humanity as a whole. By doing so, we aim to replace conflict and competition with cultures of co-operation and peace.

We subscribe to the model of action-focused interfaith engagement. Not everyone can be an expert in theology, but each person already is the expert of their own experience. In building inter-religious harmony, the doorway to dialogue is action.  By collaborating on service projects which tackle issues of common concern, we can truly come to recognize one another as allies and friends.  In this way, not only can people of different faiths share the one table, we can each enjoy our different dishes and come away feeling mutually nourished and enriched by the experience.

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From the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue,

Learn what some of today’s most exciting visionaries, thinkers, advocates, and activists are doing in the field of religion. Watch exclusive interViews, and read responses from the next generation of graduate students, seminarians, and civic leaders.

Click here to read what the panelists had to say in response to Rabbi Baird’s comments.

By Logan Edwards

Proudly Protestant and Evangelical, southerners consider themselves the religious backbone of America. Yet, in historical moments when the nation’s attention was centered on the South, few recognized Christian morality in the actions of many. How could a Citizen Council member burn a cross on Saturday and serve as a deacon on Sunday? This question found resonance in particular with southern blacks, whose churches were instrumental in challenging social injustice. This paper looks at the different understandings, not of the radicals, but of the majority of black and white southerners, about the role of religion in society and how this impacted the way they reacted to the civil rights movement. By looking at these groups from an inter-religious perspective, one is able to see how different they truly are and begin to build bridges and heal old wounds.

Click here to read the article from the Journal of Inter-Religious Dialogue