Connecting at the Heart

During my first several years of working as the religion teacher I had a difficult time understanding my context. We were a school based on Christian principles not Christian faith. I was constantly asking myself, what did that mean for me as the religion teacher? The school’s religion curriculum used the Bible as a textbook, we celebrated Christmas and Easter and yet there were students from many different religions at the school. I often felt like I was walking on a fence trying to balance the school’s curriculum with the many different faiths that were represented at our school. Attending the school at that time were Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Mormons and Earth traditions. I was not aware of any Muslims at the school even though there were many Muslim families living in the community.

Ten years ago a Muslim family moved to Fort Wayne and they wanted to send their oldest, who was going to go into kindergarten, to Canterbury School because of its strong academic reputation. So as parents they came to see me.  They weren’t asking the question, ‘what good are you going to do for my child?’ they wanted to know if I was going to harm their child. The exact same questions my husband and I had asked seven years earlier.  I understood that this conversation was important.  When the parents came to see me I started the conversation by talking about understanding their fear. I wanted them to know that even though I am Christian and they are Muslim, I too had faced that same fear when we sent our son to Canterbury School. We immediately connected as humans, as parents. We connected as parents who valued and tried to raise our children in the faith and belief system that we followed.  Then I went through the curriculum showing exactly what was taught and how it was taught.  This was my first understanding of the importance of interfaith dialogue to connect with others in what we have in common. We both were parents trying to raise our child in the manner we believed to be important. They did not ask me to change and I did not ask them to change.

This family has become dear friends to my husband and me. They did enroll their son in our school and they participated in my first interfaith group. They have taught me so much. They have helped me see that I do not need to feel like I am walking on a fence. Instead my own faith is deepened while I’m making new friends and learning about other faiths.

Will I Do Harm?

For the past 17 years I have been the religion teacher at Canterbury School. Canterbury School is an independent college preparatory school for preschool through 12^th grade. The school’s philosophy states, “We believe that students should develop a strong and broad base of knowledge, a genuine love for and appreciation of the challenges of learning and an understanding of the implications of Christian principles in their daily lives."  The wording of Christian principles instead of Christian faith is intentional so that students off all faiths will be comfortable attending Canterbury School. The school is fortunate to have many different faiths represented in the student body.

Before I started working at Canterbury School my husband and I decided to send our oldest son to the school. I remember so clearly visiting the school and reading about the various curricula. But the area we as parents paid the most attention to was the religion curriculum. We wanted to know what was being taught, who was teaching it, and how it was being taught. We weren’t interested in meeting the music teacher or the PE teacher but we were interested in meeting the religion teacher. And we weren’t wondering if she was going to do ‘good’ for our child, like we would have wondered about the other teachers. We wanted to know if she was going to do 'harm' to our child.  Our faith was important to us and so it was important to know what our child was learning.  We did meet the religion teacher and we decided she would not be doing any harm to our child and his faith.

The next year I became that religion teacher. Now those parents whose faith was important to them would be asking the same question that I had asked the year before. They would not be wondering what ‘good’ I would be doing for their child. Instead they would be asking me, will I do 'harm' to their child? I understood the importance of the question. That was the beginning of my interfaith journey.

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Search Me, O God

Psalms 139:23 states, “Search me, O God, and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead in the way everlasting.” This past February I heard Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA speak on this verse in regards to interfaith dialogue. He talked about examining our own hearts and our own motives before entering into interfaith dialogue.  Often times we assume the worst of other religions and put the worst of other faiths alongside the best of our own when in fact our own motives are not always pure and the histories of our own religions have aspects in which we are not proud.

When involved in interfaith dialogue, instead of assuming the best of myself, I should assume the worst of myself and the best of others. If I do assume the worst of myself while participating in interfaith dialogue it enables me to be a humble listener. This then allows me to truly hear and to hear for understanding. The two interfaith groups that I have been involved with have helped me understand the importance of assuming the best of others and the worst of myself.  The Haven Interfaith Parent groups have been instrumental in my growth in understanding other faiths and the deepening of my own faith. Search me, O God.

Ground Rules in Interfaith Dialogue

Four years ago I started an Interfaith group of six couples each from a different faith. My hope for the group was to create a safe place where we could say to each other those things we truly believe, those things we hold closely to our hearts. My hope was we would discover a common ground among all of our faiths. And we did. But I also wanted to create a safe place where we could talk about the areas which we do not have in common. It is important to find the common ground but how can we truly know each other and live in peace if we only talk about what we agree upon. It can be difficult and quite scary to say what we truly believe, especially if the beliefs are opposed to each other. Sometimes we just say nothing, thinking we are preserving the peace. And sometimes we say what is believed to be The Truth, in an offensive manner that is harmful to the relationship. I knew creating an environment of safety, where we could discuss those things which we hold close to our hearts, was essential for the interfaith group to become a group who understood each other, cared for each other and would be committed to being at peace with one another. To help us in the process of creating a safe place, we as a group wrote ground rules for our discussions. The purpose of these grounds rules was to know that we had agreed together on a manner in which we were going to communicate with each other, even and maybe especially if we disagreed with one another. Martin Marty, a Lutheran theologian has stated "people these days who are civil often lack strong convictions and people with strong religious convictions often are not very civil. What we need is people with convicted civility." Those ground rules helped us create a safe place where we could be convicted about our beliefs but where we were civil in how they were expressed and in how they were heard. This allowed for friendships to deepen and for understanding to occur.