Interfaith?

     The meeting had been billed as an interfaith gathering of clergies. This was one of the Moral Monday gatherings in Raleigh.  There were Jews present.  I did not see anyone who was identifiable as Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist. But the reality was "We don't do interfaith very well."

     The speakers approached the presentations as if they were sermons in Christian Churches.  Jesus and his words and work on earth were a major focus of most of the talks. A few speakers attempted to reference Old Testament passages, but the major impression as one of the first speakers said, "We are in Church"

     We are a society which is learning how to be multi-cultural. We are a people who need to learn how to be interfaith in our public meetings.  It is a learning process.  Emory University in a graduation ceremony had a benediction pronounced by every major religion.  That is certainly one of the ways the Clergy Day could have been interfaith. There could have been speakers of the major religions invited to  speak. The Rabbis in Raleigh did sign a document support the work of the Moral Monday gatherings. A rabbi speaker would have added a good dimension. An inman from a mosque would have been a nice addition.

     The other way of making a gathering interfaith is to edit the talks so that we are only talking about the blessing of the Holy upon our work. That the work we are doing is seeking to be faithful to the guidance of the One who made creation.  We want to reflect in our laws and our customs the values of the great religions.  There are many ways of talking about faith, about social justice, about ethics that grow out of one's faith without limiting that talk to Jesus.  Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, and others can all be named.

     As I left the meeting a woman walking next to me in the rain said, "You know, for an interfaith service you think they could have had a little more sensitivity to multi-faiths."  As we go forward we need to balance the speakers, so that each faith has a chance to push its faith posture, or we need to restrict our language to the more inclusive descriptions of faith. I once heard a prayer concluded, "for we pray in the name of the Grace that saves us."  That got an Amen from an atheist at the table.