Answering the call to "meet resistance with resiliency" as we "build the Beloved Community each day"

After over fifteen years of interfaith participation, I’ve found that the best uses of interfaith dialogue are not comparative-religion discussions or reinforcement of what we have in common as human beings with a spiritual nature. While our similarities as members of the same species are important, placing the emphasis on relying on our spiritual commonalities to validate our connection lacks imagination and doesn’t develop any listening or adaptation skills we need to survive and thrive in an ever-changing world.

If everyone is busy thinking or saying, “Oh, me too!” when hearing people describe their religion, that tends to stunt our ability to really listen to what they are saying or respect their unique perspective and what they have to offer to help broaden our horizons.

The truth behind the idea that “opposites attract” is not that the opposite parties eventually find out what they actually have in common and that’s why they work well together; it’s because each contributes something that the others don’t have, and they build and strengthen their bond through pooling their different perspectives, talents, and energies.

The best and most productive interfaith experiences I’ve had, as I said last week, are those which transcend religion rather than focus on finding the ideological overlaps, or the opposite extreme of disregarding religious differences as irrelevant.

This transcendence of religion takes us a lot closer to true humanism, which breaks us out of the model of over-reliance on God as our unifying force, and also out of the risk of using God as a reason, crutch, excuse, or weapon. That being said, transcending religion or God does not have to mean the invalidation of religion or God; people can strike a middle way between being humanistic and still being God-centered.

One of the most marvelous examples of this middle way is the newest initiative of Michigan’s interfaith community called the “Commitment to be Resilient.” Presented by Interfaith Leadership Council (IFLC) Chairman Bob Bruttell at the January 27th Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues meeting, this initiative represents a collaboration of the IFLC, Michigan Roundtable for Diversity and Inclusion, Jewish Community Relations Council, Michigan Muslim Community Council, Interfaith Center for Racial Justice (ICRJ), and many other faith organizations in the Metro Detroit Area.

The Commitment to be Resilient is both an affirmation and a prayer, and it is the first interfaith prayer statement that I’ve seen that is truly 100% all-inclusive—because it doesn’t actually mention God.

“I believe 
that we are called to lift each other up,
that we are stronger standing together,
that our differences are a blessing,
that empathy and love reveal the path to peace,
and that justice will prevail,
because each of us is Beloved.

Therefore, I commit to
answer intolerance with goodwill,
live by faith and hope, not fear,
seek understanding and friendship whenever I can,
stand with those facing prejudice and injustice,
meet resistance with resiliency as I build the Beloved Community each day.”

Bruttell, who is Christian, said that someone did ask him, “Where is God in this?” His response was, “everywhere!” and in all of it. Coming from a Buddhist perspective, that was music to my ears, because it shows an acknowledgment by God-centered people that what they call “God” is not limited to anyone’s creator-deity personification or creation theology, and truly is everything and everywhere.

To read about the “Commitment to be Resilient” on the IFLC Web site, click here. To sign the Resiliency Commitment online, click here. For a downloadable copy of the Resiliency Commitment that you can print copies of to share with friends, family, co-workers, and fellow members of your faith community, please click here.

Bruttell also made the point that the Commitment to be Resilient is not the intellectual property of any of the participating organizations, nor has it been branded by any of them individually. The point was not to “create another acronym,” as Bruttell put it, and found a new coalition around it. He encouraged everyone to take ownership of it, share it, and live by it to the best of our ability.

I’m blessed to be surrounded every day by people who do already, both inside and outside the interfaith community and my spiritual community; I look forward to us continuing to attract more and more like-minded souls to work together with us to “build the Beloved Community each day.”


(This concludes my five-post series of highlights and insights from the January 27th MPC meeting. To read the other posts, please click here, here, here, and here.)


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Image: "Dove Ascending" by Karla Joy Huber, 2007; Prismacolor marker and Sharpie marker

Some great resources to increase our cultural and interfaith literacy: Upcoming events, newly-published books, and other opportunities for dialogue

In my past three posts I’ve shared with you highlights from the most recent meeting of the Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues (MPC), including about the interfaith community's response to the dark turn our nation's current religious dialogue has taken, insights about finding reliable sources of information in an era where the news media has been branded by some as the "opposition party," and transcending not only religious differences but religion itself to help foster unity in diversity.

The MPC meetings are also an excellent forum for attendees to share about their own or their organizations’ faith- and culture-related work, including newly-launched outreach initiatives, upcoming community-education events, and recently-published books. I’ll share a few of them with you now, including one taking place tomorrow, February 7.

The first event is Luke Schaefer’s presentation regarding topics covered in his and Kathryn J. Edin’s book $2.00 A Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. The presentation, which is part of the 2017 Washtenaw Reads Book Event, takes place tomorrow from 7 pm – 9 pm in the social hall of the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor. (For address and directions, please click here.)

While this book’s focus is secular, the topic of poverty and marginalization in America is becoming more and more relevant to religious discussion, apropos of the current increases in prejudice and resource-restrictions against people of particular religious affiliations. Books and presentations about poverty from secular civic and academic perspectives can be good supplements to interfaith dialogue on the topic, especially if used to aid in brainstorming ways to help bridge the gaps between communities that would be stronger if they formed more alliances among themselves.

One such alliance is between the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Michigan Muslim Community Council. Alan Gale stated that the JRC identified a need to connect more with Middle-Eastern—particularly Muslim—communities, and partnered with the MMCC on the Shared Future initiative to help reduce tensions between the Jewish and Muslim communities by working together to address their “shared concerns.”

MPC facilitator David Crumm also made a great point that, while he is “a big supporter of the separation of church and state, there does need to be some re-connection between our groups.” While he was specifically referencing alliances between faith communities and public broadcasting, I take it to mean also forming faith alliances with civic, educational, and other secular institutions that directly impact the lives of people of all faiths.

The second event discussed at the MPC meeting is Diane Butler Bass’s presentation “Relocating Faith: Finding God in the Horizons of Nature and Neighbor,” on Saturday March 25 from 9 am – 2:30 pm, also at the First United Methodist Church of Ann Arbor. Diana Butler Bass is a Christian minister and scholar of American religion and culture, who is has published books about changes religions undergo—or need to undergo—to adapt positively to the times. Her most recent book, Grounded: Finding God in the World—A Spiritual Revolution, is available on Amazon.com.

Another book introduced at this MPC meeting was Miles Barnett’s God Explained, which Barnett explained is the culmination of his interviews with leaders from thirty different religions. What is noteworthy about this book is that, instead being of a collection of clergy members’ presentations about their religions’ views on God, Barnett asked them for their individual interpretations of God, regardless of how that view accords or doesn’t with their faith traditions. The book is available for purchase on Amazon.com and on BarnesandNoble.com.

Read the Spirit contributor Chris Stepien was also in attendance, and briefly described his book Dying to be Happy: Discovering the Truth about Life, in which he discusses the universal theme of spiritual questions that arise from death. While Stepien writes from a Christian perspective, his book may still include inspiration and thoughtful take-aways for readers of other faiths, since we will all die regardless of how we live our lives or what religious traditions we practice.

Last but not least, a wild card presented at the meeting was Janice Leach’s and James Frederick Leach’s ‘Til Death: Marriage Poems, which takes a colorful departure from the typical “romantic” approach to poetry about the union of husband and wife. Janice Leach generously provided me with a reviewer-copy, so, just in time for Valentine’s Day, I’ll read it and write about it here before February 14. In the meantime, you can look it up on Amazon.com.


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Image: "From Diversity to Pluralism" by Karla Joy Huber, 2004; mixed media

Creating the Beloved Community by transcending not only religious differences, but by transcending religion itself

One of the strong points of southeastern Michigan’s interfaith social-action dialogues is their transcendence of not only religious difference, but of religion itself. A key theme I’ve noticed in our discussions is an emphasis on our shared humanity, rather than on the idea that we are all children of God.

This isn’t to say that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Baha’is, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, and others put religious beliefs or God aside to find some common denominator with people who believe differently. What it says is that, while we do bring our different spiritual perspectives to the discussion, we realize that connecting with people’s human experience beyond the framework of our beliefs is more important to our unification efforts than connecting over God or emphasizing commonalities in our spiritual beliefs.

The religious frames of reference represented at the first 2017 meeting of the Michigan Professional Communicators with interest in religion and cross-cultural issues (MPC) were Catholic and Protestant Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and pagan. The latter in particular struck a chord with me, because it was the first time I know of that a practicing pagan has participated in our circle.

Jane Pierce, a tarot and astrology specialist and member of Pagan Pathways Temple in Madison Heights (who also maintains spiritual ties to her Catholic roots), addressed the subject of paganism’s historical lack of representation in interfaith dialogue. She expressed that she has hesitated to join interfaith initiatives because of potential backlash stemming from people’s misconceptions about paganism.

“It’s hard enough to get the Abrahamic religions to work together,” she pointed out; throw in people who have a concept of the divine that contrasts sharply with the Judeo-Christian father-God—such as seeing creation as the work of Goddess or a collaborative team of deities—and dialogue often stalls.

Pierce made these points without any indication of animosity or resentment, acknowledging them instead only as an unfortunate reality. She made an important first step toward changing this reality by showing up at last Friday’s meeting, and an even bigger step by agreeing to talk with Peggy Dahlberg (president of Women’s Interfaith Solutions for Dialogue and Outreach in Metro-Detroit) about being or nominating a pagan presenter for WISDOM’s next “Five Women, Five Journeys” interfaith panel discussion. I overheard Dahlberg, who is Christian, say that WISDOM has yet to feature a pagan perspective in its community-education programming, so I was very pleased that she took the initiative to invite Pierce to participate and finally get this long-overdue dialogue started.

I wrote a few months ago about turning one of our main sources of division inside out, by acknowledging difference in a good way instead of automatically equating such acknowledgment with prejudice. The point I made in that post against “color-blindness” as a solution to racism can also be applied to seeking to homogenize away religious difference by emphasizing only what we think we spiritually have in common—the “children of God” idea I mentioned earlier. In addition, steering clear of over-emphasis on seeing us all as children of God is especially important when we consider that such emphasis alienates practitioners of religions that don’t envision God the way Abrahamic monotheists do, and those who don’t envision a central deity in their spiritual practice at all.

I think the success of the professional, religious, and social partnerships that have come out of networking with the MPC indicates that this non-incorporated alliance of diverse professionals does in fact see that our differences deepen the pool of resources and value-adding perspectives way more than we would if we treated our religious differences as incidental.

While religious and cultural differences are acknowledged and respected, they are not used to type-cast people of certain groups only into certain roles. For example, a Muslim woman wouldn’t only be referred to work in Islamic community outreach—One such woman was commended by a Jewish colleague to be the coordinator of an inner-city program for at-risk youth, few if any of whom are Muslim.

I’ll share more of the great points made in last Friday’s dialogue in my next post. To read my other posts about it, please click here, here, and here.


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Image: "Welcome of the Trees" by Karla Joy Huber, 2001; colored pencil