Melanie Young: Building Understanding

When I say that I am in a class about interfaith action people’s initial reaction is usually something like “So what is it that you get from taking this class?” My answer is usually “I’ve gotten a whole lot of understanding”. People’s faces almost immediately frown when they find out that my first response to this question is not that it fulfills some type of major or sector requirement. Then I almost immediately try to explain why this idea of building understanding is so important. My knowledge and understanding of why interfaith dialogue/action is important has really developed over the past 12 weeks of this semester.

In an interfaith action class you don’t learn about the treatments necessary to solve for the world’s biggest illness. You don’t learn how to prepare the business plan for the next biggest commercial venture. And you definitely aren’t considering the mechanics of the next big technological fad. However, you are contemplating those things that form the core of people’s beliefs. You learn about multiple different beliefs that make the world what it is today. You learn about what religions mean for society as a whole and what they mean to individual college students. In a world where injustice, inequality and disputes are so common, it is evermore important that we gain understanding. College is probably one of the best times to do this.

It was exciting to take advantage of the fact that I had been thrown in a melting pot of people of all different cultures, talents and religions. Why not take this time to actually get to know people of different faiths? Why not take the time to actually understand what it is that makes your religious beliefs different from your friends? Why not take the time to understand what their religion means to them?

I don’t think that many people would disagree with the idea that building understanding is a good thing. However if I said that building understanding is a necessary thing I might get an interrogative look from some people.  If I said that building multi-faith understanding is a necessary thing I am almost certain that many people will be hesitant to agree with me.

     

Interfaith dialogue is such an awesome opportunity for people to be bold and not shy away from those awkward conversations. However, because of this it often takes extreme amounts of vulnerability and accepting the fact that you don’t have all the answers. This experience wasn’t about being “right” or “wrong”. It never turned into a huge conversion competition. We were just students trying to make sense of the world by talking about our religious experiences. Now, as I reminisce to the beginning of this semester I remember the fears I had that made me hesitant about interfaith dialogue. I have come to realize that those same exact fears I had at the beginning became the reason why this interfaith experience was so great.

When entering into this interfaith community I had two major fears. First, I feared that I didn’t know my own religion enough and that I would in some way “fail” if I was unable to answer the questions of my peers. Second, I feared that I didn’t know enough about peer’s religion. I didn’t want to ruin this community by asking a “stupid” question or accidentally offending anyone but at the same time I wanted to be truthful with myself and acknowledge those thing that I was ignorant to.

My fear of not knowing my beliefs well enough just turned into a meaningful experience where I really began to learn more about the God I call Savior. It was almost as if God was giving me another reason to get to know him better by entering this friendly arena of diverse beliefs. I had begun to ask question about things that I never pondered before. I began to search for answers that I had never pursued. I had to put my faith under the scrutiny of a world with so many other gods. Along side this very academic interfaith experience, I also had a spiritual experience and it was really fulfilling to partake in the juxtaposition of these events.

This class provided the best environment for confronting my fear of not knowing other people’s religions well enough to enter into a discussion with them about their beliefs. This class served the purpose of both learning about my own religion but also my peers’ religions. This experience provided a much better knowledge of what my peer’s religions are than any textbook could do. This type of learning was up close and personal.  I began to really gain a true understanding of other religions whereas before I only had a vague idea of what I thought they were about. Furthermore, those “stupid” questions didn’t seem so stupid when I had begun to build relationships and had grown comfortable with the students in the class. They became my friends. We were able to relate with one another on many different topics. It was interesting to see that although we are all from different backgrounds, we all really struggle with concepts surrounding religion. For example, establishing what is the best way to interpret our religious text and establishing our faith different from our parents were both topics that many different students could relate to. I grew from not only the things that made us different but also the things that made us similar.

This class called to my attention the fact that we live in a multi-faith society and all religions have vital differences that we should learn about. Moreover, I realized that we should respect the religious beliefs of other and acknowledge that other’s religious beliefs are often sincere and of good intent. The best way to show this respect is by building relationships with people and learning about their personal story. Furthermore, this relationship building helps break down false stereotypes and bias often given to a particular religious group. I am convinced that building intentional interfaith communities and activities serves the purpose of promoting these ideals, which can be easily summed up as an effort to promote personal and practical religious understanding.