Q. How do you see interfaith work developing in local areas in the present anxious climate?

R: This is a very general question but we can offer some thoughts in the hope they may be helpful to both the enquirer and others. They are just a beginning, just a taster, as there are so many ‘local’ contexts and maybe all times have been anxious, just anxious for different reasons.

If you have any specific and insightful stories to share about your local interfaith context and challenges, do send them to us and, where appropriate, we will add them to the site for the benefit of others who might learn from what you have learnt and what you are doing.

Firstly, for now, as anyone engaged in local interfaith work will already know, it takes a lot of time, patience, commitment and trust-building to really include and engage locally with members of different faith communities – and increasingly with relevant secular authorities too - in order to create a sustainable and vibrant local interfaith group – and that’s in the good times, let alone times when wider anxieties increase the difficulties. Quite often a faith community will not see interfaith as a priority. If someone is interested s/he may be encouraged to get involved in it but the feedback s/he brings does not necessarily draw in others. There is the problem too of holding a meeting or event that might attract members of a particular community if they are particularly featured but their absence might be very noticeable on other occasions!

With a specific local target in mind and thanks to many volunteers the International Interfaith Centre published a Directory of Faiths in Oxford. This was launched at Oxford Town Hall in December 2003, part of a broader interfaith event celebrating IIC’s 10th anniversary. The Directory is now available online interfaith-centre.org/projects/directory/directory.php and hopefully will now be updated and improved by blossoming local interfaith initiatives, of which the questioner is a leading light. These include an Oxford Council of Faiths, involving the Oxford City Council, which will be launched later this month. Such a Directory not only makes local faith communities more aware of each other and how to relate to others but can also be a useful resource for other local agencies. In times of trouble it could be used to contact one another for support and solidarity.

When working with the International Interfaith Centre in Oxford we found some of our international programmes, taking place in the city, encouraged local people to get involved themselves at a local level. This was also evident in Northern Ireland where, working with other partners, we organised the first ever international interfaith conference in Belfast with one of the objectives being to include existing local interfaith organisations and also help stimulate further local and national interfaith activity.

Sometimes too, an example seen at an international event can inspire local participants to try and repeat such possibilities in their own context. For instance, attending an event where an Israeli and a Palestinian, standing together, begin the event with prayers, shows possibilities that the media rarely includes in its coverage of international affairs, a possibility that might help others believe such caring and cooperation can be developed on home ground, however difficult it might be.

One example of something similar was sent in response to this question by Andrew Stallybrass of the Plate-forme Interreligieuse Geneva. The film The Imam and the Pastor was recently shown in Switzerland and made a big impact. This is how Initiatives of Change describe the film (See www.iofc.org/en/resources/imampastor/ )

'At a time when many in the world are wondering whether friendly relations are possible between those of Muslim and Christian background, the Nigerian protagonists of this film emphatically assert that they are.

In recent years, Nigeria has been rocked by ethnic and religious conflicts, with tens of thousands killed and whole communities devastated.

In the 1990s, Pastor James Wuye and Imam Muhammad Ashafa led opposing, armed militias, dedicated to defending their respective communities as violence broke out in Kaduna, northern Nigeria. In pitched battles, Pastor James lost his hand and Imam Ashafa’s spiritual mentor and two close relatives were killed.

Now the two men are co-directors of the Muslim-Christian Interfaith Mediation Centre in their city, leading task-forces to resolve conflicts across Nigeria.

The Imam and the Pastortells how they made this remarkable transition. It is both a moving story of forgiveness and a case-study of a successful grass-roots initiative to rebuild communities torn apart by conflict.

Pulsating with the vibrant colours and music of West Africa, the film offers a message of hope for the world from an unexpected quarter.’

Andrew writes: ‘The imam and the pastor: two war-leaders converted to forgiveness’, was the headline over an article in the ‘Tribune de Genčve’ and ‘24Heures’, the two largest circulation papers in French-speaking Switzerland. It ran over a major story with photographs that brought many to the premier last week, at the University of Geneva, of the international premier of the French version of the film ‘The Imam and the Pastor’.

The two Nigerians, Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye, came specially, along with Alan Channer and Imad Karam of FlTfilms, the makers of the film……. Again and again, they stressed the non-religious factors behind the conflicts in their country: poverty, the colonial heritage, bad governance, corruption. All too often, politicians stirred up feelings related to identity to strengthen their own positions. The situation in their country was volatile, but they noted that whereas in the past, there had been riots with thousands killed, in 2006, when there was anger among Muslims about the caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed in Denmark, there were no deaths, thanks to the building up of links of trust and friendship between the different communities.

Angelo Barampama, a Swiss originally from Burundi, now teaching in the department of geography at Geneva University, welcomed some 200 guests to the ‘human rights’ auditorium for the film and an animated discussion that continued long after the showing. ‘This hall is a symbol and a challenge for us all,’ Barampama said. He concluded with his 13-year-old son’s message to the two Nigerians: ‘tell them that I admire them.’ … The moderator of the evening, Michel Kocher, the head of the Protestant Service of the Radio Suisse Romande, in his final remarks, noted the two Nigerian’s art of ‘being truthful without being hurtful’. He concluded that peaceful coexistence, where the dignity of the other was accepted as an absolute, was perhaps just as important as dialogue.

The premier was organized by Initiatives of Change International and Caux-IofC, with the support of the Nigerian diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva, the Faculty of Theology and the Department of Geography of the University, as well as the Geneva International Peace Research Institute, the Geneva Inter-Faith Platform, the Muslim ‘Entre-Connaissance Foundation’, and the Lausanne centre for inter-faith dialogue, ‘L’Arzillier’. The Muslim foundation, which promotes dialogue and understanding, helped to finance the French version of the film.

Two press agencies sent out enthusiastic stories, and the group was interviewed three times on the radio. The evening following the Geneva premier, they were in Lausanne, for another showing and discussion, this time in ‘L’Arzillier’ the ‘house of dialogue’, a centre for inter-faith encounter in the capital of the Canton in which the Caux conference centre lies. The group was also received at the United Nations and at the Geneva Mosque, and met the ambassador in Geneva of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). At the World Council of Churches, they showed their film and met and discussed with 24 of the staff. In individual encounters with journalists, in public meetings and over meals, they tirelessly shared their convictions and experiences to fascinated and attentive listeners – and challenged their audiences to personal responsibility.'

Find out more about Plate-forme Interreligieuse in Geneva at www.interreligieux.ch

Personal Responsibility / Example: Perhaps always and everywhere the most effective and sustainable contribution we can make to any interfaith arena is personal change, personal growth, personal example. Change ourselves and we can help transform many situations. Try to change others first and our efforts may not be built on firm foundations.

Mary Fisher from Gobind Sadan in India gives us one example of how a transformed human can generate and inspire others:

‘In India, politicized clashes between people of different religions have been going on for quite some time, but many people are meeting across faith boundaries nonetheless. There are numerous interfaith initiatives afoot, and at Gobind Sadan, a farm and devotional community on the outskirts of New Delhi, people of all faiths and castes are setting a living example of interfaith harmony. As inspired by their revered late teacher, Baba Virsa Singh, Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Christians, and Jews have for decades been living, working, and worshipping side by side there. The holy days of all prophets and avatars are celebrated with great enthusiasm, and devotions in Gobind Sadan’s temples, gurdwara, sacred fire places, mosque, ‘Jesus’ Place,’ ‘Sh’ma Place,’ and Buddha/Mahavir meditation pavilion continue around the clock year after year.

Babaji always taught his disciples to live together as brothers and sisters, with this understanding: ‘All prophets have come from the same place. There is One God, and they have all brought His message.’ People of all faiths come to Gobind Sadan—which means ‘The House of God without walls’—for spiritual inspiration and healing. They are encouraged to grow closer to God through their own tradition and at the same time, appreciate other paths to the same God. In such an atmosphere, the spirit of interfaith appreciation develops naturally and people are not afraid of those of other religions. This spirit is always spreading. For instance, in addition to Muslims living at Gobind Sadan, hundreds of Muslims from a large surrounding area now come to Gobind Sadan’s mosque for their Friday prayers and special Muslim holidays, and the mosque which was originally built for 35 worshippers has to be greatly expanded.‘

For more about Gobind Sadan see www.gobindsadan.org

Common Action: While working on ourselves we usually want to work with likeminded people to achieve our aspirations. In the UK nearly every city and town has an interfaith group of some sort and governments, local and central, are also engaged in interfaith dialogue. The UK is also fortunate to have the Inter Faith Network of the UK to link local, regional and national interfaith initiatives. This enables groups to learn from, support and cooperate with one another. The Network also offers many useful and freely downloadable resources on its website with guidelines for good relations between faith communities, faith and identity, shared values, changing patterns of interfaith activity, community cohesion, partnership for the common good and, especially in the context of this question, looking after one another: the safety and security of our faith communities. Here are some of the latter’s contents:

‘In general, the UK is a place where there are good inter faith relations and where there is respect for the traditions of different faiths and for the beliefs and practices of different communities and for their places of worship. In times of tension, however, faith communities may find themselves vulnerable in a number of ways. Those who are visibly identifiable as members of a faith may sometimes be verbally or physically harassed or attacked. Hatred or suspicion of a particular faith may be incited. Or the cause may be mindless vandalism. Places of worship, community-family burial sites and religious symbols may be defaced, damaged or destroyed or precious artefacts stolen. In such situations there needs to be a firm response by the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the public and the faith communities themselves…

Some attacks or threats of attack appear linked to racist or religious hatred or designed to stir this up. We believe that it is vital for faith community organisations and places of worship to respond jointly and to show solidarity. Some ways to dothis are:

• Faith leaders go together to visit any faith community property that has been attacked or is under threat

• Faith groups contact one another by email or telephone in any time of crisis or tension for mutual support and assistance

• Take action – of a kind agreed with the faith community directly affected - in support of a place of worship which has been attacked or vandalised

• Meet with police, representatives of the local fire and rescue service and local authorities to discuss and implement appropriate measures to provide reassurance for the community or communities affected

• Encourage swift reporting of the incident to the police. Some offences, such as criminal damage and assault, now receive higher sentences if the convicted person demonstrates, or is shown to have been motivated by, hostility based on faith. When reporting an incident to the police, it is important to make clear at the time of reporting that you consider this to have been the case.

• Contact the local media and ask them to give publicity to the joint efforts of faith communities to support each other and respond jointly to the situation

• Agree and issue joint statements in response to crisis situations to support the affected community and defuse tensions (but only if the community wishes this)

• Work with local inter faith groups and others to arrange ‘clean up’ teams to go and assist if buildings have been defaced or damaged and the community in question would like help in this way

• Work jointly to sponsor fund-raising efforts in response to crises

• Where appropriate, in particularly serious circumstances, hold events such as vigils for people to come together to pray, each in their own tradition

For the full text and other relevant downloads go to www.interfaith.org.uk/publications/index.htm

In the USA and Canada, the North American Interfaith Network similarly links interfaith organisations and holds an annual gathering. Find out more at www.nain.org

Dr Brian Walker of Religions for Peace shares his response to the question:

‘Whilst interfaith activity has increased significantly during the last three decades, much remains in the important, but limited, area of dialogue. To help address issues of insecurity, Religions for Peace, therefore, advocates ‘different faiths: common action’ and advances a new positive concept of peace, a notion of ‘shared security’ that transforms conflict with multi-faith cooperation.

Each sector of society - governments, international organizations, and all organs of civil society, including our religious communities - has a role and responsibility to ensure shared security. Shared security meets legitimate national security needs; builds on the notion of human security - addressing both direct and chronic threats to individual physical security; but also does more.

Shared security advances a positive notion of human flourishing that emphasizes the responsibility of all to care for all. Shared security is based upon the moral values held in common by all faith traditions. Each religion has a holistic, positive notion of peace. Each religion has its own version of the golden rule that recognizes that we are obliged to care for one another. These diverse sectarian notions of peace have permanent value to their respective religious communities. Today, however, there is also the need for the religious communities to come together to express a positive shared notion of peace. As a multi-religious vision, this shared notion of peace must be developed in and by local communities. Shared security attempts to outline a positive vision of human flourishing and to emphasize the responsibility to care for the other.

Concretely, shared security calls people of faith, their religious communities and religious leaders to reject the misuse of religion whenever it is abused in support of violence. It also calls them to stand on the side of the most vulnerable and to care for them as their own.

A classic example of shared security is the Inter Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL). After several years of Christians and Muslims separately striving to bring peace to their people afflicted by a vicious Rebel War, they came together to form the IRCSL. Together priests and imams then, at risk to their lives, went into the bush and successfully persuaded the rebels to lay down their guns. Today, the IRCSL continue to work together on reconciliation, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims and perpetrators, particularly orphans and child soldiers. Irish religious leaders of all the major faiths, north and south, are today working to create their own inter religious council to help their own communities of different faiths develop and maintain peace through shared security.

Communities of different faiths themselves can also help create shared security in their world by shared multi-religious projects to help those in poverty in the UK and abroad; by developing multi-religious early warning of and addressing emerging inter-community tensions; by sharing multi-religious confidence-building programmes; by developing multi-religious mediation and reconciliation skills and practise; by helping to improve post-conflict and post-disaster recovery programmes, both in the UK and where their local communities have roots. Religions for Peace is currently facilitating an on-going International Roundtable of faith based humanitarian, development and peace work, with organisations including American Jewish World Services,Buddha’s Light International Association, Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD), Christian Aid, Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, Hindu Aid, Islamic Relief, Life and Peace Institute, Muslim Aid and many more.

Religious traditions, each in their own way, work for the fundamental unity of the human family and the equality and dignity of all human beings. Shared security expresses these commitments. It is in the development of such multi-faith action that local communities of faiths will flourish over the coming months and years.'

For more information about Religions for Peace see www.religionsforpeace.org

Asaf Hussain, an academic and writer on Islamic Fundamentalism, writes of his belief that the relevance of local interfaith work now lies particularly in ‘broadening the views of thedifferent faith communities. It is fundamentalist views from any faith that create problems with other faiths so interfaith broadens one’s outlook. If one has the right to one's faith then others equally have that right but the faiths have to be authentic and not fundamentalist for then there can be no agreement.’

Fred Stella from Grand Rapids in the US has found that educational interfaith initiatives have helped the work grow in his area. By broadening our understanding of others interfaith can educate us to be more accepting, more aware, and more insightful about discordant situations when they arise.

‘If you'd like me to speak to our specific area, we are gaining much ground. Besides holding the presidency of the Interfaith Dialogue Association, I now also sit on 3 other bodies: The West Shore Committee for Interfaith Dialogue, Grand Dialogue and the advisory committee for the Kaufman Institute (an interfaith project housed at a local college). Each of these organizations has a different mission, but all are focused on the goal of multi-religious education and understanding. This is pretty impressive when you realize that this area of our state is very heavily Calvinist Protestant.

IDA continues to send out speakers of different religions to adult religious education classes at local churches and schools. We are almost always met with great enthusiasm. It is my personal opinion that great things lie on the horizon for interfaith work here in West Michigan.

There are several contributing factors to this uptake of interfaith in our region. I would say that an important one is the major influx of immigrants to our area. West Michigan has been decidedly Dutch Calvinist since their 1st settlements here around 1850. They've always called the shots. But we are (like so many other cities here) becoming more diverse. I think we have 5 or 6 mosques in GR. It has been my observation that whenever you have a hard-core establishment in one direction, it sort of feeds the antithesis. On that same note, we are known as being a very conservative Republican area. That has given birth to quite a vibrant progressive movement here.

It would be false modesty to ignore the contributions of IDA. Pioneers like the late Joel Beversluis and others helped make it known that there was an outlet for this sort of exploration. Those of us who came a little later have a great legacy to carry on.

What has worked well? People respond quite well to conferences. Of course, the more academic ones tend to get the best attendance. And our local radio show seems to have a rather loyal audience.

We have not had an interfaith discussion group for quite a while. We are in the process of trying to recreate that again. This is how I became involved. The group I joined had already been meeting for a few years. By the time we disbanded we'd been meeting for over a decade.

Many people shy away from interfaith worship, but our annual Thanksgiving service always gets a good showing.

The IDA speakers’ bureau is usually kept busy, but there are still many churches left in this town that have not used our services. But being able to send speakers of different faiths out to give classes at churches and schools has been fairly popular. We have several religious colleges here. They are now taking advantage of our speakers’ bureau on a regular basis, which they didn't do before. People are calling us to provide speakers at work related events to address the subject of diverse religious practices in the workplace.

Although it was discontinued for lack of city funding, in the recent past the mayor's office contacted us to help organize his annual prayer breakfast, making sure it had an interfaith presence.

As mentioned earlier, there are now several organizations here that in some way have a connection to interfaith work. One of those, The Kaufman Institute, is being housed at a local secular college. They are helping in creating a religion curriculum that hasn't existed before.’

Find out more at www.interfaithdialogueassociation.org

sobert Papini of the International Association for Religious Freedom, now headquartered in Japan, offered these initial thoughts:

‘Perhaps the question might be: What does interfaith mean in Japan / to Japanese?

Andrew Clark's old staple was that because Japan is so homogeneous, and so peaceful, interfaith has little meaning here except as an aspect of outreach to other nations and cultures. (*Andrew Clark is a former IARF General Secretary). Therefore involvement in interfaith work is largely at an international rather than a local level, much of it by the large-scale new religions of Japan (Rissho Kosei-kai, Tenrikyo, Myochikai, etc.), and mostly concerned with relief of poverty, emergency, etc. - humanitarian rather than discourse-related as in the west, though with much facilitation of meetings for dialogue, etc. in the international arena.

And of course there is the wariness of unorthodox religion brought on by Aum Shinrikyo and its sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway. Tolerance of cultic phenomena may therefore be low here for some time, even though historically much has happened here, and is unlikely to have eased off. I recently attended a prayer gathering held by Byakko Shin Kokai (who put up the 'peace poles' around the globe) where there was a wonderful atmosphere.

It may be that any interfaith in Japan has to address itself to the situation over the water in China, where there is much denial of religious freedom to 'alien' and cultic tendencies, as we all know.’

For more about the International Association for Religious Freedom see www.iarf.net

Different Locations, Different Methodologies: Of course, around the world interfaith contexts and possibilities vary enormously. Even within one location or one organisation there may be several different approaches needed to develop specific interfaith responses to specific conditions.

For example, during a recent training session, the staff of Interfaith Encounter Association in Israel realized that:

‘During the current session we went deeper into the different components. We talked about mapping information about potential encounter locations, about identifying suitable people to lead groups, about initiating meetings to explain our work and recruit people and about the need to write down the methodology so that it will be easier for new coordinators to start leading activity.Then we focused on attributes of the specific version of each of the encounter groups of the methodology, and how to maximize their impact. We took two groups as examples:

The Study and Dialogue group in Jerusalem works to build the relations through intensive deep study of religion. This approach is very suitable for the religious population and builds tolerance and respect in the inter-communal relations. This could be told as a success story that will encourage others to form similar groups.

>The Reut-Sadaqa group focuses on building of friendship among the group's members, with joint and egalitarian work of its coordinators. When communicating this group to new people we should stress the experience of togetherness and the fact that the main part of both the experience and the building of the group is the process.’

Read more about the work of the Interfaith Encounter Association at www.interfaith-encounter.org

If you can read German, Dr. Reinhard Kirste of Interreligiöse Arbeitsstelle (INTR°A) invites you to explore the relevant materials on the website: www.interrel.de

The book, A Global Guide to Interfaith: Reflections from around the world (Sandy and Jael Bharat, O-Books, July 2007) may be a useful asset as over 100 interfaith contributors address many of the issues relevant to interfaith developments at every level, including the local. Chapter headings are: Interfaith Origins, Interfaith Rationale, Interfaith Experiencing, Interfaith Organising, Religious Diversity, Religious Freedom, Peace, Living Together, Interfaith Youth, The Role of Religions, Engaging Civil Society, and Future of Interfaith.