Including the Nonreligious in Interfaith Conversations

Hello, friends.

I was on a panel this week!

My school this year is pretty neat. It is an interfaith graduate school, and I'll be leaving the year with a Certificate in Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations. It has some amazing classes (I know things about the Qur'an now! Like specific passages!), we have folks across a part of the spectrum of religious practice (Christians, Muslims, Jews), and we have people from all over the world (Saudi Arabia! Haiti! India! A zillion others!)--truly quite the diversity.

One tiny thing about my school, though: not a lot of Jews. So even more than in some other contexts in which I've found myself, I am called upon here to speak to the "Jewish" perspective quite a bit. I do my best to intentionally represent the diversity of viewpoints in Judaism; I've been fortunate to have meaningful experiences with a number of different Jewish groups so I have a bit of a range of experience, but I also make sure to represent my own personal place on that vast Jewish spectrum.

One lovely thing then to happen this week was that I was invited to sit on a panel last night. The topic of focus was, "Including the Nonreligious in Interfaith Conversations." The topic is not one with which I have particular expertise, but I was very humbled to be asked to join.*

I tried so hard to look normal up there, and still their photo catches me with my legs in weird positions. Of course.

If anyone is interested, they have posted a video of the event here. (The panel is a tad long, so you can see me talking, if that's your main goal, at these times: 20:37, 46:42, and answering audience questions at: 1:10:53, 1:15:18, 1:22:17) I always welcome comments or critiques if there are things I could have done better--there is always something more to learn and ways to improve.

The tl;dr version of my opinions on the panel: interfaith dialogue is a misnomer. For me, it's about increasing understanding and respect among people--all people, religious or not. But even though it is not a perfect descriptor, the word "interfaith" is still a powerful word--not because of the "faith" half of it, but because of the "inter" part; dialogue between communities, across lines of difference. Fostering those incredible conversations, that "inter" half--that is its power.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson
---
*In the photo above from left to right, there is Fr. Carl Chudy (the Catholic priest organizer, who focuses his work on religious-non-religious dialogue), Tom Krattenmaker (a columnist to USA Today and author of Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower), Kathleen Green (Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Community), Bilal Ansari (Assistant Director, Davis Center, Williams College; for a time he was also Dean of Students at Zaytuna College, the first accredited Muslim undergrad college in the U.S. out in Berkeley, which started in 2008), and me.