Responsively Yours

May 2005

An Interfaith Journey

One of great joys of my Christian journey has been interacting with women of other faith traditions. While living in Columbia, S.C., I participated in Women of Faith, an organization that brings together women from various religious groups in the Columbia area monthly. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Baha’is, Hindus and Buddhists participate.

The group arose out of and relates to Partners in Dialogue,  an organization begun in 1992 at the initiative of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina. Partners brings together representatives of 10 faith communities, some of which have sprung up in South Carolina, as in other parts of the country, because of immigration, particularly from Asia. In her book, A New Religious America, Harvard University professor Diana Eck describes Partners as a model for interfaith understanding.

Partners organizes potluck dinners, discussion groups, open houses for participants to visit each others’ places of worship, and educational teams to advise public schools on coping with increasing religious diversity. Memorial Day 2004, the group held an interreligious service of remembrance in one of Columbia’s mosques for all who had been killed in the war in Iraq.

As much as I deeply appreciate Partners, my growth as a Christian has come from the more intimate sharing among Women of Faith. Typically, we sit in a circle and share prayers, poems, Scripture, songs, personal stories and other contributions from our faith traditions. We don’t try to resolve our differences. We simply share them.

We laugh together and give each other permission to cry over the tender moments we experience together. We also partake in good food and informal conversation, catching up with friends and making new ones.

I have learned a great deal from the group, not only about the women’s understandings of their traditions, but also about how my faith becomes wider and deeper when I experience theirs. For example, Zarah, a Shiite Muslim woman, has taught me a lot about hospitality, patience and perseverance. She is host to the group periodically and delights in introducing us to new food dishes. She emigrated from India some years ago as a young bride. She attends one of the two mosques in Columbia and makes regular pilgrimages to Iran, where some of her family live.

On occasion, I invited her to speak at the University of South Carolina to help students in my classes understand her faith tradition better. She always responded graciously to their questions about her daily prayers and meditations, her head scarf, her children, intermarriage among people of various religions, and anything else students wanted to know.

Arunima, a Hindu from India, has taught me how to be a better witness for Christ. Quietly and skillfully, she urged me to share within the group the depth of my personal devotion to Jesus. During one gathering when I was particularly distressed about events unfolding in the world, I read the Sermon on the Mount and described how my only refuge at times of feeling helpless and hopeless is, in the words of the great African-American spiritual, to "steal away to Jesus." When all else fails, I told these sisters, we Christians know the consolation of relying on faith in Christ.

Afterwards, Arunima told me how much my contribution meant to her. When I am the best Christian I can be, she said, she moves closer to being the best Hindu she can be.

As we embark on the study of India and Pakistan, I encourage you to get acquainted with neighbors in your community who come from South Asia, if you have not already done so. Some participate and provide leadership in the United Methodist Church or other Christian denominations, but most adhere to other faiths. We have so much to learn from each other. Use this mission-study opportunity to gain greater understanding of fascinating folk near and far.

Jan Love
Women’s Division
Deputy General Secretary