Hospitality, Service, Proclamation

Interfaith engagement as Christian discipleship

Wilson

• Publisher: SCM Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780334058014
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Ecumenism & Interfaith

In 'Hospitality, Service, Proclamation', Tom Wilson seeks to demystify the interfaith project. Written for ordinands and those preparing to minister in neighbourhoods where interfaith and intercultural dialogue are essential, Wilson argues that rather than a threat to churches, interfaith dialogue is an important tool for discipleship.

Contents

Preface

1. Why engage in interfaith relations?

2. Who engages in interfaith relations?

3. What does the Bible say?

4. When and where does interfaith engagement take place?

5. How can interfaith engagement take place?

6. Not just good, but Christian

Appendix: Engaging with particular faith communities

Bibliography

Preface

Someone once described to me how a colleague of theirs writes books in order to work out exactly what he thinks about a particular topic. There is an element of that in this book. After a bit more than a decade of engaging in interfaith work as a Christian, I have a fair idea of why I do it, and what I think I am trying to achieve. But sometimes it is helpful to articulate a clear explanation. That is what this book attempts to do. I want to show you that there are Christian ways of doing interfaith work. Chapter 1 discusses why a Christian might engage in interfaith activities, and Chapter 2 introduces a range of different perspectives on the topic to help you make up your own mind about why and what you are looking to achieve. Chapter 3 presents ten short biblical reflections on how Christians might relate to those of other faiths. The following two chapters are practical in their focus: Chapter 4 discusses when and where, and Chapter 5 considers how to conduct interfaith activities. Chapter 6 draws the argument together. Finally, the Appendix suggests specific reading to guide Christians who want to engage with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Confucian and Modern Pagan views of the world.

The people I most need to thank for help in writing this book will have to remain anonymous. They are my friends in different faith communities in different places in the UK who have graciously answered my questions, sharing of themselves as we have got to know each other better, discovering where we agree and where we disagree about a whole range of issues. I am also grateful to colleagues in the St Philip’s Centre, Leicester, and across the Church of England’s Presence and Engagement network for encouragement and advice over the years. Finally, I want to thank my family, for coping with me vanishing into my study to type when I could have been doing other things with them.

1. Why engage in interfaith relations?

The central argument of this book is that interfaith activity is not simply a good thing to do, but more importantly, a Christian course of action. To put it differently, I have found that one sure method to grow as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ is to spend time talking with and learning from people who do not recognize him as their Lord and Saviour. That may seem a counter-intuitive point to make, but in my experience, both personally and also helping others to engage in interfaith activities, that is precisely the result. So why does interfaith remain a niche activity, regarded only as a specialism for a few brave (or foolish) enthusiasts who happen to find themselves surrounded by Sikh or Jewish people or are just particularly curious about the distinctions within different branches of Jainism? This opening chapter first sets out what I understand to be some of the main obstacles for Christians wanting to engage with people of other faiths. Second, it briefly outlines four of the questions I have been asked by people of other faiths, which have helped my faith to grow. Third, it offers a few brief thoughts about interfaith activity in twenty-first-century Britain, and last, it discusses intentional growth. The chapter ends with a short reflection on the writings of Lesslie Newbigin.

Three concepts guide the book: hospitality, service and proclamation. Hospitality is understood as welcoming in those of other faiths; service as taking active steps to meet their needs, even at personal cost; and proclamation as verbal explanation of the Christian hope in Jesus Christ. Hospitality is a common paradigm for interfaith engagement, and while I recognize its value it is important to be clear that there are limits to hospitality. This is not simply to recognize that some behaviour is unacceptable, it is to believe that hosts are allowed to state that behaviour that is acceptable in one context is not acceptable in others. So, when I visit a mosque it is fine for someone there to give out tracts that explain Islam as the only true faith, but this behaviour is not acceptable when that person is the guest of a church community. Equally, if I invite a Hindu friend to a church meeting to share about her life and faith, there is no reason why that meeting cannot commence with prayer and worship as it normally does. A sensible host will choose a passage that will not cause unnecessary offence and will avoid directly challenging a guest to convert, but will carry out the act of worship nonetheless. In my experience, it is mainly Christians who think denying their own identity is a good way of practising hospitality; I have never met a Sikh or Hindu or Muslim (or indeed person of any other faith) who has said to me that because I’m visiting them they will not be praying today.

If we look at the life of Jesus we see that at times he plays the role of both host and guest. His pastoral ministry was entirely dependent on the generosity of others; the Gospels are full of stories of his being a guest at different people’s homes and celebrations. But at other times Jesus is the host, most memorably and powerfully at the Last Supper (although, of course, that was in someone else’s house), but also when he gathers audiences to teach them. Jesus defines the parameters of his hospitality, rebuking his overenthusiastic disciples that children are welcome (Mark 10.13–16), and that foreigners who proclaim the gospel are ‘for us’ (Mark 9.38–41). We can reflect on the hospitality of God, taking for example the picture of Psalm 23, of a gracious host welcoming the pilgrim home.

Hospitality is held in tension with proclamation; Christianity is a faith that has a message of good news to share, which includes speaking out the good news of Jesus Christ, sharing what he has done in our lives. In Mark, Jesus begins his public ministry with a call that announces the arrival of the kingdom of God (Mark 1.14–15), a message of repentance and radical transformation. The book of Acts and the various New Testament letters suggest that the first followers of Jesus were bold and uncompromising in their declarations of faith in Jesus the Messiah. This impulse to proclaim is balanced by the imperative to serve others. Christians are expected to love God and their neighbour, and as a parable of Jesus reminds us, ‘neighbour’ means everyone, friend and foe alike (Luke 10.25–37). Service of others can be a form of hospitality, but service may also include becoming a guest, making myself vulnerable and needy in order to allow others to serve me, a point illustrated by the interesting juxtaposition in John 12 and 13 of Jesus first having his feet washed by Mary before he in turn washes his disciples’ feet. Throughout this book, I will return to these three concepts repeatedly, illustrating the tension that exists between them and demonstrating how they provide a framework for interfaith engagement as a form of Christian discipleship.

What gets in the way?

There are doubtless many reasons why Christians do not actively participate in what they explicitly term interfaith engagement. The overstated language is important here, as people who live and work in diverse areas may find themselves talking with their neighbours or colleagues about why they celebrate Diwali or the distinction between the two Eids or all manner of other points of connection and difference between their respective faiths. They might describe this as interfaith relations, but more likely they would just think of it as having a chat with Raj or Rabiha about what they are doing at the weekend. One of the Jewish rabbis who lives in Leicester is fond of talking about good interfaith relations being the fact that he can borrow his neighbour’s hedge trimmer while he lends him his lawnmower. My point is that there are all kinds of day-to-day interactions between people of different faiths, or different perspectives on the same faith, and this is a vital form of interfaith relations, which helps keep the fabric of our society together.

But in an increasingly polarized world, where people are tempted to retreat to the comfort of their own homes, or their own self-constructed social media echo chamber, there is a need for people to make deliberate steps to meet up with those who are different from them, to ensure that there are places of interaction, where different truths can be told and different perspectives can sit in parallel. Sometimes it can be more comfortable to meet with people whose faith perspective is different from yours, but whose socio-economic and cultural expectations are remarkably similar. Intra-faith discussion can, at times, be more fraught with difficulty than interfaith discussion.

I find interfaith engagement an energizing and interesting place to be, but recognize that for some people, it is in fact a frightening place. There are different fears at play here. Some might be afraid of causing offence. They might think that asking the wrong question about Diwali or inadvertently doing the wrong thing while visiting someone else’s place of worship would destroy a fragile relationship, or cause mass protests. An awareness of, for example, the controversy that surrounded the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad or the attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo after they republished them,1 may lie, acknowledged or unrecognized, at the root of these fears. If this is the case, it is important to recognize the distinction between deliberate attempts to provoke and insult and accidental mistakes that happen because of ignorance, or simply because of real life. The former would produce a negative reaction. But mistakes are just mistakes, and most people are not upset if things go wrong through no fault of your own. Not long after I started my current role, my whole family visited Leicester’s Progressive Jewish Synagogue for an open event one Sunday afternoon. My daughter had just turned three, and suddenly hearing a call of nature did not quite manage to make it to the toilet in time. Unfortunately, the place the accident happened was directly in front of the Ark, the place in the synagogue where the Torah Scroll is stored, and thus the most important, sacred space in the building. I thought there could not really have been a worse place for this particular mishap. But the response was entirely pragmatic: I was simply told where to find a mop and bucket, and met with the sympathetic response that such problems occur from time to time and all I needed to do was tidy up.

I have got many things wrong in my understandings of a particular faith or the place of a particular community within that faith. I visited a mosque recently and said to the committee member who was hosting us that I thought it was a predominantly Pakistani community who attended that mosque for prayers. He corrected me, stating that this was a common mistake made by outsiders. If I check my bookshelves, I can tell you the precise details of the five different branches of Jainism that are all represented in Leicester Jain Samaj (or you could just read Babb 2015 or Dundas 2002). But I would probably get some of the details a bit confused and my Jain friends would correct me. They would not do so in anger or upset, but in a desire to set the record straight, much as I would want to help them understand the difference between, say, being a Roman Catholic, Anglican or Pentecostal Christian. If you have an attitude of humility and a willingness to learn, then although you will get things wrong, either through misunderstanding or ignorance, you are unlikely to cause offence.

There are at least two other types of fear that some people face when thinking about interfaith engagement. Some are afraid that if they engage with people of other faiths their own faith in Jesus will suffer as a result. Once I was involved in organizing a visit for some Christian young adults to go to a mosque. They were interns in local churches, on a discipleship year out. Not everyone was comfortable with going into another place of worship, and indeed not all of them went, as they were concerned about the negative impact that entering a mosque might have on their relationship with Jesus. On a different occasion, when facilitating the interfaith engagement part of a Christian youthwork course, my staff and I had to be creative in designing an interfaith encounter that both met the course requirements and also did not push the students too far.

I always want to help Christians meet those of other faiths because in my experience this is always a beneficial encounter where mutual learning takes place, but I recognize that not everyone shares my enthusiasm. I also know that ‘beneficial’ is not the same as ‘comfortable’ or ‘pleasant’. But then whoever said being a disciple of Jesus Christ was supposed to be either comfortable or pleasant? As Luther is reputed to have said, why, when Christ wore a crown of thorns, do his followers expect to wear a crown of roses?

The context of such encounters is, of course, crucial here. While conversations between Christians and those of other faiths in Britain are invariably civil (one notable exception being the debates at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park), that is not the case across the world. I know that Christians in many countries suffer because of their faith, and are persecuted by people of other faiths, but that is not the focus of my argument here.2 The point I wish to make is that Christians in the UK should not be afraid that meeting those of other faiths will destroy their faith in Jesus. You are likely to be challenged, perhaps in ways you did not expect, but this is not something to shy away from. It is something to rise to.

Apathy can be as great a problem as fear in preventing interfaith engagement. This issue is not peculiar to interfaith initiatives, but is a general feature of church life. Many areas of work are perceived as the preserve of a few specialists, who seem incredibly competent or knowledgeable about their particular field, and so others feel that there is no point or need for them to be involved. Work with children and young people is perhaps one of the more obvious examples. Interfaith engagement is likewise left to specialists, especially when community relations are peaceful.

However, it may not be apathy that prevents people from joining in with interfaith engagement; it may also be an issue of shortage, whether that is a shortage of time for engagement, of opportunities to meet in an atmosphere conducive to exchange of views, or of resources to enable meaningful interaction to take place. While all these are valid reasons, it is also true that we usually can make time for those activities we value the most. If we regard interfaith activity as important, then we allow it to take time, energy and resources that could otherwise be used elsewhere. So in the end, it probably comes down to deciding that there is sufficient value in meeting with people of other faiths for us to bother. For a Christian, one positive reason for any activity is that it helps you grow as a disciple of Jesus. In what follows I will give four examples of how interfaith engagement has helped me do just that.

Growing as a disciple of Jesus

The examples I have chosen here are from engagement with four of the world’s major faith traditions. There are many others that I could have given, and indeed will give throughout this book, but these are sufficient to illustrate the point that interfaith engagement is a means to grow in relationship with Jesus Christ.

Why celebrate Christmas?

A Muslim friend once asked me why it was that Christians celebrate Christmas. ‘After all,’ he went on, ‘Jesus did not tell you to. So why are you doing something that your teacher did not instruct you to do?’

I cannot remember the details of my answer. I probably talked about a number of different things. First, that there is a distinction between Christian celebrations of Christmas and Western cultural celebrations of Christmas. Having lived in Japan for a year during my university days, this difference was very clear to me, and I doubtless referenced this experience, probably including the surreal episode of me, over six foot tall and quite skinny, having to pretend to be Santa for a room full of bemused Japanese pre-schoolers. Second, since he was part of a Muslim group that was focused on outreach, I probably talked about the opportunities that Christmas provides for Christians to tell the story of the birth of Jesus, and invite people to engage with that story, and with the idea of following Jesus for themselves. Third, I hopefully mentioned the history of Christianity in the West, and how it had subsumed Pagan festivals, providing acceptable alternatives that enabled Christianity to flourish and other belief patterns to fade. Being asked about my faith by a Muslim made me think more seriously about my discipleship as I live in expectation that Jesus will return one day.

But the question remains, and it still nags me slightly, making me think about what I do to celebrate Christmas, and whether it is drawing me closer to Jesus. I am sure this question was the catalyst that made me take the season of Advent more seriously. For an Anglican Christian it is a penitential season, where we prepare our hearts and our lives for the coming of Christ, remembering his birth but looking also to his return. That must be part of my celebration of Christmas. If it is not, then am I celebrating as Jesus would want me to?

Thinking back now, I realize that there were all kinds of assumptions behind his question. I will outline two. First, he is a Salafi Muslim, a member of a reform movement established to bring Muslims back to the traditions of the salaf, the first three generations of scholars after the Prophet Muhammad. As such he is very concerned to follow only the precise instructions that Muhammad gave about every aspect of life. This includes the fact that the Prophet did not explicitly instruct his followers to celebrate his birthday (known as Mawlid al Nabi). Some Muslims do celebrate the festival, but Salafi Muslims do not, because they have received no explicit instruction to do so; and they argue vociferously that other Muslims are wrong in doing so. This is one of the assumptions he brought with him to the question he asked me about celebrating Christmas.

Second, there was the desire of the evangelist to catch me out; to show me that I was not following Jesus as I ought to. Christians do this all the time when trying to persuade others of the truth of the Christian faith. You try to show that your worldview is consistent, thought through and coherent, while other worldviews have inconsistencies, flaws and problems. The aim is to persuade others that you are right and they are wrong. Sometimes it can be very effective, but not always. As I reflected on what my friend was doing, it made me think about how I love everyone I talk to as a person made in the image of God. Verbal trickery is not the best way of persuading people of the truth of the Christian faith.

As is often the case in complicated conversations, my answer was probably less coherent and organized than my written reflection after the event. At the time, I simply carried on the conversation, doing my best to answer what I took to be an honest enquiry. That is, perhaps, the most important thing to remember about having conversations about faith: be honest, be real, and if you do not know the answer, say so. It is not really any different from having a conversation with anyone else about your faith.

Pause How would you have answered this question?

Why eat meat?

A few years ago I went to the opening of the ISKCON (Hare Krishna) temple in Leicester. They had recently moved to a new building and had a formal opening ceremony that included lunch. Standing in line with a senior member of ISKCON in the UK, we were talking about the points of connection between our two faiths. He explained his Hindu perspective to me, which was something to the effect that everyone is on their way to heaven or enlightenment. The difference was that Christians were making a slow plod up lots of stairs while ISKCON devotees were in the express elevator. One of the reasons was this: ‘How can you expect to make spiritual progress when you eat meat? How can anyone who benefits from killing draw closer to God?’

The lunch we were about to eat was, of course, vegetarian. More than that, it followed the strict diet of the ISKCON movement, avoiding certain vegetables as well. It was food aimed at facilitating maximum spiritual progress. Here was another question for a disciple of Jesus. I know that Jesus declared all foods clean (Mark 7.1–23). I know that Peter had a vision in which he was commanded to eat food he thought of as unclean as a means of encouraging him to preach the gospel to Cornelius (Acts 10) and that the Early Church greatly relaxed the stipulations of Jewish food laws as they included significant numbers of gentiles in their midst (Acts 15). Most Western Protestant Christians today have no concerns about what they eat from a purely religious point of view.

But that does not mean that a Christian should not think about what she or he eats. Reread the first three chapters of Genesis and ask yourself, was eating meat part of God’s original plan for creation? Or is it a result of human sinfulness? Think also about the lessons of modern times, of salmonella outbreaks caused by human greed, feeding dead chickens to chickens in order to maximize profits regardless of animal welfare. Think about environmental arguments, for example about the destruction of rainforests or the amount of methane produced by the beef industry. There are many cogent reasons why Christians might want to take very seriously the questions asked by that Hare Krishna devotee, particularly to think again about what it means to ‘be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’ (Genesis 1.28). It made me realize that perhaps my Christian faith should make a difference to how and what I eat. Moving to a low or no meat diet, out of concern for creation, has become more common in Christian circles recently,3 and in my case, I started thinking about this seriously because of conversations I had with Hindus who believed strongly that what they ate has a significant impact on their spirituality.

Pause What difference does your faith make to what you eat?

Whom do you serve?

The question of whom we serve comes up pretty much every time I take a group of Christians to a gurdwara. One of the core principles of the Sikh faith is that of langar, the community kitchen in a gurdwara where a hot vegetarian meal is made freely available to anyone who comes regardless of their religion, caste, gender, economic status or ethnicity. In practice, there are a few restrictions, notably that anyone under the influence of alcohol or drugs is forbidden from entering a gurdwara, and that you must remove your shoes and cover your head before entering. But these are relatively minor compared with the fact that meals are served throughout the day to anyone who comes, no questions asked. The reality is that if a gurdwara is in a busy part of a town, many people will come there solely for a free lunch, and the Sikh community is happy to serve them. This makes Christians think in two different ways.

First, some churches or Christian groups run a community café or coffee morning. Normally there is a charge, to cover the cost of the food if nothing else. But the scale of the operation is invariably much smaller than that of even a small gurdwara, which would serve hundreds of meals a day. The idea of a community paying for food given freely to others is very much out of step with many churches, who expect people to put money on a plate even to have a slightly stale biscuit and a cup of lukewarm instant coffee after a service. I am not saying that Christians do not know how to be hospitable. There are countless examples of incredibly generous Christian hospitality, be that individuals or organized groups, running food banks, lunch clubs, providing meals for school children over the school holidays and much more. What I am saying is that visiting a gurdwara and experiencing langar can challenge Christians to think afresh about the hospitality they offer.

It has certainly caused me to reflect, and made me want to understand more clearly how the langar system operates. Some of the meals are funded by particular individuals to mark a special occasion. If, for example, you are marking your birthday, or celebrating the birth of a child, you might sponsor langar in the gurdwara on a particular day or weekend. At other times, individuals make donations of food or money to cover the costs. Ensuring that the hungry are fed is seen as a religious duty, one that equally applies to Christians, who are told by James that ‘Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world’ (James 1.27).

Second, experiencing langar is experiencing being the guest, not the host. There are quite a few cultural expectations that come with langar. The food is always vegetarian curry. It is normally eaten sitting on the floor. It is given to you, and although you have some chance to decide how much you want of any particular item, you may well not know what it is you are eating, which is a particular challenge for those who have allergies or strong likes or dislikes. Guests at langar invariably get what they are given and are expected to be grateful. My experiences as a guest make me reflect on my practice as a host. In what ways do I give people things they do not want, and am disappointed when they do not express gratitude? Learning how to be a guest is an important discipline for Christians, especially in a society that increasingly regards Christian faith with suspicion, if not active dislike.

Pause What are your experiences of being both guest and host to people of other faiths?

What is your motivation?

My final question is one I ask myself as a result of conversations with a Jewish friend. She told me about an experience she had a few years ago. We live in the same area of Leicester, and every summer one of the streets is closed off on a Sunday as part of a community arts festival. The narrative she told me was of how she was walking through the different stalls when she noticed one run by a local evangelical church. They were, she said, running various activities for children, in order to draw families in and start talking to them, something Christians often do, she added. She stopped to say hello to one of those running the stall, and being a friendly person, soon got into conversation. As they were talking she explained that she was Jewish, and then, she said, ‘His eyes lit up as if to say, “This is an interesting fish. How can I land this one?” and so I made my excuses and moved on.’

The question that story makes me ask is, what is my motivation? How transparent is that motivation? Jesus tells us to go and make disciples of all nations, and Christians have both the right and the duty to preach the good news of Jesus Christ. But we must also be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. If our outreach turns people into targets, scalps to be collected like trophies then, for me at least, it is slipping away from proclaiming the gospel into human pride and self-aggrandizement. The ethics of evangelism and outreach are complex, and interfaith engagement provides a good context in which to think them through. I will return to these issues a number of times in this book.

In the right time and the right place we should, of course, proclaim Jesus as Lord and Saviour and invite others to follow him. But if the good news is to be heard as good news then it must be a freely offered gift that people are under no obligation to accept. Therefore, when I engage in interfaith work my motivation is simply to build relationships, to love my friends as I love myself, to grow in my likeness of Jesus Christ and so to reflect him to everyone I spend time with, regardless of their interest in or reaction to him. There are contexts where it is appropriate to share faith with a view to conversion, and contexts where it would be wrong to do so.

When I run training sessions for Christians starting out in interfaith engagement, I often ask them to form a ‘human rainbow’ of their motivations for this type of work. The spectrum I offer them is from cohesion to conversion: that is, from just being friends to just wanting people to become Christians. It is a crude, artificial distinction that most groups initially comply with but soon reject as overly simplistic. Most Christians have a complex series of hopes and dreams when they talk with people of other faiths, which will be explored in more detail in the rest of this chapter.

Pause Where would you put yourself on the human rainbow?

Interfaith in twenty-first-century Britain

These four questions highlight the tension that exists between the Christian desire to be hospitable, to serve others and to proclaim the gospel. Taking the last example, a desire to proclaim was so strong that one person felt unable to be a guest, even a temporary one, at a community event. The experience of being served in a gurdwara is uncomfortable for some Christians and the thought of having your dietary choices challenged may put others off ever entering a Hindu mandir. But I experienced both as examples of hospitality, where I was a welcome guest whose views were politely engaged with; it helped me learn how to be a gracious host who is nevertheless clear about what he believes.

Ours is an age of division, of social media echo chambers, of people feeling free to express opinions that just a few years ago would have been regarded as unacceptable, beyond the pale. It is an age of identity politics, of increasing connection, of freedom, used both for good and for ill. One of the reasons Christians are getting involved in interfaith work is to show solidarity and build relationships with those who are suffering because of who they are. While Christians may not want to become Muslims, they want to take a stand against anti-Muslim hatred. Far-right organizations such as Britain First have claimed a Christian identity, mounting ‘Christian patrols’ and storming mosques holding Bibles and crosses.4 Their actions demonstrate that they are not followers of Jesus, who teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Just as I would reject Britain First’s claims to be representative Christians, so I understand why many Muslims find the claims of ISIS or Al-Qaeda to be abhorrent, and in no way representative of their Islamic faith. The complexities of this debate are outside the scope of this introductory chapter, but suffice to say the vast majority of Muslims in the UK are peace-loving, loyal to this country, and as concerned as most Christians are, if not more so, about radicalization and terrorism. We can build relationships of love and support for people of other faiths without having to reach complete agreement on all our doctrinal differences.

If we look across the globe, we see violence being done in the name of most of the major world faiths. There are far-right Jewish settlers in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria as they would term it, who, claiming a biblical mandate, are violent in their actions against Palestinians as they seize land. There are Buddhist monks in Burma inciting hatred of and violence towards the Rohingya. There are Muslims in Syria, Nigeria and elsewhere in the world who do violence to their neighbours (including other Muslims) in the name of building an Islamic state. There are Christians in Uganda and the Sudan, calling themselves the Lord’s Resistance Army, who have murdered and raped their way across vast areas. There are militant Hindus, especially in India in the far-right group the RSS, who persecute Sikhs, Christians and Muslims. There are Sikhs who, wanting to further their desire for a free Khalistan, have resorted to violence to advance their claims. I recognize that the real causes and nature of each situation are much more complex than the simple sentences above suggest. But there is sometimes a connection between violence and religion. I once organized a day seminar on the limits of religious freedom in the UK. One of our keynote speakers was Leicestershire Police’s Chief Constable, who said in his opening remarks that he had arrested people of every faith, ethnicity and socio-economic background. People of faith do bad things, and in our era of identity politics and increasing intolerance of difference, religious identity becomes a badge to wear and a means of distinguishing the other and justifying violence against them.

That is why there is an increasingly urgent need for people of all faiths and no faith to come together. The strapline of the St Philip’s Centre, the organization I work for, is that although the world is divided, we believe we can learn to live well together. Rooted in Christianity, especially in the Anglican tradition, we want to work with people of all faiths and no faith for the good of all, helping people to meet those who are different from them, developing greater understanding of worldviews other than their own. We do not expect people to agree with each other. In fact, I often joke at the start of a course that if the participants do agree on everything then I have failed; it means that the conversation has not gone deep enough. I have no interest in lowest common denominator statements. After all, if you include Pagans, Humanists and Buddhists in these discussions, you cannot even reference belief in one God. You have to say something like ‘we support humanity’ and ‘please can people be nice to each other’. Both are true, but neither is enough to change the world. What we need are people who are so secure in their own identity that they are comfortable being friends with people who are completely different from them, who see the world in radically different ways. We need to build relationships of trust with people whose fundamental worldview is in opposition to ours. We have to cooperate with people whose moral and ethical frameworks are not the same as ours, who may share our goal but whose reasons, motivations and even methods are not the same as ours.

In his book Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear, Matthew Kaemingk explains that his fundamental commitments are ‘an uncompromising commitment to the exclusive lordship of Jesus Christ’ while simultaneously holding ‘an uncompromising commitment to love those who reject that lordship’ (2018, 16). He might be described as an exclusivist pluralist, that is, someone who is exclusivist in his understanding of salvation (on which more in Chapter 2) but at the same time pluralist in his vision for wider society. Kaemingk describes the type of pluralism he is aiming for as descriptive, juridical and normative. Descriptive pluralists take the deep differences in cultures, communities and religions seriously; rather than reduce things to the lowest common denominator, they are willing to stand in the complexity, listening and learning about the differences. Juridical pluralism argues that the legal rights and freedoms of different communities, cultures, religions and associations must all be protected. Normative pluralism regards this variety as good, believing that God delights in the variety of human culture, advocating for structural and social diversity, which is seen in all aspects of life. But at the same time this recognition is not uncritical; faults are seen and named for what they are. Moreover, religious difference is neither praised nor celebrated (2018, 16–19). Kaemingk illustrates his point with a story he entitles ‘the tolerance of the Fundamentalist’. It describes a conservative Christian pastor, the Reverend Kees Sybrandi, based in the Netherlands. He believes that Islam is a false religion and Allah a ‘desert demon spirit’. Yet when mosques across the Netherlands came under attack in the wake of the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004, he stood guard over his local mosque to protect it from attempted arson or violence against Muslims. He has never shown any interest or concern for Islam or friendship with Muslims. When Kaemingk was asked why he had stood up to defend the mosque, he simply replied, ‘Jesus commanded me to love my neighbor – my enemy too’ (2018, 25–6).

This is one example of a form of interfaith engagement as Christian discipleship. There are, of course, many examples of Christians building strong friendships of mutual trust and understanding with people of all faith backgrounds. Jesus told his followers that the greatest commandment is to love God with, as Eugene Peterson puts it in his Message translation, all our ‘passion and prayer and intelligence and energy’ and to ‘love others as well as you love yourself’ (Mark 12.29–31). One of the ways I do this is to work for the good of people of all faiths and no faith. As Andrew Smith points out, loving our neighbours means engaging with them, finding out their names, hopes, fears, dreams, standing alongside them when things are tough, celebrating when things are good, not simply tolerating or respecting at a distance, but being with and being for them (2018, 25). James Smith suggests that love of neighbour ‘propels us to responsibility for the public life of the nations and communities in which we find ourselves as pilgrims and sojourners’ (2017, 35), which surely includes interfaith engagement in a variety of forms.

What does it mean to love a Jain, say, as I love myself? I believe that three things are important. First, pray for God’s blessing on them. As noted above, Jesus commands us to pray for our enemies as well as our neighbours (Matthew 5.43–48), and whichever you consider people of other faiths to be, you cannot duck Jesus’ command that you pray for them. Second, seek good for them. If you love someone, you want them to flourish. So if I love my Pagan friend, I want her to flourish. That includes helping her develop, say, her leadership skills or understanding of how best to interact with local government. It might be being generous in sharing resources around safeguarding as a new Buddhist community gets to grips with the legal requirements in this area. Third, share Jesus in word and deed. In saying this I am mindful of my comments about motivation above. This action can only come out of a relationship built on the first two. It requires you to be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, neither shying away from opportunities nor manipulating conversations to simply impose propositional truth. After all, we want the gospel to be heard as genuine good news. You may have to spend a decade building a relationship of trust before someone is actually able to hear you talk about Jesus as good news for them. This is, in fact, no different whether the person is a member of another faith community or has no faith at all. As Paul reminds us, whether we plant or water (or weed), we are simply called to be gardeners, as it is God who gives the growth (1 Corinthians 3.6).

A word about intentional growth

One of the many things I have learnt through interfaith engagement is that words matter. The language we use says a lot about our assumptions and presuppositions. This becomes very clear when you discuss exactly what it is people believe. The language we use to talk about faith and belief positions is often based on the presuppositions of Protestant Christianity: we talk about sacred scripture, about places of worship, about prayers, priests. And we talk about mission and evangelism. For many people of different faiths, especially those whose origins are in countries that used to be part of the British Empire, talk of Christian mission is inextricably intertwined with talk of colonialization. Their perception is that the Church of England spread as an adjunct of the British Empire and so any evangelistic activity is understood as an attempt to destroy identity, culture and family relationships, not simply persuading an individual to become a follower of Jesus.5 There are strong historical grounds to support these fears, and Christians would do well to study the actions of their ancestors with sceptical and suspicious eyes, to understand how we are perceived by many in the world today.

It is therefore useful to find new language to talk about activities that, in fact, virtually every faith community is engaged in. Thus, rather than talk about mission or evangelism, I prefer to talk about intentional growth, as all faith communities do this, normally focusing on three distinct but interrelated areas of family expansion, recalling the lapsed faithful, and welcoming spiritual seekers. I will illustrate the point with reference to my experience of Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Pagan, Baha’i, Buddhist and Christian communities.

Taking Leicester’s two Jewish congregations as my first example, the Orthodox community’s growth strategy focuses primarily on the first two strands. The rabbi’s family is a particular case in point. At the time of writing he has nine children and by the time you read this that number may well be greater. This is an example of growth through family expansion. He also sees part of his role to be calling lapsed Jews to greater religious observance, and is tireless in his efforts to do so. Although Leicester Hebrew Congregation has seen some growth through these two methods, they do not organize any programmes to welcome or attract spiritual seekers. By contrast, the Progressive Jewish community has also grown through all three methods, seeing a modest increase in families and lapsed Jews attending as well as a number of spiritual seekers deciding that this community is their spiritual home. The process of joining is long and deliberately contains a number of obstacles, and there is no formal plan or outreach strategy; people simply turn up. It is not easy to become Jewish, but you can if you are prepared to make the effort.

The Hindu community employs the same three strategies. Many mandirs (temples) focus primarily on the first two, that is, on encouraging families to bring up their children according to their particular understanding of Hindu life and thought, and becoming a prominent place within the community for those who wish to be more active in their devotional life. Some Hindu groups, of which the ISKCON (Hare Krishna) movement is probably the best known, are active in intentional outreach to spiritual seekers, running faith discovery courses and activities. In Leicester, I have attended their five-session Explore course, which was designed to encourage both lapsed Hindus and spiritual seekers to embrace the ISKCON understanding of Hinduism.6

Exactly the same could be said of the Muslim community. Many masjids (mosques) focus primarily on providing a madrassah, a place of education for children, as a means of attracting a congregation. Dawa (mission) focused organizations, such as Tablighi Jamaat, are mainly interested in encouraging cultural Muslims to become religiously active Muslims, knocking on doors and inviting Muslim men who have lapsed in mosque attendance to come to congregational prayers, especially for Jummah prayers on a Friday lunchtime.7 Some groups are interested in calling anyone and everyone to Islamic faith, and run courses aimed at achieving this goal.8 Such groups often run book tables in town centres over the weekend; the more strategically focused ensure that these tables are staffed by white British converts, to emphasize the point that anyone can embrace Islam. Interestingly, in my experience it is often those groups like the Hare Krishna and the dawa focused Muslims who are also particularly keen on interfaith engagement.

Some groups are less focused on all three areas, although most are interested in family and/or lapsed cultural adherents. I am not aware, for example, of a Sikh community group that is particularly focused on spiritual seekers from outside of the culturally Sikh community. Similarly, the Baha’i or the Pagan community are open to individuals joining them, but do not have forms of intentional outreach aimed specifically at spiritual seekers. Other groups are too small to put significant resources into all three areas. Some Buddhist groups, for example, focus primarily on growth through interaction with individual adults who want to develop their own Buddhist practice. Other Buddhist groups focus particularly on bringing up their own children to share their faith. It depends on the circumstances and resources of the individual community.

Christians likewise vary in which intentional growth strategies they follow. No Christian church wants to fade away, but equally not all have plans for ‘seeker friendly services’ or evangelistic outreach. Some suggest that the best strategy is to focus primarily on lapsed congregants. In one interfaith discussion I heard the Archbishop of Canterb...