2013-06-20T00:54:59-04:00 Rev. Donald Heckman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=rev-donald-heckman Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Rev. Donald Heckman Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2849432 2013-03-11T13:17:40-04:00 2013-05-11T05:12:01-04:00

Rev. Donald Heckman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-donald-heckman/ We've Got A Brand Problem

If I ask you what the human rights, civil rights or environmental movements are about, you likely can give a semi-coherent description that sounds something like what your neighbor might say if we asked her as well. The interfaith relations movement, on the other hand, has no defined brand. (Some people working squarely within the movement actually even giggle a bit when I try to even use the term "interfaith movement.")

It's a fluid network of people and organizations working to advance tolerance, understanding and genuine respect for the religious "other" (plural) and the positive appropriation of religious diversity. It has emerging centers and hubs in NGOs, academia and the foundation world. In the U.S., it has some leading luminaries like Eboo Patel, Diana Eck, Welton Gaddy and Bill Vendley, to name just a few that I have learned from. It has also has less visible architects like Lynn Szwaja, Philip Clayton, Jennifer Peace and Heidi Hadsell. But overall it lacks definition and gravity and falls short of being a "movement."

So what is wrong? Because the need for a movement for religious cooperation has never been greater. It appears we've got a brand problem. It's the name, stupid.

What Do You Call It?

Speaking about social change, Cheryl Heller recently said, "If it is true, as has been said, that all change begins with language, then it is equally true that the inability to change begins with language as well."

If the movement for religious cooperation, as we might call it, wants to get out of the mud, it has to address its serious name problem. "Interfaith" is such a plastic word that it doesn't mean much of anything. The word is used by people with distinct faiths engaging with others of distinct faiths (what we more technically call "interreligious" in the field). The word is also used by the "spiritual but not religious" set and those with "multi-spiritual" or "multi-religious" identities. Few understand this fact yet, but for the latter there are even "interfaith" ministers and interfaith "churches" where people who concurrently hold multiple affiliations can find community with the same. (I say "concurrently" so as not to confuse, because according to Pew Forum approaching one half of all people in the US change their religious affiliation during at least one point in their life).

The problem is that some of the folks -- all using the same word, "interfaith," mind you -- don't want to be caught dead with the others. Not a very nice thing for a bunch of folks who are supposed to be spiritual or religious, is it? Most often it is the single faith/institution folks not wishing to congregate with the multiple-affiliation folks, because it challenges the integrity of the boundaries, authority, and truth claims that they hold dear.

In short, some folks think we are all following different paths up the same mountain to essentially the same peak. Others think that, while we might all be on paths, those paths are certainly not the same and the mountains are quite distinct.

This tension is situated in the competing assumptions about the meaning and place of sacred texts, traditions, and histories of traditions and their relationships with that of others. Not everybody can bracket (or not, as it may be) the truth claims of their own tradition(s) in the same way as others. And these truth claims in religious talk are about the very core of the meaning and purpose of life. The labels we choose, therefore, carry more gravity, more hidden assumptions than what appears on the surface.

Add to this the whopping 20 percent of the American population that is now categorized as "nones and nons" -- folks who are religiously very independent (even to the point of not having any faith) or who aren't "faithed" but are somewhere in the blender of things that is labeled "interfaith." Or, in contrast, add the wide swath of Christian Evangelicals for whom "interfaith" is the simply the shorthand way that you talk about positioning your Christian faith for marketing to those of other faiths, and, well, you've got some serious confusion as to what we are talking about when we say "interfaith."

Something Has To Give

Terms like multifaith, multireligious, intrafaith, interfaith and inter-religious each have nuanced technical meanings in the field (that is, if you believe there is one). But that is a useless fact to the average ear. Those words too often appear everyday in print as though they were synonyms. They are not. We need a way out.

People should have a right to identify themselves as they wish, as long as it is not offensive. Self description is a matter of justice. Since we can't ask one group to start using a new term -- like "intra-spiritual," "multi-spiritual," or the like -- I think we may need to cede the term "interfaith" to the small but growing number of people who see faith, religion and spirituality as boundary-less enterprises of exploration and who allow for multiple affiliations. And the more narrow technical term "interreligious" needs to be co-opted to cover the broad arc of things that are multi-, inter- and intra- for -faith, -religious and - spiritual. I wish there was a more satisfactory solution, and perhaps there will be soon with some new things on the horizon.

A Turning Point

We are at a turning point in the "interfaith movement." Focused non-profit organizations, contributing foundations and academic centers are well formed enough now that they are going to give shape to the movement and its public nomenclature going forward.

Eck famously demarcated "religious pluralism" as the positive appropriation of the fact of religious diversity and championed it in the academy and in public fora. Today, finally, the American Academy of Religion has formally recognized what has become increasingly unavoidable: the legitimacy of interfaith and interreligious studies as a work area, an idea Eck championed as its president several years ago. Rather interestingly, this year the AAR will focus on religious pluralism and include a new group, the Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Group. Another such sign is the fact that that the Association of Theological Schools passed in the last year an accreditation requirement that seminaries and theological schools, in effect, need to account for how they are preparing their leaders to deal with the religious "other."

Some of the conversations in November in Baltimore at the AAR will begin to answer the many questions about "what do you call it?" Though the term coining is likely to come from the field itself, the massaging and refining may happen in the academy. And the job of branding and positioning is one for all of us.

Religion, faith and spirituality are sensitive conversational material. In America, we privatize our religious experience and hold as sacrosanct our rights to have whatever belief we wish, in interest of protecting everyone's beliefs. The subject matter -- like politics -- is even seen by many as taboo in polite conversation. But at the same time, we need to have tools to speak publicly about our religion, faith and spirituality in constructive ways that reduce tensions and build social cohesion. This will require getting us beyond our silos and language fumbling.

It starts with exposures and experiences with and education about the religious "other." It is advanced by some generally common understandings about what is labeled what. Language is integral to social change. And religious cooperation or interfaith relations will not advance as a field without dissipating some of the current linguistic beclouding.

So what do we call it when two people constructively engage with one another about religion, faith or spirituality? As for me, for now, I will just call it "progress."

Some further treatment on meaning of the words in this essay is found in opening chapter of 'InterActive Faith: The Essential Interreligious Community-Building Handbook' (Skylight Paths, 2008).]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2207239 2012-11-29T17:43:17-05:00 2013-01-29T05:12:02-05:00

Rev. Donald Heckman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-donald-heckman/ The Potential Impact of the New Saudi-Sponsored Interfaith Center in Vienna

The question is no longer, "Should governments foster interreligious action?" but instead, "How should they do it?" And then, "What happens when they do?"

Governments have been helping to advance interreligious dialogue for many years, particularly since 9/11. They have an increasing interest in the enterprise, especially given the way religions are manipulated in global conflicts. Qatar, Norway, Kazakhstan, Jordan, United States, Indonesia, Denmark are but a few of the countries with interreligious initiatives.

The interfaith field is fledgling. Though the modern interfaith movement had its harbinger in the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago, interfaith work and organizations only began to come to life in the 1960s with organizations like Religions for Peace. Despite some shining examples to the contrary, the field today is under-funded, ill-coordinated and un-strategic. In contrast, the movements for civil rights, human rights and environmental justice each emerged in roughly the same time frame and became widely publicly recognized and defined fields. Why? They came to be anchored by a plethora of well-developed non-profits, academic centers, donor bases and even, finally, enjoyed government support.

For interfaith work, government involvement has often began and ended with the hosting of conferences and exchange visits, halting at the level of restrained observation and conversation. That is a necessary early step and valuable for advancing understanding and education, but the real promise for the field to become a field is in bringing government-scale funding and gravitas to fostering interreligious action. The involvement of multiple governments -- with resources, not just platitudes -- will create a global political climate of expectation for religious tolerance.

The stakes just changed in that regard. The world's newest and perhaps boldest center for interreligious engagement formally opened on Nov. 26 in Vienna, Austria in an elaborate inauguration ceremony featuring high-level religious and political leaders at the Hofburg Palace. Backed by Saudi Arabia with the support of Spain and Austria, the King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue fulfills a vision of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, for fostering "religion as enabler of respect and reconciliation."

KAICIID, as it is called, is not just another NGO in the emerging field of interfaith relations. First, it is the most well funded enterprise of its kind, with tens of millions of Euros in support from the Saudi government alone for first three years of outfitting.

Second, KAICIID (pronounced "ky-sid") will be integrated with the United Nations in its activities and promises to move beyond just "head-talk" dialogues toward fostering action-oriented projects in education, health and other areas. It showcased many of the kinds of organizations that it might partner with in the future in best practices workshops on its inauguration day.

Just how its relationship with the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations -- now interestingly with Abdulaziz Al-Nasser of neighboring Qatar at the helm as the High Representative -- will play out will remain to be seen. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon was clear in his opening remarks at KAICIID's opening that the two entities would have to work together. The UNAoC has leaned heavily toward the cultural pole on the continuum of religion and cultural, perhaps because it is more beholden to a wider array of member states' interests, many of which find culture conceptually safer ground for engagement. KAICIID looks better equipped and ready to tackle the role of religion.

The Saudi generosity should not be looked at like a gift horse in the mouth, as it too often has been. The Saudis have a number of leading philanthropists like Mohamed Abdul Latif Jameel and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who have been exemplary in giving away millions in private support to interfaith initiatives without an inkling of promoting any brand of Islam or Saudi political view being advanced in the process.

Unfortunately, much of the initial reporting on KAICIID has fixated on the conditions for religious freedom and gender parity in the major sponsoring country. Such challenges give little or no appreciation for the complexity of political conditions in Saudi Arabia and what would be necessary to transform and mitigate those concerns, nor respect for the brave diplomacy of His Majesty King Abdullah's reform efforts to date. With a small and religiously diverse board, there is enough DNA in the governance design of KAICIID that the good intentions of the Centre should be received for what it is that they are on their own terms. Besides, none of the countries fostering interreligious dialogue today has completely clean hands when you consider the interreligious tensions found on their own soil.

For example, even with the respected model of religious freedom in the U.S., the wheels of justice and fairness sometimes take time in helping people to live up to their highest ideals. The much challenged Islamic Center in central Tennessee -- subject of a recent CNN special "Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door" -- just publicly opened last weekend after more than a few challenges over several years. And former periods of religious phobias and discrimination -- against Jews, Catholics and Mormons -- are not so far back in history. Religious tolerance and freedom is a struggle everywhere. It is a matter of degree, discovery and complexity. It takes time and effort to make changes.

For evidence of KAICIID's sincerity in making space for difficult questions, one needs look no further than Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran's inauguration ceremony remarks. He openly reminded his esteemed colleagues that the Holy See, a Founding Observer, is very "concerned about the fate of Christian communities where their freedom is restricted." The Vatican is concerned about the welfare of Christians and reciprocity, and they did not feel inhibited from saying so, even with glasses still clinking in the opening festival.

The measure of success for KAICIID will be not only in creating a space where difficult concerns can be aired with integrity, but also in its programmatic outputs and outcomes. The first major project of KAICIID -- a joint effort with UNICEF and Religions for Peace -- to advance child survival rates through multi-religious efforts at nutrition delivery in Africa is a hopeful sign of its potential. What unfolds in the coming months and years will ultimately show the value of government involvement in the emerging field. Cardinal Tauran said it bluntly and with knowing humor at the beginning of his remarks, saying slowly and with emphasis "we are being watched!" Indeed, you are KAICIID.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1007198 2011-10-17T15:54:28-04:00 2011-12-17T05:12:01-05:00

Rev. Donald Heckman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-donald-heckman/
Things have been changing rapidly in the expanding field of interfaith relations. Therefore, it may be worth measuring our progress by some milestones of our achievement rather than by an elusive final destination. I want to suggest 6 different markers of hope which I see, and I want to invite you to share your own markers of hope and stories of success.

I see great progress in academic legitimization, institutional development, research expansion, intra-field cooperation, government partnerships and specialization of work.

Academy

When Diana Eck addressed the American Academy of Religion (AAR) as President five years ago, I glumly noted to her that, out of the hundreds and hundreds of workshops at the AAR, only two referenced "interfaith." Through the Pluralism Project, Diana built an entire industry out of the study of religious pluralism with dozens of scholars and researchers in her network. Yet the academy was largely stuck in the dry approaches of comparative religion and history of religion. This year's AAR program, however, is so chock full of practical "interfaith" things that a person could go to just such workshops for the full five days.

At the same time, seminaries are re-inventing their approaches to the religious "other," following the groundbreaking lead of the folks at Hartford Seminary, Auburn Seminary and Claremont Lincoln University.

Colleges and universities are similarly signing up wholesale for the array of services of the Interfaith Youth Core to transform their campuses and tomorrow's leaders.

Institution Building

Interfaith organizations are growing like spring grass. In 2003, I started research with a team of interns at Religions for Peace USA to count and categorize interfaith organizations. We took Chris Coble's earlier research and expanded it to find 17 different kinds and more than 1,000 interfaith organizations in the U.S. Eight years later, a new breed of taxonomers is telling me they have more than 25 categories. With my colleagues at Coexist Foundation USA, we just catalogued nearly 2,000 interfaith entities.

Research

The Coexist Foundation has invested a great deal in research through Gallup on perceptions of Muslims and the global success of interfaith relations. But our research is just one of dozens of efforts. The researchers at Hartford Institute for Religion Research have had a decade-long look at interfaith relations and are showing from two- to four-fold growth in shared experiences of "worship" and common action across faith lines. ARDA, Glenmary Research Center, Public Religion Research Institute and many others are producing equally important data.

Cooperation

In response to the public relations disaster of Park51 last summer, six New York-based interfaith organizations worked together this year under the umbrella of Prepare NY. This first-ever multi-organizational interfaith effort has resulted in hundreds of dialogues and in a more peaceful, constructive and meaningful celebration for the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. Religions for Peace USA joined with Groundswell, Hebrew College and other institutions to release a statement together about our shared focus after 9/11.

Government Partnerships

Religions for Peace has pioneered fostering government-religious community partnerships, which hold much promise for scaling interfaith relations. Recently, I had the pleasure of serving on the Interreligious Cooperation Task Force of the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and had the pleasure of seeing the new ways in which government is becoming responsive to religious communities. The U.S. Government is just one among many governments who have taken a unique interest in advancing interfaith relations. Qatar, Norway, Indonesia, Finland, Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia are but a few of the countries doing creative new things to foster multifaith cooperation.

Specialization

The waters were much murkier 20 years ago, before the resurgence of the Parliament of the World's Religions, and even 10 years ago, before the 9/11-inspired surge of interfaith growth. Organizations were less clear about their niches, their unique value. With today's clarity and specialization of mission comes better funding, cooperation and focused impact.

No longer the infant, the interfaith movement is more like the awkward teenager, showing signs of becoming a promising adult, but not there yet. What is next? We have room to grow.

Funding is one of the most critical areas that must come along further if we want to say we have succeeded. My recent research shows an array of new funders starting to test the waters of supporting interfaith relations. While the continued down global economy and shifts in focus for a handful of the original funders for the movement may give some pause, The Coexist Foundation has been working hard to be one of many in a hopeful countercurrent of support at this critical hour.

The Coexist Foundation is awarding an endowed annual $100,000 Coexist Prize for an unsung hero/heroine in interfaith relations, and we wish to celebrate the stories of your success that are worthy of being told. Video stories will be made of the finalists and shared at the announcement of winners next Spring.

We have to continue to progress along the above lines and make advancements in other areas. For instance, we have to: more effectively engage traditional and new media, articulate standards and measurable outcomes, and help a new, forward-looking generation come into mid-life leadership roles in the movement.

With our common efforts, religious pluralism can become the norm.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.593775 2010-05-28T15:20:00-04:00 2011-05-25T16:35:20-04:00

Rev. Donald Heckman http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-donald-heckman/
As a child, in the weeks leading up to Memorial Day, I would follow my father, who served in WWII, and the men from the local American Legion post in Tipp City, Ohio, as they visited cemeteries and cleaned, cleared, and marked the graves of fallen soldiers.

Flags, parades, 21-gun salutes, and sobbing hulks of men pausing at the foot of graves fill my childhood memory. Honoring the fallen, I seek out the opportunity each year for my children to experience it with me.

The graves I marked as a boy with brass military placards and crisp flags were often inscribed with Christian crosses or Jewish Stars of David. Those fallen soldiers must have pondered the question, "What is worth dying for?"

Both my country's call to service and my own Christian faith compel me to ask this same question. For my faith that is so because the central act of Christianity is God's self-sacrifice through Jesus' crucifixion. No doubt many who have given their life for country were also influenced by a faith that has such sacrifice at the core of its story, or by the many faiths, like mine, that instruct that there are sometimes greater purposes to serve than oneself.

We live in an era of voluntary rather than conscripted military service. That has spared me from being required to serve my country in the same fashion as my forebears. I pray that my children will also enjoy the same privilege, because wars are of a different stripe today.

Wars used to be about territory and tyrants. The stakes and tasks were more obvious. But today, the main issues are terrorism, trade, and technology. Non-state actors are a more menacing and elusive threat.

Territories can be conquered and despots defeated, but knocking down an ideology or a diffuse movement is another thing altogether, as we have discovered.

The world has become smaller, even as it has grown more complicated and the population has grown larger. That is to say, modern technology, travel, and communications now make it more difficult to divide the world into a simple "us" vs. "them."

My father and grandfather would have never imagined the countries that I have traveled to, the languages I have learned, and the diverse network of friends that I enjoy. My world is far more interrelated. I am proud to be an American, but I enjoy the privilege of feeling like a citizen of the world, as well. That simply was not a possibility for my forebears. And my children's world looks even more interrelated than mine.

Further, distinct from my forebears, I chose the path of Christian ministry. Over the past decade I have worked in interfaith relations, where I have come to learn from people of many faiths. From the perspective of my faith and my experience, poverty and oppression are the real core of conflicts in our world today. They are the real enemy of humanity. They are the Petri dish of terrorism and insurgencies.

Our challenges are different from those of previous generations, and our tactics now must be different, as well. President Obama repeatedly acknowledged as much in his speech to the graduating class of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point last weekend. He said our future cannot rest on "our soldiers ... or American shoulders alone."

According to the Stockholm International Peace Institute, military spending has reached an all-time high of almost $1.5 trillion in 2009. The U.S. accounts for nearly half of that total expenditure. We must soberly admit that this is not sustainable, and that it is counter-productive to our end goal of peace.

It is in the best interest of our shared security to invest more in eradicating extreme poverty and oppression through development efforts. We are at the two-thirds point in the implementation of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. And which goal is lagging far behind the others in progress? The first one: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

We have to develop the will to address this problem of poverty more concertedly. It is a greater challenge than any we have faced militarily. And it is our greatest security threat, as well. The World Bank estimates that one in five people on the planet live in extreme poverty. To paraphrase and extend the idea expressed by President Obama, we need a new 'army' of many, including especially development experts and agencies prepared to work in partnership across sectors.

Of course, the American military has already retooled to some degree to more frequently provide humanitarian assistance instead of simply military engagement. However, a more radical realignment of our resources will be necessary to attack our real enemies: poverty and oppression. Al-Qaeda and other terrorist movements would simply not be as successful in espousing their violent and separatist ideologies if our world were not so rife with angry, disaffected, and unemployed young people vulnerable to persuasion of joining their ranks.

I see one sign of hope. The Global Youth Network associated with Religions for Peace, where I work, is forwarding a modest disarmament proposal to governments around the world under a campaign called Arms Down! In just a few months, they have collected more than three million signatures on a petition to direct a mere one percent of reduced military spending per year to development work for the next 10 years. This small gesture would fully fund efforts to eliminate extreme poverty. We need more efforts like Arms Down!

The possibility for resource redirection is immediately before us. Even Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently conceded in America's heartland that the "gusher of defense spending" that ensued after 9/11 would have to be capped.

As you stand over the graves of fallen loved ones this Memorial Day Weekend, ask yourself, "What did they die for?" What was most important to them? Freedom? Peace? Their faith? Their family?

Our world has changed. In the end, we want the same things as our forefathers and mothers: freedom and a world of peace. In an interrelated world in which your security is my security, we must see the clear link between security and development.

We have to start addressing together our core challenges, such as poverty, from multiple angles in order to achieve our shared goal of peace. To truly honor the fallen, we have to adjust to this new kind of 'enemy' and see that we are all part of the struggle for peace.]]>