Are We There Yet? The Progress of the Interfaith Movement

How do we know when we have arrived in the interfaith movement? When religious pluralism is normative? When religious differences don't cause conflict or even concern?

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.

 

 

 

Follow Rev. Donald Heckman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/budheckman

Comments

[umbriago]

03:41 PM on 10/18/2011

Despite our own silly and misguided notions, we think that what you believe is even more silly and misguided, but why don't we sit down for a cup of coffee and patronize each other with a nice chat.

[Syllogizer]

01:30 PM on 10/18/2011

Instead of asking "are we there yet", you should be asking, "where is this 'interfaith' movement capable of taking us, and do we really want to go there?

Or are you too committed to the movement to face the unpleasant answer to both these questions?

[FirstGame72]

07:53 AM on 10/18/2011

Of course we are nowhere near acceptance of each others religions or even acceptance between the faithful and non faithful. Bigotry still must be ahead ten to one in this country.
But the efforts and programs listed in this article seem like good steps and good work.

[ThinkCreeps]

07:23 AM on 10/18/2011

Are we there yet?
No, people are still being superstitious.

[LesHamilton]

06:06 AM on 10/18/2011

Interesting article; I would never have imagined all the names and acronyms for organizations created to help religions talk to each other. The easiest way to get a handle on the barriers to interfaith cooperation is to think of religions as vendible products with different market share and regional dominance. Religions need a certain critical mass to become power players and therefore, the number of adherents is important. The reason why there is little movement toward developing an interfaith agenda is that the key players have no interest in talking other than to know what the competition is doing and perhaps working together to keep emerging faiths out of the market.

[az0th]

05:18 AM on 10/18/2011

I believe we're a long way from pluralism. Often, one mans saint is another's heretic. Perfect adherence to the rules of any given denomination brings on you the damnation of a dozen others each claiming "True Knowledge of God!" And hellfire for those who disagree. And ironically, in the end, each religion is based on men because even if the bible is true in entirety, denominations are inventions of men and who is right and gets to heaven is a cosmic c.r.ap-shoot.

[Jelle NL]

04:36 AM on 10/18/2011

Dialogue among people of different religions is a good thing. And the best "marker of hope" for the interfaith movement is the percentage of interfaith dialogues that do NOT have religion as their main topic. -- Keep your religion as private as possible. Friends first, later religion.

[Stephen Rifkin]

06:56 PM on 10/17/2011

Interfaith movements are silly. They are rarely if ever, anything more than non Christians reaching out to Christians, and increasingly, Muslims to hopefully prevent some new atrocity being heaped upon them. Do we really care if the B'hai and the Sunni Muslims get along in Dearborn Michigan? Is the Methodist Church all that worried about what the RCC thinks about them?

[recless]

12:03 AM on 10/18/2011

It denies a simple fact. I cannot take a data set (situation, whatever) and feed it to religion and then feed it to science and expect to get the same answer every time. Religion and science are mutually exclusive.

[Godfearing]

06:56 PM on 10/17/2011

Unfortunately, the world will never get there at long as the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim religions exist.
Think about it!