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Summer/Fall 2005 |
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inSpire Interactive
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Old Philadelphia Congregations is the local ministerium for congregations (Christian and Jewish) in the historic district of Philadelphia. In the spring of 2004, more than 200 people gathered at the local synagogue to discuss the movie The Passion of the Christ. The rabbi, a priest from a Roman Catholic church, a pastor from a Lutheran church, and I each presented a perspective, and then those gathered discussed the issues in small groups. It was an evening of lively, rich exchange. One member of the synagogue said later, “I’ve never heard such a succinct explanation of the Christian faith. I think I understand your basic beliefs now.” The Jewish, Catholic, and Presbyterian congregations have continued to meet for Bible study focused on readings from the Hebrew Bible.
Deborah McKinley (M.Div., 1982)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
The popularity of our interfaith Bible study series still surprises me. It began with the release of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ. Concern about potential anti-Semitic fallout from the film prompted two local rabbis, another Protestant pastor, and me to rent out a movie theater. All four of our congregations were invited to view the film together. After the film, the four clergy responded to questions from the audience, including, “How can we keep this interfaith dialogue going?”
This fall marked the fifth series of interfaith Bible studies. During each four-week study, participants examine the same biblical texts from both Christian and Jewish perspectives. If a rabbi presents, a pastor responds, and vice versa. So far we have covered Genesis, Exodus, Psalms, life-shaping texts, and texts related to various holidays. It has been a wonderful way for our communities to learn from one another as we seek a deeper understanding in God’s word.
Bruce R. Johnson (M.Div., 1983)
Scottsdale, Arizona
Summit Presbyterian Church, which I serve as pastor, shares space with P’nai Or, a Jewish renewal movement congregation. Summit and P’nai Or celebrated a Sukkot potluck service together in October. Rabbi Marsha Prager talked about the Sukkot traditions resonating in the Palm Sunday entry of Jesus of Nazareth into Jerusalem. Then both congregations gathered for food and fellowship on the lawn of the church, where the Sukkot shelter had been standing for several days. Later this year, P’nai Or will be attending Pentecost at Summit, celebrating the Spirit of God.
Bill Levering (M.Div., 1979)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Our church was recently invited by the Conservative synagogue in our community to share their Friday evening worship service. Their worship was rooted and grounded in the Hebrew Bible, with a musical celebration of the Psalms. The associate rabbi preached a marvelous sermon, which was a work of excellent biblical hermeneutics and contemporary application. We felt as much at home as in our own worship. It was difficult to discern a difference in the music, scriptural emphasis, form of liturgy, and general celebration of God’s grace and goodness. The coffee hour afterward seemed very Presbyterian!
J. Harold Ellens (Th.M., 1965)
Troy, Michigan
As a new church development, Cornerstone Presbyterian has many members who have Jewish spouses and relatives, so we decided to have an interfaith Bible study on “Who is my neighbor?” (Leviticus 19:17)
We invited Rabbi Joel Soffin, whom I met last spring at a continuing education event at Princeton Seminary, to speak. Just before Thanksgiving, he and members of Temple Shalom synagogue in Succussana drove two hours to Jackson, New Jersey. Since we have no building, we met at the Bella Terra Retirement Home. There, people from both congregations and the retirement home discussed what it means to love our neighbor. It was truly enlightening. As we talked about our different perspectives, we realized that we had much in common. Then we had a kosher meal together, and gave thanks for new insights.
Rob Morrison (M.Div., 1969)
Jackson, New Jersey
At Burlingame Presbyterian, we have had the local rabbi lead our Session in a 40-minute devotion focusing on relations between Christians and Jews, and I, as pastor of the church, have done the same at his synagogue. The rabbi and I expect to co-teach a brief Scripture course this winter offered partly there and partly here for both congregations. In the spring we hope to take a joint trip to the Holy Land, intentionally mingling the two congregations. One of our planned highlights will be Father Chacour’s school at Ibellin in Northern Galilee, which teaches Muslims, Jews, and Christians.
Paul Watermulder (M.Div., 1977)
Burlingame, California
I have been active in the American Academy of Religion sessions on “scriptural reasoning” led by Professor Peter Ochs of the University of Virginia. These sessions involve Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading Scripture together. Laird Stuart (’68B) of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco and I are in the process of organizing a three-faith group in the city for reading our Scriptures together as they relate to topics that affect all three religious communities. This is being done with a financial subvention from the Institute for Reformed Theology at Union-PSCE, Richmond. If our experiment works, we hope to extend it under Institute auspices to other cities. I am also at work on a book on this general subject that develops the idea of “parallel hermeneutics“ among Abrahamic faiths at three levels of relationship: scriptural interpretation, mutual moral hospitality, and cooperation in the public sphere.
Lewis S. Mudge (M.Div., 1955)
Berkeley, California
Following the events of 9/11, the Inter-Church Fellowship of Mornington and Mount Martha established a program called “Knowing Each Other.” This was at a time when the broader community was starting to exhibit high levels of prejudice toward both Muslims and Jews, levels of prejudice not seen in Australia in recent decades. Our initial focus was to provide community education about Islam and Judaism through a series of talks by an imam and a rabbi. A series of public dialogues involving Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders on various topics followed, as did presentations on the life of other faith communities.
Bob Faser (M.Div., 1979)
Mount Martha, Victoria, Australia
In response to 9/11, the archdiocese of Milwaukee established an Interfaith Youth Forum to explore common yet distinctive faith practices of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Teens discussed the wisdom their respective faith traditions offer regarding welcoming the stranger, feasting and fasting, honoring the body, caring for creation, seeking justice, forgiving, and healing. The full list of interfaith dialogue questions is available on the Library page of www.practicingourfaith.org. While adults played a vital leadership role throughout this process, young people themselves made plenary presentations and facilitated small-group conversations. The Interfaith Youth Forum produced a training video and handbook titled “Sons and Daughters of Abraham” to inspire others to launch such a program in their own communities. For more details about this initiative, see www.tomorrowspresent.org.
Don Richter (M.Div., 1978; Ph.D., 1992)
Decatur, Georgia
Near the First Presbyterian Church of Maumee, Ohio, the oldest church in northwestern Ohio, is the Islamic Center of Greater Toledo, one of the largest mosques in the United States serving one of the highest populations of Muslims in the country.
In the aftermath of 9/11, their school playground became a target of angry protestors and drive-by harassment. Our congregation helped organize playground monitors who stood watch before, during, and after school, not keeping an eye on the children, but watching the cars as they drove by, taking license plate numbers of those that they believed posed a threat, dramatically decreasing the harassment.
Philip M. Jones (M.Div., 1979)
Maumee, Ohio
My congregation, United University Church, a union of Presbyterian and Methodist members on the campus of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, was one of the original members of the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, formed in the days immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Since then it has met every Friday at 7:00 a.m. and staged innumerable events, social actions, and worship services. It is amazing how members and their communities have supported each other through some difficult times. We are convinced that war will end/that a world where all thrive will come/that peace and justice will reign only with such diverse and concerted dialogue and commitment.
Susan Craig (M.Div., 1987)
Los Angeles, California
I am the founder and director of the Arts and Spirituality Center in Philadelphia, and we recently initiated the Doorways to Peace community mural project in collaboration with Al Aqsa Islamic Society. Al Aqsa longed to strengthen neighborhood relationships in an increasingly unfriendly post-9/11 environment. This project engaged more than 500 Muslims, Jews, Christians, and other curious neighbors and city-wide volunteers. School children and adults created original tiles that expressed their hopes for peace and the strength of their faiths and cultures. Neighborhood relationships moved from fear to friendship as they joined in creating extraordinary beauty in their neighborhood. To learn more about this and other innovative interfaith projects, visit www.artsandspirituality.org.
Susan Teegen-Case (M.Div., 1988)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
For many young people, interfaith dialogue is deeply personal: they come from interfaith homes, or their friends or extended family members belong to different faith traditions. Even so, they may not have the chance to talk about religious relationships. In 2005, youth from the local Muslim and Jewish communities visited the Youth Theological Initiative Summer Academy at Emory’s Candler School of Theology, which brings 54 rising high school seniors to Emory for a month-long program. They shared with our youth their perspective of their traditions and of relationships among the Abrahamic faiths. The conversation was vigorous, honest, and provocative. We’ll do it again in 2006, focusing on joint theological reflection on topics relevant to us all: religion-state relationships, the environment, poverty, and homelessness. The process has helped us to recognize the commitments we share with those from other traditions, and to pool the wisdom of all traditions together in pursuit of tikkun olam.
Faith Hawkins (M.Div., 1993)
Atlanta, Georgia
Before retiring as chaplain of Austin College, I helped to organize a hurricane relief trip to Nicaragua over spring break. One of our Muslim students wanted to go but could not afford it. He said friends had talked about the Samuel Robinson Award for memorizing the Westminster Shorter Catechism and writing a paper. Could he do this as a Muslim?
Yes, anyone at a Presbyterian college is eligible. He did it, wrote the paper using the Catechism, Bible, Qur’an, and the experience in Nicaragua as references. The committee in Louisville praised his paper. He was an outstanding part of our alternative spring break.
Henry Bucher (M.Div., 1962)
Sherman, Texas
At Concordia College, where I teach, in early January 2005 a sizable number of our students from Sri Lanka—Christian and Buddhist—had been personally affected by the tsunami disaster. We arranged a day-long vigil on the one-month anniversary of the disaster. A section of the chapel was transformed into an area where people of all faiths might gather publicly and pray individually. At the entry there was an easel where people could write thoughts and prayers, and candles, plants, and chairs set for conversation and quiet reflection. A more private space—facing East—was for prayer. There were rugs for kneeling, incense, shawls, beads, and copies of the Qur’an, Bible, and TaNaK. One student added his Buddha. The Sri Lankan students were comforted, and grateful for this vigil. The planning brought people of different religious traditions to work together for the first time. This experience has given birth to a vision for an interfaith worship space in the new student center currently under construction.
Elna K. Solvang (Ph.D., 2000)
Moorhead, Minnesota
The institution where I serve engages interfaith dialogue at two different junctures with our students. In their first religion course, each student participates in a weekend trip to Chicago, where we visit a variety of Christian churches and communities (Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Greek Orthodox, Anabaptist) as well as a synagogue and a mosque. Toward the end of their time with us, students often say that this journey of faith was a turning point for them as they began to process important faith questions that would engage them throughout their undergraduate years.
In their final year, all departmental majors join me in a weekend retreat at St. Meinrad’s Abbey in southern Indiana. Meeting the monks and praying the hours (in the absence of much of their modern technological gadgetry) provides a wonderful setting for the students to prepare to face graduation and embrace their chosen vocation. Both of these experiences have been a part of a Greenville College education now for about 30 years, and are an integral part of what we hope will be a liberating experience for our graduates.
Brian Hartley (Ph.D., 1983)
Greenville, Illinois
The community of Benedictine monks to which we belong has long been involved with interreligious dialogue, much in keeping with the call made to us monastics after Vatican II. Our men regularly visit with non-Christian monastics, such as Buddhist monks. We have had monks from the Dalhi Lama visit with us, and they once did a complete demonstration of their chanting and prayer on our university campus, Benedictine University. The university has a large Muslim population, along with Hindus of various observances. Our most recent program was the 15th annual interreligious Thanksgiving service for DuPage County, Illinois, held in our abbey church, that brought together some 15 different non-Christian groups along with some Christian ones.
David Turner (D.Min., 1996) and T. Becket A. Franks (D.Min., 2004)
Lisle, Illinois
In 1998, I became the pastor of Grant Memorial United Methodist Church in Presque Isle, Maine, whose new church building had taken the place of another that was destroyed by arson. A few weeks after I arrived, the local Jewish Community Center was desecrated with graffiti. Though we hadn’t yet met, I called the rabbi and expressed my regrets, asking how we could help. “I’m glad you called, “ he responded, “because when I saw what had been done to the center this morning, I felt emotions I’ve only felt one other time in my life: when I stood on the sidewalk and watched the old Methodist church burn.”
The violation of a worship space is an experience that crosses lines of denomination and faith, striking at the heart of our common sense of the Sacred. One week later, Christians and Jews joined in a candlelight procession to the community center, where dozens of hands washed away the swastikas and threats that had been scrawled on the building. That night yellow stars were passed among the participants, which appeared the next day in shop windows, restaurants, and homes, affirming that the hatred of one religious group was a crime against all people of faith.
Thomas L. Blackstone (M.Div., 1987)
Presque Isle, Maine
Thousands of evacuees fled the Gulf Coast to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to find shelter and emergency services. Overnight, an army of volunteers was needed to respond to a huge resettlement challenge. I volunteered with Interfaith Ministries of Houston to work in their Neighbors2Neighbors program, linking “new neighbors” (evacuees) with Houston residents to aid in relocation. I worked side by side with Muslims and Jews, Hindus, and even a Zoroastrian. I learned that whether the disaster is a personal or a natural one, people of all faiths can drop their differences and join hands to give hope. The heart of the gospel is not in destroying, but in restoring.
George Cladis (M.Div., 1980)
Houston, Texas
Claremont Presbyterian Church has had a 29-year-long relationship with a nearby synagogue, Temple Beth Israel. Each year, one week in January, we exchange pulpits. We also study the Bible and social justice issues together. Our women’s associations work together on Project Angel, which provides support to mothers and their babies in need. This year, after watching others struggle with natural disaster, we will be preparing for an emergency (and in Southern California, that means earthquake), working with the local police and the Red Cross. For the first time, we are working to invite a local Sunni mosque and Shiite school into the relationship.
Anne Weirich (M.Div., 1998)
Claremont, California
The Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton has had a relationship with The Jewish Center of Princeton, New Jersey, for more than ten years. During Yom Kippur, the congregation faithfully fasts, prays, and collects food as part of its practice of penance and atonement. Speaking at their Shabbat service was one of the most moving experiences I have had in my ministry. Upon hearing the Hebrew language spoken and sung, I felt deeply connected to God. I experienced the sacredness of the Ark of the Convenant and the unveiling of the Torah. When speaking of God’s justice for the oppressed, it is the history and the language of the Hebrews that unite us as one people of God.
Marcia MacKillop (M.Div., 2000)
Trenton, New Jersey
Some of the best interfaith work I’ve ever done came through my study with Charlie Ryerson, and later my trip with him to India while I was at PTS. I am forever indebted to him. Today, for example, I gave a talk on Advent at our chapel here at Trinity School (to a religiously affiliated and culturally pluralistic congregation), but used the varieties of yoga in Hinduism to discuss spiritual disciplines that help us stay awake to the Advent theme of watchfulness. Charlie Ryerson is the only professor at Princeton Seminary whose work with me could have led to this sort of interfaith presentation. He is a treasure.
Tim Morehouse (M.Div., 1991)
New York, New York
A very wise rabbi…oh, wait a minute, it was yours truly…once observed that when people laugh together, it’s nearly impossible for them to hate one another. Case in point: the comedy show, One Muslim. One Jew. One Stage. Two Very Funny Guys., which Los Angeles comedian and Egypt native Ahmed Ahmed and I have presented nearly 100 times in synagogues, churches, a mosque, theatres, and, increasingly, college campuses where Hillel, the Muslim Student Association, and interfaith clubs cosponsor the evening of non-political, community-building, healing, hopeful laughter. The Los Angeles Times put it most succinctly: “The touring stand-up duo are on the same side, and now there’s a smile-shaped crack in the wall between their long-warring peoples.”
Rabbi Bob Alper (D.Min., 1984)
East Dorset, Vermont
Several Hutterine communities in upstate New York invited me, as an army chaplain, to speak on “The Ethics of Violence.” This strongly pacifist tradition is distinctly conservative theologically and socially, but intellectually liberal in the finest sense of graciously (and peaceably) listening to all sides of controversial issues. I was, they said, “a lion in a den of Daniels.” I changed the title of my talk to “The Ethics of Force,” in order to argue that violence is always wrong but force is sometimes necessary. I presented myself as a genuine pacifist, however qualified by realities and necessities.
Wallace Alcorn (Th.M., 1965)
Austin, Minnesota
Honeoye Falls is a village of 2,700 within the town of Mendon (population 9,000). In the fall of 2002 two members of a local Baha’i fellowship came to visit me, carrying a peace document from the international Baha’i leaders. With some trepidation, I invited them to participate in our local clergy/lay group. They heartily accepted, and were just as heartily welcomed, and Honeoye Falls has for three years enjoyed being a very small community with a true interfaith fellowship. The Baha’i community is small, but they have been involved with every aspect of our ministry to the community, from local worship opportunities to our growing interfaith healing ministry. This coming summer, the theme of our joint vacation Bible school will be “faith values education,” focused on the fruit of the Spirit (from Galations 5:22–23).
Val Fowler (M.Div., 1975)
Honeoye Falls, New York
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