How Do We Love Our Muslim (And Other) Neighbors?

CBFNC General Assembly: March 18, 2016

How do we love our Muslim (and other) neighbors?

Chris Towles, Baptist Campus Minister, Wake Forest University, Winston Salem

A collaborative conversation about how we have been and/or would like to be better neighbors to Muslims. As Baptists, we start with a sense of Religious Freedom, but how do we relate to people of other religious traditions?

1. What do we want to talk about next time?
2. How have we been connecting with Muslims and how would we like to?
3. Why are we here?
4. Why is this conversation necessary?
5. Religious Freedom – foundational for Baptists.
6. Not about who is right or wrong, but how to treat someone.
7. Wonder/Curiosity
8. Islam
9. Encounter with student from Gardner-Webb
10. Guidelines for Dialogue
11. Questions for Dialogue
12. Resources

Theology of Religions: An effort to make theological sense of religious differences. How do Christians view the followers of other religions? Do we worship the same God?

Guidelines for Dialogue

• Listen.
• Each participant describes her/himself. (“You’re supposed to belief x,y,z”) We do not speak for our entire tradition. Participants may choose not to participate at anytime.
• We are not required to speak for our own religion, only our own experience. (Use “I” rather than “they”, “we”, or “you”.
• Participants must not come with preconceptions of where disagreements lie.
• Dialogue takes place between equals. We do not dialogue merely to teach one another and we do not come to proselytize.
• Come with authenticity. We do not water down our religion, which is often from the deepest part of who we are. If we want to learn from someone else, we hope that they bring themselves authentically and we owe it to them to come from our background.
• Purpose is not to agree, but to learn about different viewpoints
• Use questions that are used for the purpose of gaining clarity, not for personal attacks. (We do not disprove another’s faith in order to validate our own.)

Questions from Project Interfaith, Conversation Kits

• What is your religious, spiritual, or cultural identity?
• Has your religious or spiritual identity changed over time? If so, how and what has influenced this?
• What is one thing about your religious, spiritual, or cultural background that has influenced your life and how you see yourself?
• What is your favorite memory of participating in a ritual, holiday observance, or celebration that is part of your religious, spiritual, or cultural background or identity?
• What is your earliest memory of contact with or awareness of people from a different religious, spiritual, or cultural group?
• What is one stereotype that disturbs you about your religious, spiritual, or cultural group?
• What are the three most important things you would like me to know about your religious, cultural, or spiritual background/identity?
• Do you feel the community in which you live is a welcoming place for you to follow your religious, spiritual, or cultural path? Why or why not?
• Do you have any daily religious, spiritual, or cultural rituals that you do to live out your beliefs and values? If so, what are they?
• What are a few ways in which your religious, spiritual, or cultural beliefs or values impact your day-to-day life?
• Do you belong to a place of worship or a religious/spiritual community? If so, why did you join that community? If not, what are two or three qualities that you look for in a place of worship and/or religious/spiritual community?

A few resources:

• Common Word – examples of potential co-existence and dialogue
• Matlins, Stuart M., and Arthur J. Magida, eds. 2015. How to Be A Perfect Stranger (6th Edition): The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook. 6 edition. Woodstock, Vermont: Gemstone Pr.
• Leonard Swidler’sDialogue Decalogue
• Sojourners on the issues: Christians and Muslims
• Ethics Daily movie: “Different Books, Common Word: Baptists and Muslims”