Interfaith Postscript
Delton Krueger
As presented in "Portable Guide to World Religions" March 2007

            The word “interfaith” conjures up a host of different impressions and understandings. It is a concept that is evolving as the world becomes more interconnected and as people travel as never before. Once a purely academic topic, interfaith is now a practical, daily life experience in a growing number of communities.

Each Interfaith organization has a different function. Some, such as The Greater Boston Interfaith Organization, have a local approach. www.gbio.org/ Others, like The Council for a Parliament on the World’s Religions, have a global perspective ranging over many years of experience. www.cpwr.org  Experience teaches that  levels of Interfaith life  are each unique and appropriate at the right time and place.

 

Here is a possible scenario illustrating the Interfaith Principle.

·        People of good will of various religions begin group conversations to get to know each other as individuals.

·        They move on to conversations about what they may do together to live out the principles that they have found workable in their life together to this point.

·        Projects arise that can be done. Organization takes place so that things can be done in an orderly manner. Time is taken by increasing ventures details.

·        The satisfaction of doing things together opens the way for conversations that begin to deal with some elemental beliefs of the involved traditions. The mix of personalities begins to become more visible as people become themselves in the interfaith happening.

·        Working and talking becomes more demanding as emotions rise to the surface and normal human protective reactions happen. Individuals begin to wonder where this is going and what is happening to the pleasant environment of early times.

·        A sense of hopeful anxiety arises from the gathered people as they recognize the hard demands of the interfaith process. At this point the adventure depends on the gathered leadership of all the involved people. No guidelines will guarantee that the venture will move to a next best step. Interfaith is a continuing experiment in human religious discovery.

Here is the down-to-earth basis for the ideas stated above.

find themselves together presenting the MARC case for religious understanding. In any event, people became personally acquainted across religious lines.

Out of this twenty year crucible of experience years there has been a wealth of interfaith learning. As a participant leader in MARC for most of its history, I bring to this book the conviction that contact between world religion participants makes a difference for the good of the local community and the global scene.

              Delton Krueger  
              Bloomington, Minnesota, USA