NAIN participants of all faiths attended the Sunday morning
worship experience at Wichita’s Hindu temple. Hindus, Buddhists, Jews,
Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Baha’is, Universalist Unitarians, and Native North
Americans, as well as others, sat side by side, probing and celebrating their
differences with respect and love.
1988 to 2002: Fifteen years of Interfaith Work:
There was an examination of NAIN’S roots and of its future. NAIN had
its official launch in Wichita at a 1988 multi-religious gathering, designated
as “A North American Assisi.” after two years of organizational development.
The name of the meeting was chosen to honor the pluralistic religious
gathering called in 1986 by Pope John Paul II. Held in Assisi, Italy,
the Pope-called gathering was the first large multi-religious meeting in
more than a century.
The North American Assisi of 1988 was a crossroads experience for the followers
of the twelve recognized world religions, who grappled with issues of peace,
justice and environment. In attendance were more than 250 Baha’is, Buddhists,
Christians, Hindus, Jains, Jews, Muslims, Native North Americans, Shintoists,
Sikhs, Unitarian Universalists, and Zoroastrians. They came, not only
from the United States and Canada, but also from Costa Rica, England, India
and Switzerland.
The North America Interfaith Network returned to Wichita, its birthplace,
to celebrate its 15th anniversary. “Returning to the Prairie: Roots
and Vision” was the theme of NAINConnect 2002.
The roots of interfaith dialogue and networking in North America were planted
in 1988. Then, in 2002, nearly 100 active participants, representing
nine religions, returned to the prairie to discover a faith-driven vision
for our world’s future.
Hosted by
Inter-Faith Ministries, of
Wichita, the conference was primarily based at Newman University, and the
opening evening featured the Roman Catholic contribution to interreligious
thinking. The conference included opportunities to tour an art exhibit
entitled, “Sacred Spaces” at Wichita State University, visits to the Plains
History Museum and to the Botanical Gardens, as well as a special worship
experience entitled, “Connecting with the Prairie” held at the Great Plains
Nature Center.
Wichita 2002: NAINConnect 2002 program -- interfaith dialogue and interfaith
understanding.
Dr. Maher Hathout, the spokesperson and a past president of the
Islamic Center of Southern California,
indicated in his address, “
The Future of Interreligious Understanding,”
that all traditions and religions encourage their followers to relate to
God. He suggested that the first way of relating is through communion
with God at a spiritual level, an experience which is highly individualistic.
Another way to relate to God is to offer ourselves to those who have need. “To
establish justice and compassion, we must offer ourselves to those in need,”
he said.
Hathout stressed the importance of recognizing the differences of the
various religions. Interfaith “tolerance” is a condescending approach,
he said. He pointed out that the differences among individuals and groups
are what make them feel that, “this is why I am and who I am declaring myself
to be.” He said that celebrating differences through shared religious
ceremonies and formalities are meaningful but definitely not enough.
“The main essence in any belief system is the perception of God as an entity,
or God as a concept,” Hathout said. “There are certain religions that
don’t subscribe to the entity, God. But nonetheless, they subscribe to
a perception of a higher power that can reconcile our life, heal our wounds,
and give us inspiration and direction,” he said. He suggested that these
very important perceptions of God should be made clear but should not be emphasized
in interfaith dialogue.
He implied that in order to get below the surface to the essence of faith,
to engage in interfaith dialogue at more profound levels, we must find and
share our essential realities. He suggested that there is often an echo
between religious traditions regarding these essential realities. At
this depth, we have things about which to dialogue, he said.
Dr. Hathout laid out a set of essential realities which are important to
Muslims; he believes that through these realities, people of one faith find
common ground in those same essential realities with people of other faiths. As
such, they can provide substantial material for interfaith dialogue. (To
review Dr. Hathout’s set of essential realities for Muslims, see “Presenters
Describe Dialogue Methods.”
[www. ....])
Sunday Evening:
Two stories of faith experience -- Sikh and
Hindu.
Sunday evening of the conference was devoted to interfaith understanding
and interfaith dialogue. Two people who played significant parts in
the evening program were Ralph Singh, a Sikh (
http://www.gobindsadan.org/gsusa/),
and Pravajika Vrajaprana, a Hindu. (Pravajika is the feminine version
of the title, Swami.) Some excerpts from their stories tell how they
chose, or were chosen, to enter their spiritual pathways.
Ralph Singh, in his presentation, “One Soul’s Journey,”explained that Sikhs
believe that the soul comes into the world to find its way back to God. “Our
entire life is literally a path in search to reunite with our spiritual family,”
he said. For Singh, that experience occurred when he was 21 years
old.
He was having a cup of tea in a friend’s apartment in New York City, when
suddenly, in front of him, “stood this remarkable being, with a diamond-like
light emanating from his head, and his eyes literally held the universe.” He
held up his hand and said, “Don’t be afraid.”
“He drew me out through his eyes,” Singh said. “He toured me around
the universe, made me feel that he possessed all knowledge I could ever attain,
and as a role model, was everything I could ever aspire to.” He showed
Singh “something like an atom” and said, “Meditate on this.” Then, he
was gone.
It was in this manner that Singh first met the man who was to become his
spiritual master.
Six months later, he was sitting at the feet of this man, Baba Virsa Singh
Ji, in the
Gobind Sadan
community on the outskirts of New Delhi, South India, which Singh knew had
become his spiritual home.
The mission of the Gobind Sadan community is two-fold. The first is to overcome
poverty, which, according to Baba Virsa Singh Ji, is a great source of strife. The
second part of the mission is to break down the barriers of religious hatred.
Singh told an amazing story of how worthless land was transformed to provide
an economic base for the poor in the area and how through the simple practice
of celebrating all major holidays of Gobind Sadan, Babaji has taught people
to revere each other’s prophet as they do their own. Thus, religious
strife, which has plagued the region, has been overcome. (To learn more
about Ralph Singh’s spiritual community, its interfaith orientation, and Baba
Virsa Singh Ji’s land reclaiming efforts, read “Ralph Singh Shares Sikh Interfaith
Perspective and Farm Development Project. [www. .......])
A Hindu Personal Story:
Vrajaprana’s life was refocused in the direction of the Hindu faith through
an encounter with a holy man. But how does a child whose mother
had a strict Lutheran upbringing and whose paternal grandparents were Baptist
become a Hindu?
Vrajaprana can answer that question. She described her life from the
age of eight as a political activist. She remembered coming home from
Sunday School, then leaving to join protesters in anti-war rallies.
At the age of 15, she was helping in a campaign to get people to attend
a peace march. After leafleting cars in the parking lot of the Vedanta
Temple, she and her companion decided to go in, and they listened to a lecture. As
they were leaving, she shook hands with Swami Prabhavananda, a disciple of
Swami Brahmananda, an intimate disciple of Sri Ramakrishna.
“It was that man, Swami Prabhavananda who merely shook my hand, smiled at
me, and completely changed my life, for a reason I, to this day, will never
really understand,” she said. “All I know is that I, for the first time
in my life, really came across holiness, tangible holiness that truly paralyzed
me, simply because I never encountered such a man, who emanated so much love,
purity and holiness, that within a very short amount of time, my whole world
view was changed.” Vrajaprana began to regularly attend the Vedanta Temple
services, and ten years later, she entered the convent.
Following Singh’s presentation, Vrajaprana, who is a nun from the Sarada
Convent of the
Vedanta Society of Southern
California, and Dr. Hal French, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department
of Religious Studies, University of South Carolina, engaged in a model
interfaith dialogue. French described his dialogue with Vrajaprana as
a Hindu-Christian dialogue about the universal dimension in Hinduism. By
the end of the evening, the whole audience had been drawn into dialogue during
the question and answer period. (To learn more about the dialogue between
Vrajaprana and French, go to Pravajika Vrajaprana and Dr. Hal French Dialogue
Using a Hindu-Christian Model. [www. .......] )
Roman Catholic Approach to Dialogue:
“Interfaith dialogue has everything to do with God’s all important business
of unity and reconciliation,” Paul McKenna, the associate coordinator of interfaith
dialogue at the
Catholic Scarborough
Missions, Toronto, Canada, said.
The Roman Catholic Church has mandated that the teaching of world religions
is compulsory in every Catholic school, high school and college. McKenna
is involved in planning and scheduling interfaith dialogue experiences for
the students of the schools of Scarborough Missions. All students not
only study world religions, but they go to mosques and temples of all religions. Each
event gives an opportunity for interfaith dialogue and interfaith understanding.
McKenna has developed two models using interfaith dialogue which he uses
in the Catholic school system. (To learn more about the models McKenna uses
in his programs, go to Presenters Describe Dialogue Models. [www. ..... ])
In his address, “Catholics in the Interfaith Conversation,” McKenna described
the movement of the Church toward interfaith understanding under the leadership
and guidance of Pope John Paul II.
The direction that the Roman Catholic Church is taking in regard to interfaith
understanding will no doubt nudge at least mainline Christian denominations
to initiate interfaith dialogue and to increase their understanding of other
faith groups. (To learn more about Catholic activity and participation
in interfaith dialogue and understanding, go to, Catholics in the Interfaith
Conversation. [www. .... ])
Action and Interfaith dialogue:
Interfaith dialogue and interfaith action, two primary parts of the convention
programming appear to be organically linked. It was easy to observe,
through the remarks and illustrations of the speakers, as well as those of
NAIN participants in dialogue, that when dialogue begins, action follows.
“People will not judge you for your visions; they will judge you for
your work,” were the words given to Ralph Singh by his spiritual mentor, Baba
Versa Singh Ji. The members of Singh’s Sikh community, Gobind Sadan,
arise to meditate at 4 a.m., but they feel that it would be shameful to be
found meditating after sunrise, when it is time to work.
Dr. Hal French recalls an old professor of his at Boston University,
who said, “You have no right to your spiritual luxuries. Leave your prayers
and get down and feed the hungry.”
This is exactly what Inter-Faith Ministries is doing in Wichita. “The
best interfaith dialogue is people working together and doing something that
needs doing,” according to Wichita’s Inter-Faith Ministries director, Sam
Muyskens. Muyskens can speak with a lot of authority because of the large
number of outreach programs of Inter-Faith Ministries.
As the host, Inter-Faith Ministries offered workshops that highlighted several
of their projects, offering the attendees an opportunity to experience the
connection between interfaith dialogue and service. Some workshops focused
on education and advocacy-based topics such as violence reduction, anti-hunger
action, communications, environmental education and anti-racism efforts. Other
workshops highlighted direct service topics, such as housing/homeless services,
restorative justice and congregational clusters. All workshops emphasized
the impact congregations can make on a community when they work together. Inter-Faith
Ministries works with congregations to create opportunities for partnership
that foster respect and understanding.
Dr. Robert Musil, the executive officer for Physicians for Social Responsibility,
traced the history of protests and the changes they have brought about, when
he spoke to NAIN during the Monday luncheon.
“Much of the interfaith movement, of which we are all a part, grew directly
from the horrors of World War II,” Musil said. These horrors include
the holocaust, the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the
millions of people who died in every country during World War II, the six
million Jews, as well as six million other “undesirables” who died in Nazi
death camps and ovens, gave birth to expressions, such as, “Never again.” They
also gave birth to the United Nations that would outlaw war and ultimately
would outlaw atomic weapons.
“You should be telling people that nuclear weapons are illegal under international
law,” Musil said. “The World Court ruled fairly recently that they are
illegal and that their use is not permissible under international law.”
“The United States has a treaty called the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty,
signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, and made permanent in 1995 under
President Clinton,” he said. “ .... We have sworn legally, under Article
six of that treaty, to get rid of our nuclear weapons at the earliest possible
moment. We made that legal commitment in 1970, and the world continues
to wait for us to get rid of our nuclear weapons.”
“As we worry about nuclear proliferation and other nations getting the bomb
— India, Pakistan — you will note, there is a strong dose of hypocrisy in
the American policy and presence,” Musil said. “I think, as people of
faith, you would understand the moral contradictions of a nation that wants
to hang on to its weapons while continuing to say that others should not have
them. It is an unequal, unfair relationship, but we do have a common
ground and moral and legal precedent for undermining nuclear weapons,” he
said.
Musil graphically described the atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and the resulting disaster, as well as the outcries of the religious
community at this event. He traced the brave protests of such people
as Dorothy Day, the Quakers, the Hopi Indians, Steve Allen, the Berrigan Brothers,
Dr. Albert Schweitzer, as well as many others, who laid their lives on the
line to bring about these treaties and to ban further testing and missile
development.
The Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Bishops, as well as the
Presbyterian Church, started a peace making operation that continued many
years, he said. The United Hebrew Congregation, representing one-third
of American Jewry, were similarly involved. He urged the NAIN constituency
to send urgent religious appeals to President Bush, which would resound the
“Never again,” refrain.
“We need deep, deep moral commitment from people of faith, or there will
be little hope. But with that, there is hope, and I use it in the full
theological sense. It’s not cheap hope, but real hope.” Musil said. “I
look forward to being there with you, together at your side, fighting this
monstrous evil, with all the love and caring and compassion that we can bring
to it.”
“God is not a patriotic issue. God is a religious issue.” These
words of Dr. C. Weldon Gaddy, Executive Director of The Interfaith Alliance,
brought to the NAIN conferees an awareness that interfaith influence can reach
both national and international levels.
Focusing his presentation on the nexus between religion and politics, Gaddy
said, “ ... to understand religion in America, one has to look at that intersection.
... Religion is changing what happens at that nexus, and... religion is being
changed by what’s happening there.” He said, “The state of religion at
the intersection between religion and politics is virtually indefinable today
... because the situation is so variable in particulars.”
He said that some leaders favor a marriage between government and religion,
while others desire complete separation with no points touching. ... Others
are seeking for ways for religion and government to interact with each other
“without compromising religion or violating the constitution.” (For an
overview of the initiatives that Gaddy feels characterize the state of religion
in its association with government currently, go to (Interfaith Alliance
Director Gaddy Challenges NAIN to Dialogue and to Take Political Action.
[www. ...... ])
The Future of Interfaith Community and Action:
Panelists: Kay Lindahl, Dr. Robert Musil, Pravajika Vrajaprana
and Dr. Wayel Asmeh
Representatives of different faith traditions reflect on the immediate and
the more distant future of interfaith work.
Kay Lindahl observed that religion has come of age with people recognizing
that it is a topic important to talk about. She recalled that 15 years
ago, there was little in the newspapers about religion, and now there is something
every day.
The importance of dialogue had been stressed during the conference, and
she spoke of the importance of relationship. She suggested that relationship
is the dance between dialogue and action. “The challenge,” she said,
“is to keep remembering that the dialogue is important, and so is the action. They
are both parts of that equation.”
“I think it is time for us to take on tougher issues now and to know that
we have the skills to do so,” she said. “Tough issues can be dealt with
in a way that doesn’t lead to violence.” She gave an example from
her own Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles. The gay-lesbian task force
dialogued with the most conservative group in the diocese for 19 months.
In a report at a convention, one woman from the lesbian task force and another
woman from the very conservative group got up and said, “You know, we will
probably never agree on the issue, but we are friends.”
Lindahl said that the NAIN conference was a wake up call for her to get
uncomfortable, to have the courage to take a stand. “Sometimes, in interfaith,
we’ve gotten comfortable, and its easier to follow with what’s happening
now, rather to take a stand,” she said. “We need to say, ‘This isn’t
right.’ Or we need to move forward. Or we need to dialogue. Or
we need to take action, whatever that may be,” she said.
She spoke of the tendency we have to demonize and to polarize. “I know
there is a certain arrogance in interfaith about the more conservative elements,”
she said. “... I think we just have to remember that’s where they are, and
we are where we are. It’s not that one is better than the other one ...”
Lindahl said that she wanted to reach out and adjust to trans-traditional
people, those who are not attached to a particular religion. Although
they’re not attached to a particular path, “they have a sense of the Holy,
a sense of the Sacred, a sense of the Call,” she said. “It is also a
challenge to me to reach out to young adults.”
Dr. Robert Musilsaid that his work in Washington, D.C. requires the
kind of community and interfaith presence that is experienced at the NAIN
conference. “I am reminded that I need to find ways to work with interfaith
groups and be more present as an interfaith person,” he said. “I still
struggle with how to present myself as a person of faith in a secular, powerful
capitol.”
In response to some of Dr. Gaddy’s remarks about conferring God’s blessings
on peoples of other faiths and countries, Musil asked how it would feel to
just get up in Congress and shout, “God bless Iraq!” Referring to those
killed on September 11, 2001, he suggested that we need to remember that we
had international guests and people of many countries and many faiths who
died in those buildings in New York.
“We also have to find gentle ways to remind people that 2,000,000
children around the world die each year of dysentery diseases. But,
if you stick these things in the faces of those who are still in mourning,
it does not seem to show respect for the depths of love and caring of 9/11. We
have to find ways to hold these things together and show our love for all
of these people, including Americans.
Musil put in a word for institutions, organizations, and collective work. “I
don’t believe that it’s sufficient to simply be a person of faith,” he said.
“Biologically, we’ve heard that independence means death, in a biological
sense.”
He said, “I didn’t know about The Interfaith Alliance, ... but I want to
be a part of that Interfaith Alliance. I need to work in such an organization.
... It’s my position that each of us work in organizations locally and nationally,
and we link those groups because we will not be enough against highly organized
forces.”
“I will take the (interfaith) spirit back to Washington, D.C.,” he said. “I
will work on your behalf as an advocate on nuclear weapons and global climate
change. Dr. Gaddy will be working on those questions of religion and
how it operates in the state. Others of you work in social services and
caring on a local level, and I can only bless you, but I hope we will put
it together, and I hope we will get the kind of action we really need.”
Referring to issues Dr. C. Weldon Gaddy had addressed,
Pravajika Vrajaprana
asked whether putting up the sign, “In God we trust,” wasn’t a sign that
we don’t really trust God. “Where does God not exist?” she asked. “Is
there a place that God does not bless? If so, then God is not God.”
“One hundred percent of us can stand up and walk all the way out together
in peace,” she said, referring to Gaddy’s reference to the Mayflower Compact. “The
problem is what happens when we get home. That is our call to action.”
Vrajaprana promoted the idea that before we can have effective external
action, we need to have effective internal action, so we can be heard within
our own communities. She suggested that this is a greater problem to
deal with than to deal with people from other faiths.
“We are all here because we love God,” Vrajaprana said. “No matter
what we call Him or Her, whether we call on Buddha-mind, or whether we call
on Allah, we are here because we love God. If we love God, we have to
love one another.”
“If we love one another, that means that we have to treat each other with
the deepest respect,” she said. “All of those here are agreeing with
one another, but we also have to speak to those within and without our community,
many of whom may have serious reservations about our being here.” She
asked, “How do we speak to them?”
“We speak with love and respect,” she said. “We speak through the love
of our own tradition and the love of the traditions of others. ... If I can
be on fire with the love of my own tradition, I can be on fire with another’s
tradition. If I can genuinely love the Koran, and feel genuinely excited
about the truths that are spoken there, I can take that genuine love and excitement
and respect, and I can share that with my own community.”
“How do we get other people to listen to us? How do we get other people
to act?” she asked. “We can go back to our own communities, and we can
write letters together. But how do we get the larger group to do what
we already do and have been doing for years? Through love and respect.”
Vrajaprana recalled that Dr. Gaddy had pointed out that ignorance is the
source of all violence. “Ignorance is the source of all misery,” she
said. “It’s the source of every misery on this planet, even ourselves.”
“How can we remove that ignorance?” she asked. “Through our own sense
of love of our own tradition and love of every other tradition, which includes,
for me, a love that evangelical Christians have for their Scriptures, a love
for the Koran, a love that these people bring to God. I can learn from
that. If I have genuine love and respect within my own heart, that is
as contagious as a bad case of flu,” she said.
Vrajaprana said that we have to stand up for one another. “When someone
makes a cheap shot at Islam, I am responsible for taking a stand. I am responsible
for saying, ‘That isn’t true,’ when my brother says to me, ‘Look what’s happening
to the women of Islam — look how they treat Muslim women,’ I ask, ‘Well,
how many Muslim women do you know? Tell me about them. Do you realize
what the Prophet Mohammed did for women?’ We have to educate, without
ever talking down to people,” she said.
Vrajaprana pointed to the responsibility that the University of North Carolina
took this fall for helping their students to understand Moslem people by making
it mandatory for them to read, Approaching the Koran, by Michael Sells. There
were some students and parents who were deeply offended by this, she said. “When
I read the article, I thought everyone should shoot off an article to the
editor and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that the University of North Carolina
is showing us, as a nation, how to educate ourselves.”’
“Don’t we, as responsible human beings on the planet, owe it to ourselves,
to our community, to educate ourselves about human beings?” she asked. “Isn’t
it an important part of our lives to share a religious link with others? So
that, I think, is our challenge.”
Dr. Wayel Azmeh, a medical doctor from Wichita, was the final panelist
to reflect on the conference and vocalize where people of interfaith inclinations
need to focus their action.
He expressed the idea that those coming out of the conference need to formulate
their plans for action in one, two, or three goals. “It’s better to light
one candle than to complain about the darkness,” he said.
“One thing we can do is really study to define religious extremism. Religious
extremism is rampant, not only in the Muslim world, but in the Christian world,
in the Hindu world, — everywhere,” Azmeh said. He said that in medicine,
once the physiology has been defined, it is easy to find the remedy. He
called for the formation of a committee with scholars to work on this task.
Azmeh’s second goal was to see that our young people should have the opportunity
to take courses about religions in America. The curriculum should contain
excerpts from the Bible, from the Koran, from the Bhagavad Gita, from the
Buddhist’s scriptures, from the Sikh’s scripture, from all the world religions. “We,
as people of faith, should be able to put together the resources to do this,”
he said. “It should be done in every city and town. We should contact
colleges and say, ‘We can help.’ We can help them identify people from
every religion, so the students can see walking, talking human beings of different
faiths in person, not just such a person on CNN.”
Azmeh said he had grown up as a Moslem in Damascus, Syria, but there was
a Bible in Aramaic in his home. He knew about Christianity, he said,
“not because I wanted to refute it — no, but because it’s a part of knowledge.” He
said that even his parents quoted the Bible for certain things.
The third goal of Azmeh was to see, in future gatherings of NAIN, that the
public would be included in parts of the program. “I want the public
to listen to some of these wonderful thoughts,” he said. “I want these
messages to go out to the public.” He also suggested that e-mail connections
be established among NAIN members, so there will be opportunity for feedback
and that the members continue to work together. (To learn about the challenges
from the floor, following the panel, go to NAIN Conferees Give Challenges
for the Future. [www. ...])
