Editorial
The Spirit in the World
by Paul Chaffee
The original impulse to create TIO nine years ago came from realizing how very much interfaith activity was sprouting up in the world and how very little most people knew about it, local interfaith activists included. The notion that “we’re the first ever to do this kind of work,” claimed by so many interfaith groups, would usually be more accurate if the claim were to be the first in your own neighborhood or region. Hundreds, soon thousands of groups were on the horizon a decade ago.
Since then, though, global interfaith activity has grown exponentially. Cultural diversity has become an issue in business, government, entertainment, and religion. In a day of instant communication, ethnic, racial, sexual, economic, and religious differences have come to the fore. All the while the importance of addressing global issues collaboratively has become more compelling than ever.
Photo: Pxfuel
In spite of dismal daily headlines, the good news is that the spontaneous engagement of interfaith activists in countries everywhere continues to grow. Like-minded groups are learning how to connect with each other over long distances. People are paying attention to metrics that tell you whether social justice goals are being met or not.
In the United States the movement is strong and growing, with dozens of attendant issues. However, most of the world doesn’t have the ‘separation between church and state’ outlined in the US Constitution, which means that political realities seriously influence faith and interfaith communities in most countries. And obviously complicate the lives of those seeking a religiously free and spiritually satisfying way to be in the world.
Interfaith historian Marcus Braybrooke, with his worldwide gaze, initiates the discussion in TIO this month by asking whether religion is a curse or a cure. A strong case can be made for either. The best outcomes, the curative ones, tend to come from those with the courage to reach across their own boundaries to join in pursuing a just peace for all. You can find examples everywhere. The stories this month are set in Syria, Mexico, the UK and Europe, Cameroon, Pakistan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and India.
In a month when we feature international interfaith, one might wonder why we conclude with a memorial to a single religious figure, Guru Nanak (1469-1539), founder of the Sikh tradition. Sikhism surfaced a number of issues which have made the interfaith movement possible. Nanak built relationships between Sikhs and Hindus, and when he visited Mecca the Muslim establishment welcomed him and tried to convince him to stay. From the beginning, Sikhs have honored women as the equals of men and other religions as spiritual colleagues, not competitors. Sikh scripture, the Guru Granth Sahib, is filled with poetry and wisdom from a variety of religious traditions. And as Satpal Singh’s article emphasizes, Nanak felt that humanity shares a universal spiritual reality that equally values every person alive and connects us all, notions bordering on heresy in many traditions.
So it seems appropriate, as we hold up a few examples of international interfaith activity around the world, to take time out to contemplate and appreciate a religious leader like Guru Nanak, who laid out so much of the groundwork for our work around the world today.
Last month’s TIO featured a report of the recent leadership retreat of the North American Interfaith Network (NAIN). NAIN has long wanted get Mexico more involved in the Network, and TIO has dreamed about a Spanish edition of itself. This month we take a small step in that direction. Last month’s report is being published in Spanish this issue, thanks to the translation by Elías González.
Header Photo: Pixabay