A Really Interesting New Interfaith Project
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about religious identity and what divides and connects us. Why? For one thing, much of the plot of my upcoming novel, The Sweetness of Forgetting, centers around the fact that Muslims, Jews and Christians came together in Paris in the darkest days of World War II to help save lives, which surprises many people. So while writing the book, I had to do both a lot of research and a lot of soul-searching. It was a really interesting journey. But now that I’m more tuned in to these types of issues, I’m seeing instances of interfaith cooperation everywhere. It warms my heart.
One such example I’ve come across lately is RavelUnravel, a project from Project Interfaith that aims to get people to talk openly about identity, religion, spirituality and culture. You can go to the site and watch videos from people like you and me talking about what they believe and why. If you’ve never had the chance to ask people in-depth questions about their religions, it’s a fascinating way to be exposed to things you may not have entirely understood before. A young Nebraska-based Muslim man named Khalid, for example, discusses what he believes (“I believe in the same God as Christian and Jewish people.”) and about how he feels it’s his responsibility to banish untrue negative stereotypes about Muslims (“It’s a religion of peace, and that’s where the name Islam came from.”). It’s very enlightening. Or there’s Eric, a reform Jew, who discusses the stereotypes he thinks people have against reform Jews, and the fact that he enjoys learning what other people believe (“I always got energy from learning from other people’s religions and cultures.”). A young Mormon woman named Autumn talks about her beliefs in Jesus, and how she feels very passionate about the freedom to practice religion freely (“We have more in common than we have different.”).
Take a few minutes to click around on the RavelUnravel site. I bet you’ll learn some things you didn’t know before, and you’ll come away with a feeling of pride in our ability to connect as humans when we learn to build on our differences instead of letting them destroy us.
