As a Capuchin Francisan Corps volunteer in Puerto Cabezas on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, I had the remarkable opportunity to partner with the Christian Formation teachers at two Catholic schools, even though I myself was Baptist.

It impressed me that this was taken in stride by the local Agnesian nuns and the Catholic teachers I worked with. When asked if it would be okay for me to work with them despite not being Catholic, they all simply said, “Oh, it’s all the same God.” This is not a view that characterizes most of Nicaragua, not to mention the world at large. Still, there were those who were bewildered as to why I would want to teach in a Catholic school to begin with. Cornelia Lackwood, one of my co-teachers, asked me one day if I had ever been moved by my experience to convert to Catholicism.
I told her that I had learned to value various elements of Catholic tradition, and particularly the spiritual teachings and mysticism of various saints. Despite our rallying cry of soul freedom, Baptists do not cultivate the kind of spiritual contemplation that brings personal revelation unmediated by scriptural text. We don’t do mysticism well, and I think our spirituality suffers for it. Even so, I explained to her that my heart still lay firmly with my own tradition. It’s a very important part of my identity, because it connects me with my extended family, generations that came before me, and the faith community that nourished me when I was growing up. She then asked me a question that gave me pause: “Do you ever feel like you’re riding two horses at once?”

I didn’t bother telling her that I was attending a Moravian church at the time, that my best friend and primary theological interlocutor was Jewish, and as a Religion major I had taken various courses on Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism. All of these have influenced my religious thinking. If I am riding more than one horse, I’m mounted on at least a half-dozen. Still, at the end of the day I know where I belong, which church I’ll be going back to.

No religion can fully capture God.  In my experience, Catholics are good with repentance, forgiveness of sins, and meditation, Lutherans nail the theology of grace, and Quakers have the egalitarianism of human souls before God. Jews have this awesome idea that God made a covenant with people, and people have a right to hold God accountable. I recognize that and appreciate it, but I feel it’s important to belong to one community in which I can know and be known, where I share all of these thoughts and reflections, and feel like I’m participating in a tradition that reaches back generations.

Cornelia’s point has validity. Even setting aside debates about cultural appropriation, cherry-picking religious concepts has only limited value. Most elements of religion really work the best in the context of their whole tradition. I can practice yoga as a spiritual aid, but I know that I will never experience its full power because I will never fully embrace the spirituality and worldview behind it. As I attempted to articulate my views of ecumenism to her, I worried that I was fishing for accusations of “pluralism,” used so often as a derogatory term by folks who think it’s better to pick your pony and stand by it. Her response, however, was quite touching: “How different would the world be if more of us thought like that!”

For a community of people with very strongly held and often conflicting religious beliefs, the overall spirit of ecumenism in Puerto’s mainline churches always moved me. I was told Mormon missionaries preferred Puerto Cabezas to other Nicaraguan sites they visited, because the people there were generally more open and willing to hear them out than in other places. This may be because of the long history of two dominant churches, the Catholics and the Moravians, rather than just one. In the western part of the country, like much of Latin American, there are two major types of Christians: evangelicals and Catholics. The Catholics look upon evangelicals as sheep stealers, and the evangelicals see Catholics as sinners and idolaters. These antipathies exist on the Atlantic Coast, but the mere fact that I was allowed to teach by nuns and accepted by parents revealed a more relaxed attitude towards ecumenical education.

In the context of widespread aversion to ecumenism in Nicaragua and around the world, “It’s all the same God” is a pretty radical statement. Still, it is not adequate for interfaith engagement in American communities comprised not only of monotheists, but of polytheists, pantheists, and nontheists. In discussions of interfaith relations I have seen in progressive Christian churches, I have noticed a strong tendency towards the sentiment “Deep down, it’s all the same.” This oversimplifies much of the beauty and nuance of our diverse traditions, and prevents real conversation about the very specific elements of our faith practices that give us hope, or that cause others aversion. I believe God became incarnate in Jesus Christ; the Qur’an avers that this is idolatry. This disagreement cannot be dismissed as a mere superficial difference. Both views can have validity, and can challenge each other to see faith in a new way. The premise that makes this conversation possible is not “It’s all the same God,” but “Hey, I could be wrong.” Interfaith relations require the humility to recognize that no religion has the patent on God.

I stand by my religious tradition proudly, and look forward to teaching Baptist values to new generations. But I also hope to impart the hunger to explore beyond my faith community, the humility to learn from others, the audacity to forge new relationships and find new insights. And, perhaps most importantly, I will remind them to bring their discovery home on Sunday morning and offer it as a gift to the community that first taught me to seek.