Near the Jaffa Gate outside the old City of Jerusalem is a place good as any to see the contrast of the old and the new. Ancient walls and ramparts give way to modern shopping centers lined with cafes and sleek technology stores. There are even modern laser light shows cast over the old stone walls, a marriage of perfect discontinuity. It was here that I found myself sharing coffee with Rabbi Sir David Rosen. We were discussing the interfaith movement and how technology could help bring people together and provide even more access for meaningful encounter.

The interfaith movement has not only been a place for academics to gather and study religion, but it has also been a safe harbor for those who have sought spiritual refuge. With an emphasis on both study and the lived experiences faith provides, the movement is made up of diverse groups of people from all walks of life. It’s not uncommon to hear tambourines and drums outside lectures on obscure religious texts at large interfaith conferences and gatherings. Many of us seek out these spiritual gatherings as a safe place from the really big problems in the real world or find refuge in scholarly understanding of one another. For those who are new to such instances, the contrast can be jarring.

I thought back to the last Parliament for the World’s Religions held last fall in Toronto, where the presence of evangelicals was conspicuously absent from the halls of the conference center. There was only one major evangelical speaker and hardly any attendees from evangelical churches. When I asked my friend Chris Stackaruk, co-director of Neighborly Faith, why this was, he replied that he thinks that evangelicals are uncomfortable with the seeming emphasis on overt displays of radical acceptance rather than on true dialogue and discourse with those who see the world differently.

We need to find ways to act together to make our world a better place.

It’s not hard to imagine how uncomfortable the culture shift could be for an evangelical whose worldview is based on followership and obedience to God and doctrine rather than the exploration of other ways of practicing faith. And those evangelicals who are willing to participate in interfaith dialogue and share their perspectives often find themselves accused of proselytizing when they are only sharing their faith-informed perspectives.

And while the Parliament and the interfaith movement would say they welcome evangelical voices, there seems to be a reluctance on both sides to do interfaith work together. It’s almost as if both evangelicals and interfaithers see one another’s intentions as illegitimate. When evangelicals held interfaith dialogues with Muslim leaders, their motives were questioned by many.

“This desire for legitimacy is at the root of most religious conflict,” Rabbi Rosen pointed out, but he reminded me that it’s important to keep the dialogue going. “The very act of talking with someone is a chance for us to encounter the divine.” Engaging in dialogue can be an extension of religious discourse that helps the created commune with the creator. The challenge is that oftentimes in areas around the world with religious conflict we find groups and factions sectioned off from one another’s daily lives. This further leads to demonizing one another and to conferences that are little more than echo chambers.

Technology at its best can play into the solution of bringing people together. We have seen that people eagerly seek information about their neighbors online in an effort to know them better. This earnest search to know one another is present both at the heart of the interfaith movement and evangelicalism, which has been explained briefly as “loving God and loving people.” And whether one is an evangelical or someone deeply committed to the interfaith movement, there seems to be a lot of work being done online to help heal a broken world.

Jer Swigart at Global Immersion Project has been applying this ethos of expanding our human concern to community projects both on a local and international scale. “If any healing is to happen, then we need to learn from and work with one another,” Swigart told me recently. With a goal to train and mobilize influencers and restorative communities of faith throughout the United States into the pain as instruments of peace, Swigart and his team have been effective at having difficult conversations around faith and real pain in the world, but more importantly: what we can do about it when we come together.

Using technology as a proactive tool to address real world issues takes the next step of the interfaith movement because it levels the playing field and invites everyone—even those left out—to the table. It’s worth noting that many successful digital startup companies have been driven by the concept to use the internet to get people off the internet. It’s not enough just to talk about commonalities or differences amongst our faiths and perspectives nor only to join in celebrations. We need to find ways to act together to make our world a better place. For many evangelicals and interfaithers, this starts with their faith as the foundation of their actions. There are scores of great resources like KAICIID’s Knowledge Hub for religious literacy and education online in an effort to increase dialogue and understanding.

Updating our approaches to include everyone through using technology is going to take work, and it definitely won’t happen overnight. Like all of the best approaches, we all will need to honor the achievements of yesterday as well as be open to innovation and the potential working together holds for the future. When we make room for one another and see every opportunity to learn from another as an encounter with the divine, then perhaps we can start the healing process. Perhaps technology—even social media—can be a tool for making those connections across difference.

Outside the Jaffa Gate, I asked Rabbi Rosen how we are to walk through this broken world. “With love and hope,” he said.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash.