If you would have told me a year-and-a-half ago, when I first left the Mighty Midwest to come to the Northeast, that two of my favorite things about Boston would be the interreligious experiences and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, I would have told you… that made perfect sense for a religious studies and music alum of Luther College (Decorah, IA). 

Whenever I get the opportunity to talk about my interreligious experiences, people often express interest, but they also often seem perplexed. Though they like the idea of interreligious engagement, many people do not know what it actually looks like in practice. I want to share three lessons I have learned from interfaith engagement.

First, the relationship should come first, always. 

Peter Phan offers four levels of interfaith engagement.¹ First, Phan talks about the dialogue of life: at this level, members from different religious communities get together to know one another better, often while sharing a meal. At the second level, which Phan calls dialogue of action, interfaith communities join together to accomplish “projects of mutual interest.” At the third level, called the dialogue of religious experience, members from different communities start to share about their religious experiences (e.g., worship services, spiritual practices, or other meaningful religious experiences). The fourth and final level, the dialogue of theological [or philosophical] exchange, involves specialists who attempt to enrich one another’s “conception of their respective religious and spiritual traditions.” Each level builds on the previous level. 

With interfaith engagement, it is always important to foster relationships with members of different religious traditions (i.e., levels one, two, and three) before engaging the teachings or practices (i.e., level four) of their tradition. 

At many interfaith events, we begin by sharing food or doing an act of service together. These different actions allow us to see the shared humanity in the religious other. Sharing dinner can be an opportunity to learn how much you and the other might have in common. Raking leaves might give you both the opportunity to share about your religious commitments to service. These simple, everyday actions help foster more meaningful dialogue, because you are able to see—even briefly—the shared humanity in the other.

With interfaith engagement, it is always important to foster relationships with members of different religious traditions before engaging the teachings or practices of their tradition. 

Second, “Don’t compare the worst part of your religion to the best part of someone else’s.”² 

No religion is without its flaws. For example, many Christian commentators speak disparagingly about Islam; however, Christians must be cautious to avoid amnesia regarding some of their church’s greatest failures—past and present. The goal of interfaith engagement is not to declare one’s religion superior to another’s. The goal of interfaith engagement is to learn how to live more peacefully and compassionately with one another. Interfaith engagement seeks to bring out the best of every faith. It helps those who do it to examine their own faith critically through a process of learning from someone who sees the world from a different perspective. 

With interfaith engagement, one must be humble and honest about the failures of his/her own tradition in order to learn how to improve both oneself and one’s tradition.

With some regularity, a good friend of mine will talk about the importance of interreligious dialogue in an age of religious extremism. More than once, I have heard Christians launch critiques of other religious traditions as false or “based on violence.” Unfortunately, few religious traditions make it out without blemish, and frankly, some of these traditions’ unsavory characteristics live on. For Christians, think of the recent history of justifying slavery in the United States, or think of the current Westboro Baptist Church. As much as most Christians would like to distinguish their religious choices from such characteristics, other religious leaders wish to do the same with the horrific aspects of their own tradition. Through collaboration, interreligious engagement challenges all religious people to make their traditions better.

Third and finally, interfaith engagement fosters hope.

Interfaith engagement is inspiring. Once a month on a Thursday evening this past year, I met with a group of interfaith leaders in Boston. All of us come from different backgrounds and traditions, but we committed to sharing our experiences thoughtfully and humbly with one another. Sometimes the meetings were awkward, because the issues we discussed are both personal and complex. Despite this awkwardness (and maybe even because of it), we grew closer together. In this time of division, this closeness gives me hope for a better tomorrow. 

With interfaith engagement, meaningful dialogue about challenging and personal topics fosters hope.

I have never left an interreligious event feeling anything other than hopeful—sometimes awkward, sometimes joyous, but always hopeful. Maybe it is a self-selecting group, but the people that engage in this type of work generally believe in the importance of fostering relationships across difference. At the January Boston Bridges meeting, we shared our ideas for our blog posts with one another. As we shared, the energy in the room was electric and inspiring. Though no one explicitly said it, I think that we had all come to realize that this group of people—gathered together on the basis of our difference—had come to be its very own community of faith. 

I am grateful for the opportunities that I had with the Boston Bridges Fellows. I hope that these reflections might provide a ray of hope in this polarized, divided time.

1. Phan, Peter C., “Praying to the Buddha: Living amid Religious Pluralism,” Commonweal Vol. 134.2 (January 26, 2007).
2. One of my professors at Luther College, Dr. Todd Green used this line often in class and in his lectures.