Tumultuous debate over the debt ceiling largely overshadowed something of extraordinary importance that happened recently in Washington.
Participants from more 300 colleges gathered at the White House to participate in the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge. They convened to discuss the importance of individuals from different faiths working together to make positive impacts in their respective communities.
Robert Shippey
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There was no funding provided. There was no big government initiative with costly add-ons. There was simply a recognition that people of different faiths can come together to talk to each other, to learn from each other and to work together for the common good.
What prompted this gathering? There is an increasing awareness that we live in a world with little vision for how people in a pluralistic society can affirm their faith and yet still get along with others. Thus, a conversation is needed by those of faith about what it means to embrace fully one’s own faith tradition in a world of faith diversity. This was the president’s challenge to college officials present who can shape the conversation with the students that they serve.
The conference theme was simple: Know who you are. Know who the other is. And ask what you can do together, no matter how small, to bring about a better world.
How ironic it was that in a week where voices of political opposition and division controlled the media, another conversation occurred that focused on mutual respect and the need to listen to others.
“From evangelical, Catholic and mainline groups to Jewish organizations, Muslim and Hindu student gatherings and secular alliances, thousands of young people will be working together this school year to serve their communities,” observed Joshua DuBois, special assistant to President Obama and executive director of the White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. “They don’t believe the same things — and they don’t have to. But they believe in making a difference for people in need.”
How might the Baptist voice contribute to the discussion and help shape the vision for cooperation in a pluralistic world?
The values of soul competency and the priesthood of all believers — foundational to our theology — can help the world of faith in the 21st century in significant and profound ways.
These two strands of our DNA emphasize on the one hand the sacred value of the individual but also remind us of the inherent connection to the larger community of faith. Expanding on these central tenets to recognize the value and heritage of other world religions may yet enable Baptists to be a light of peace in a world at war fueled in part by the great religions.
At Bluefield College where I serve, our Christ-centered mission has enabled us to take up the president’s challenge by reaching out to friends of different faiths who live in our community.
Monthly, a gathering of evangelical Christians, Greek Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, American Indians and secular humanists now occurs. We gather to reflect on who we are and how our own respective faiths can contribute to a more peaceful community. Over the next few months, we have committed ourselves to work together to build a peace garden where people of different faiths can gather. This is a simple start, but who knows where the journey will take us?
Some of our Christian brethren have asked, how can you relate to those of a different faith? How can you set yourselves at the table of faith as one among equals? And the answer is that because of the authenticity of the story we have received in Christ we have no option but to love all as God in Jesus loved us.
The Trappist monk, Thomas Merton, who was in many ways so far ahead of his time, recognized the age of pluralism to come and referred to it as the cosmic storm. His prayer was that the God of peace and holiness would “bless our earnest will to help all races and people to travel in friendship along the road to justice, liberty and lasting peace.”
It is a calling that I pray Baptists can embrace borne out of saving faith in Jesus balanced by the humility that this same salvation brings.
Robert Shippey is vice president for academic affairs at Bluefield College in Bluefield, Va., and author of Listening in a Loud World, published by Mercer University Press. This column was distributed by Associated Baptist Press.