Refugees and faith

Last Saturday the first Weekend Club in my time in Scotland took place. The Weekend Club is an Interfaith Glasgow project, where volunteers and refugees and asylum seekers spend an afternoon together. There are always foods and drinks and some kind of an official programme. Sometimes the group goes on a trip somewhere in Scotland, sometimes they learn something about Scottish history and culture and sometimes they do something about different faith traditions or religious feasts.

This time the event was mainly about discussion some questions. The questions came from the Scottish government, which wants to explore how refugees and asylum seekers feel at the moment, what should change from their point of view and what they could do about it. These questions were discussed in small groups and the answers of the refugees and asylum seekers were (anonymously) written down and will be send to the government.

It was very interesting to hear and read about how the refugees and asylum seekers are experiencing their time in Scotland. My feeling is, that although I came as a “stranger” to this country only about two months ago and not everything is easy for me as well, their life is much more difficult than mine. As asylum seekers they are not sure about their status and if they are allowed to stay in this country. They are not allowed to work and their children have difficulties to get accepted at good schools or universities. As refugees and asylum seekers they often have difficulties to learn the language and don’t know much about the rules and the culture in this country. They face racism and discrimination.

In my opinion its good, that the government asks the questions about the experiences of refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland. I don’t know enough about the politics and the system of how refugees and asylum seekers are treated to have an own opinion about if the government does enough or the right things for refugees and asylum seekers.

What I realized when I read all the notes from the different discussion groups was that the topic of “faith” or “religion” was not mentioned at all. That could be because none of the questions asked about this topic. It could be because not everybody is religious. It could also be because if you are struggling with organising your daily life after you had to leave your country because of violence, war or hunger maybe faith is not the most important topic to deal with.

I am not sure, but normally I would suggest that faith is an important topic for at least some of the refugees and asylum seekers (at least on the same level of importance as for non-refugees and asylum seekers). Especially if you are in a foreign country with a different culture your faith can become more important than it has been in your homeland, because the faith is something you can carry with you. And if I have a look at the important figures in the different faith traditions – as for example Moses, Jesus, Mohamed, the Sikh Gurus or Bahá’u’lláh – I see a lot of persons who have been refugees themselves or have faced discrimination, persecution and violence by different authorities. From my point of view the powerful life-stories of these persons can help you, if you go through difficult times yourself. And I suppose that having at least one area of life (faith), where you don’t have to struggle can even help you to settle and to integrate in a foreign society. So I really hope that the refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland, Europe and all over the world not only must think about healthcare, housing and employment but that they have a faith which supports them and helps them finding their way.

Creativity and the Arts

The last weeks one important part of my work was the preparation of resources for this years Scottish Interfaith Week. This year’s theme for Scottish Interfaith Week is “Creativity and the Arts”.

I must admit, when I first heard about this theme, I wasn’t very euphoric. I’ve never been very well in doing arts on my own and although I like going to museums and sometimes galleries art is not my main area of interest and art and music classes in school were one of those I liked less.

But during the last weeks, while exploring the diversity of religious art, I realised that looking on religious art might be a good way for learning about a religious tradition.

Here are two examples:

By 柑橘類 (talk) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20077857

Von พระมหาเทวประภาส วชิรญาณเมธี (ผู้ถ่าย-ปล่อยสัญญาอนุญาตภาพให้นำไปใช้ได้เพื่อการศึกษาโดยอยู่ภา่ยใต้ cc-by-sa-3.0)ผู้สร้างสรรค์ผลงาน/ส่งข้อมูลเก็บในคลังข้อมูลเสรีวิกิมีเดียคอมมอนส์ – เทวประภาส มากคล้าย – Tevaprapas Makklay (พระมหาเทวประภาส วชิรญาณเมธี), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7004539

Why are these to Buddha statues so different? They were made in different times, different countries and from people belonging to different Buddhist traditions. One is from India in the time of the Gupta Empire (320-550 CE) and one is from Japan and was made in 1981.

By Jörg Bittner Unna – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46476422

Why is Moses often showed horned in Western Christian tradition? If people look eg at the statue of Moses made by Michelangelo they might think Moses looks like the devil. But that’s not what the artist wanted to say. He just followed the Latin Art tradition. Christians in the middleages read the Bible (if they could read) in the Latin translation, the Vulgate. In this bible translation a Hebrew word, which literally means something like “shining” is translated by a Latin word meaning “horned”. L looking at this statue can tell you a lot about the complicated history of Christians and Jews using the same scriptures as their holy book in translating them in different languages, cultures and traditions.

From my point of view looking on different art traditions during Scottish Interfaith Week can improve the knowledge about the different traditions. There is a lot more to explore about Paintings, statues, Architecture, stories, poems, music, dances and so on!

If you are interested in attending some events during Scottish Interfaith Week or maybe hosting an event on your own or if you just want to know more about Scottish Interfaith week have a look on its brand-new website!

Interfaith Comedy

This week I had a good meeting with EIFA (Edinburgh Interfaith Association). After the meeting, I took the opportunity to experience the festival atmosphere. One of the shows I saw had an interfaith background. Its title was “2 religions – 1 comedy show”. The two comedians, Henry Churniavsky and Joe Bains, have a Jewish and a Sikh background. Their experiences as parts of religious and ethnic minorities were the main topic of their show and the audience had a very diverse background as well. From my point of view, it was a great show and it was kind of a dialogue event.

Joe Bains

Henry Churniavsky

Interfaith comedy is not a classical method of interfaith dialogue. Jokes about religious topics are always a bit difficult, because people get offended very easily. One example for (maybe) failed religious satire might be the caricatures about Mohammed at the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in 2005, which were followed by protest in many countries.

Can comedy about religious be a way for a better understanding between religions? That’s difficult to answer, but I suppose in some cases it can and I have an example from my own experience: The protestant student congregation/chaplaincy in Münster has an exchange programme with Western Galilee College in Akko in Israel. This college is special because it’s students have Jewish, Arab-Christian, Arab-Muslim and Drusian background. In 2012, I joined a group of students from this college on their trip to Münster and Berlin. During this journey, most of the Muslim and Jewish participants visited houses of worship of the other believe (mosques and synagogues) and Christian churches for the first time of their live. In Berlin, we visited amongst other sights the Holocaust memorial site, the KZ Sachsenhausen and the house of the “Wannsee Conference”. I know that in these days me and the other German participants of the group felt very bad visiting all these places of collective German guilt. One evening in a room at the hostel where we stayed one of the Jewish students made a joke. It was spontaneous and it included the words “Germany” and “gas” and probably not very politically correct but in this situation, it was the best what could happen. Suddenly everyone in the room, independent of his ethnic or religious background, was smiling and laughing. This joke and the laugh broke the ice between us and it made us one group and it made the common visits to the different religious and historical sights much easier.

This situation showed me that in some cases even a bad joke can be a basis for dialogue. That means not, that people who want to start an interfaith dialogue should go around and make jokes about religions and the Holocaust, but sometimes humour and jokes can help to a better understanding between different groups. I think it is important to see who makes the jokes about what and how the relationship between the different persons is. In my example, it was a young Jewish man who made the joke and I’m not sure, if it would have the same effect if the joke was made by a one of the Germans or Arabs. There even was already an atmosphere of trust and knowing about each other in the group. We had already spent some days together and knew about the others and the joke showed everyone that we trusted each other and that we accepted each other with our whole history and religion.

That means: From my point of view Comedy can be a good way to deepen relationships if there already is an atmosphere of trust. Often it is a big difference if the joke about a religion is made by a believer of this religion himself or by someone else.  Interfaith dialogue is dialogue about very serious topics, but dialogue is getting easier, if we don’t take ourselves so serious that it’s getting impossible to laugh about ourselves.

And so, I want to finish this blog post with a quote by Stephen Colbert in a Parade interview 23^th September 2007:

“Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can’t laugh and be afraid at the same time — of anything. If you’re laughing, I defy you to be afraid. “

The long way to peace between faiths

This week I visited the local interfaith group in fife. They told me about their activities and we discussed how Interfaith Scotland could support their work. One thing they told me was that they built a peace garden in the large park in Kirkcaldy. The project needed a lot of resources and it took about 4 years until it was finished in 2012. Even if I couldn’t visit the garden it is good to know, that there is a place where all the different religions are calling for peace in the world. Hearing about the peace garden made me think about all the conflicts which have existed and still exists between the different faiths. And I started thinking about how religious groups, which have been enemies for a long time, can become peaceful partners.

I know at least one example where that happened after a nearly 2.000 years history of persecution. I’m from Germany and a protestant Christian, so the example comes from the history of my own faith. In the so called New Testament (a part of the Christian Bible) there are scripture which have very strong anti-Jewish tendencies. From a historical point of view that’s completely understandable because the first Christians split up from the Jewish community and there were a lot of conflicts between both religious groups during the first centuries of their common history. After Christianity became the main religion of the Roman Empire Christians had the possibility to supress Jews and they did it because of the anti-Jewish tendency in the New Testament. Not all Christians did this but over the centuries it became a common sense in Christian theology that Jews were the “enemies of God”. During the middle-ages and the modern times it continuously came to pogroms against Jews in the Christian areas of the world. Even great Christian theologians such as Martin Luther the “founder” of Protestantism had strong anti-Jewish opinions. During the 19^th century the theological antijudaism became an important radix for antisemitism.  Even if the first Christians and the Christian theologians during 2000 years of Christian history are not directly responsible for the gas chambers in Auschwitz, so have they prepared the way for it. Even if there were Christians in Germany during to Nazi regime who fought against Hitler and the Nazis most of the Christians did not and during the Weimar Republic the most Nazi supporting areas in Germany were those which were traditional protestant. After the war, the protestant church in Germany (and in other western countries as well) started slowly to change their theological thinking about Jews. They remembered all the things these two faiths have in common and the shared believes.

Today in the protestant church in Germany it is a real no-go to say that Jews must become Christians to be in a relationship to god. The Jewish faith is accepted as an equal way to god – not only because of political and historical reasons but even for theological ones too. The most important step on the way from persecuting and killing Jews to accepting them as equal partners was that the Christian churches admitted their guilt for the persecution of Jews. My (regional) church where I am going to work as minister from next summer changed its basic article in 1991. This text is the basis for everything what happens in the church. Every minister in the church is getting ordained on this article. Since 1991 the article ends with two new sentences:

“For blindness and guilt called for repentance, she (the church) again testifies to the permanent election of the Jews and God’s covenant with them. The confession of Jesus Christ includes this testimony.” ( „Aus Blindheit und Schuld zur Umkehr gerufen bezeugt sie (die EKHN) neu die bleibende Erwählung der Juden und Gottes Bund mit ihnen. Das Bekenntnis zu Jesus Christus schließt dieses Zeugnis ein.“)

I think it is not usual that a religious group has the permanent election of another religious group as one of their main articles of believe but it gives me hope. It gives me the hope that the different religious faiths can accept another as equal partners without a repeating of the history between Christians and Jews. It would mean that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Bahais and all the other faiths would confess everything they done to each other. It would mean that they admit their guilt and that they forgive each other. Maybe it’s idealistic but I hope it will happen. I think this is a task for every believer and everyone can do something for this. The “normal people” can try to build good relationships to their neighbours from different faiths. Have a chat when they meet, ask how they feel, let their children play together… The theologians must rethink their theological positions towards each other. The example of the Christian-Jewish relationship shows me that this is possible, even if it is a long and difficult journey.

What do you think? Is peace and reconciliation between the religions possible?

 

If I write about the “protestant church in Germany” I mean the EKD. If I write about “my (regional) church I mean the EKHN.

Interfaith Dialogue – a uncontroversial topic?!

Two weeks ago I was a part of a delegation from Interfaith Scotland who visited the Church of Scotland’s National Youth Assembly 2017 in Gartmore. The National Youth Assembly (NYA) is a platform for young adults in the church of Scotland where they discuss different topics and the future of their church. It was a pleasure to meet so many young people who engage themselves for their faith and the society.

 

Saturday evening at the youth assembly the young adults participated in a workshop about interfaith. After a short introduction about what interfaith dialogue is about and about Interfaith Scotland they could meet representatives from the Baha’i, Sikh and Muslim Faith and play a game where they had to relate different religious objects to respective faith. For nearly all of them it was the first time they (wittingly) talked to a Baha’i and a Sikh and for some of them it was the first time they talked to a Muslim as well. When we sat together in the evening or during the meals many of the youths told me, that for them interfaith was the most interesting topic during the NYA, because they did know so little about it before.

 

The next day Mirella, Church of Scotland’s Interfaith officer, hold a talk about interfaith dialogue from a Christian perspective. After this the participants of the NYA discussed the topic in small groups. I could participate in one of the groups and had the feeling that everyone was very open to interfaith dialogue. The questions that where discussed where among others “What does good interfaith dialogue look like?”, “How can Christians be better in Interfaith dialogue?”, “What can we offer at dialogue?”, “What should the Church of Scotland be doing?”, “What can we do locally?” and “Are there problematic attitudes and events in the past who are connected to interfaith and what can we do about them?”. After the discussions in the small groups the different questions were discussed again in the large plenum.

I was happy about but even a bit surprised that there hardly weren’t any critical voices about interfaith dialogue. From discussions with young Christian adults in Germany (theologians and no-theologians) I remember much more scepticism about giving up Christian values or fundamentals. From my former experiences, I would have expected to hear a (loud) minority who felt that dialogue maybe might be a good way to proselytize Non-Christians but not a dialogue at eye level. But in the discussion at the NYA no one referred to such sentences as John 14,16 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.“ to prove that interfaith dialogue might not be a “good Christian thing”.

I was very (positively) surprised that (nearly) everybody seemed to see interfaith dialogue as an important way of making our society more peaceful and just. For the most of the NYA delegates it seemed to be clear that the Church of Scotland should do much more in interfaith work than they actually do. I hope that many of these young adults stay engaged in their church and always remember their positive attitude towards interfaith dialogue, so that there is a strong voice for interfaith work inside the Church of Scotland, other Christian denominations and other faith traditions. What do you think about interfaith dialogue? Is it as easy as it seems for the young adults or do you see any problems? Feel free to leave a comment!

Hello World

Hello Everybody,

my name is Simon and I’m the new intern at Interfaith Scotland and Interfaith Glasgow. I’m from Germany and have been training to become a minister in the protestant church in Germany. I arrived in Scotland three weeks ago and am going to stay here until next summer. When I’m back in Germany I am going to get ordained and start working as a minister in a parish.

During my year I am going to update this blog as often as possible, so that all of you can share my different interfaith experiences.

So maybe you are interested why a German protestant minister is coming to Scotland to do an interfaith internship. I would say that in a way interfaith dialogue has been a natural part of my life. I grew up in the Rhein-Main area around Frankfurt. Here a lot of different nationalities live together. When I went to school there were children with Turkish, Chinese or Iranian background – and of course they had all their different religious faiths and believe. But I must admit that in these times we didn’t made a big topic out of the differences. It was just normal that people come from different countries and belong to different religious traditions. I remember, that when we learned about different religions in school (e.g. Judaism, Islam and Buddhism), I found it very interesting.

I for myself grew up in a surrounding of German Christian Protestantism. My father is a minister as well and I did a lot of youth work in church. During a voluntary service in the Church of Sweden 2007-2008 I decided to study theology myself.

From this time on interfaith dialogue was an important topic for my theological thinking. Challenged by fellow student who defended Christian (or even Protestant/Lutheran) superiority above other faiths I was thinking a lot about how the different faiths and believe could learn from each other and how they can deal with their differences and commonalities. A very important experience for my thinking about interfaith was when I lived in an international, ecumenical and interfaith student dormitory in Münster in Germany. Sometimes it was challenging but always enriching to live with people from such different countries as Syria, China, Palestine, Colombia, Cameroon, Belarus and many more. It was a really great experience that so many different people, with different cultures and different faiths can live together in one house.

During my training as a minister in Ingelheim, a small town close to the river Rhein, I would have liked to bring my theoretical thinking about interfaith dialogue into praxis, but I didn’t find a good starting point – and was even busy to learn how to preach, teach, celebrate weddings, baptisms, funerals and a lot more things a minister must do.

During my time in Scotland I’m hoping to make more interfaith experiences and to get some ideas about interfaith work, which I can bring back to Germany and include to my praxis as a minister. I am very interested in meeting people who are already involved in interfaith work or want to know more about it. If you want to contact me, you can do this here or via simon@interfaithscotland.org. I’m looking forward to meeting you!

Kind regards,

Simon