Immigration continues to be a divisive, hot-button topic throughout our region, across the land, and around the world. In the June Prelude I wondered if Christians have any idea how many of their fellow Christians speak another language or came here from another nation. I also wonder if many of us, regardless of our faith, have any clue how many of our neighbors follow other religions.

I have been involved in ecumenical and interfaith work for most of my life and have lived on Long Island since 1985 but it was not until I started working for the LICC in 1999 that I learned anything about one of the faith communities on Long Island, the Brahma Kumaris or recognized Unitarian Universalism as a separate religion or had any idea that there were so many Sikhs, Jains, and Hindus hereabouts. Our region is rapidly becoming much more diverse than most of us know, with minority communities growing even more rapidly here than elsewhere in the U.S. This is making our area a more interesting place to live, because it forces us to keep learning about other traditions, other cultures, and other ways of understanding God.

Some of this diversity is the result of immigration: demand for high-technology workers has brought many Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs to Long Island from India, for example. But our land has always been a multi-faith one, far more so than most people realize: there were three times as many Wampanoag's as Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving feast, and something like one quarter of the Africans who were brought here in chains were Muslim.

This diversity often reminds me of my own ignorance, and as Martha Stewart used to say, this is a good thing. It is when I know I am weak, Paul told the young church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 12:10) - and in my case, when I admit that I do not know it all - that I really am strong. And when it comes to knowing our new neighbors, we all have much to learn. How many Christians, for example, know anything about the ways Judaism has evolved since the time of Jesus?

Christians, of course, have always had a wide range of approaches to non-Christian neighbors, from wanting to convert them to being willing to learn from them. But both those committed to interfaith dialogue and those who proselytize quickly discover that they need to learn about others in order to share what they themselves believe - and often are changed by their encounter with other faiths. As Harvard's Diana Eck points out, interfaith dialogue usually leads us to fresh understanding of our own beliefs.

Evangelicals often are unwilling to take part in interfaith dialogue or multi-faith education if they are seated between a Bahai and a Sikh - and thus cede the microphone to those who are willing to bear witness to their beliefs on a level playing field. Liberals often fear that they will somehow offend others if they tell non-Christians what they believe. My own experience in the Long Island Multi-Faith Forum has been that our neighbors are hardly offended at the thought that we might tell them how the Gospel has shaped us. Far from it: they have plenty of questions they want to ask us, and they find it a little frustrating when it is hard to get Christians to tell them how they practice the Good News in their daily lives.

This sort of work is both ecumenical and evangelical: those from my tribe who engage in interfaith dialogue and education usually become more comfortable identifying themselves as Christians without needing to first add endless qualifiers ("Well, I'm a Christian, but a Protestant," or "I'm Christian, but Catholic," or "Well, I'm a Christian, but not THAT kind of Christian.) They also usually become much more effective at communicating their faith to others.

The Long Island Council of Churches and Auburn Theological Seminary launched the LIMFF in 1993 to help us understand their neighbors. The LIMFF unites hundreds of Islanders from eleven different faith communities and many races, nationalities, and cultures. Our volunteers represent the Bahai Faith, the Brahma Kumaris, Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American Spirituality, Sikhism, and Unitarian Universalism. If you are not familiar with all these traditions or did not know that they are your neighbors, you may need a Building Bridges program! The Forum has presented more than 250 "Building Bridges" presentations and Multi-Faith Festivals in schools, workplaces, and houses of worship. Its volunteers have tackled remarkably varied topics, from what health care professionals need to know about their increasingly diverse patients to the meaning of Woody Allen's films. Do we have a Jain pediatrician? Yes, we do. Can we find you a Buddhist film buff who can discuss Woody Allen? Yes we can. While most of our programs are presented in English, we have also had "Building Bridges" in Spanish and could try other languages as well.

No matter whether you want to evangelize your neighbors or sell them shoes, to peddle real estate or invite your neighbors to send their children to your nursery school, it helps to know something about how they practice their beliefs. What kind of leather might Hindus or Muslims wear? What are Jains or Brahma Kumaris likely to put on the barbecue - and would they even care if the house had a backyard grill?

Are you ready to get to know your neighbors? Are you ready to learn something new about yourself and about God? The Multi-Faith Forum would be glad to help.

Shalom/Salaam/Shanti/Pax,
Tom

DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT:
Sara C. Weiss, Director of Development