Chapter 1

Introduction

The primary objective and challenge of interfaith dialogue initiatives is to help induce positive long-lasting change in people's understanding of the "other." There is a need to formulate innovative community-based educational approaches to ensure that participants in Muslim-Christian interfaith encounters leave thinking differently, feeling differently and acting differently.

In order to trial a different approach, Affinity Intercultural Foundation and St. Charles Catholic Church in Ryde, Sydney, developed the idea of having home discussion groups and then invited Strathfield Homebush Uniting Church to also take part. The project was comprised of six separate groups having monthly meetings for six consecutive months. Each group was made up of four Muslims and four Christians. A facilitator directed each meeting, which covered a preset topic from both Christian and Muslim perspectives in each meeting. After each faith's perspective was presented, a respondent from the other faith tradition summarised the presentation in their own words and as they understood it. This was followed by an informal discussion and questions and answer session.

The experience has generated profound understanding of the other within their frame of reference. Surprisingly, it has also led participants to better understand their own faith tradition. The key to success was the establishment of an atmosphere of trust in an informal setting of a home, training each participant to develop better listening skills together with a basic willingness to understand. The right atmosphere, the right set of skills and the right attitude produced a unique community-based educational approach in Muslim-Christian relations.

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Home Meetings in Interfaith Dialogue

The usual method of interfaith initiatives is in the form of conferences or one-off seminars. Typically, in the leadership of an organisation or in partnership with a number of stakeholder organisations, a conference is organised around a central theme focusing on one aspect of interfaith dialogue. A number of prominent speakers are arranged to speak in front of an invited audience, who are usually passive listeners. Conferences last one or two days where there is a peak of positive energy, which tends to diminish not long after the conference. It is also very seldom that concrete, actionable commitments come out of such conferences.

Don't get me wrong. I am not against having such conferences. I strongly believe that such conferences have played a major part in raising awareness of the need for dialogue. They have also laid the foundations of today's positive religious environment. Moreover, the organisation that I represent, Affinity Intercultural Foundation, has been a key partner in two international interfaith conferences held in Melbourne and Sydney over the last two years. We will certainly continue to hold major conferences to stimulate further mass awareness and establish close relationship at organisational, academic and religious representation levels to continue the "dialogue movement". In actual fact, the concept of "home meetings" was one of the recommendations of Education Workshop of the last interfaith conference held in 2003. Nevertheless, in general, such conferences do not generate lasting personal change for those who participate in them. We need to encourage participants to not only attend physically but also to spiritually and mentally absorb these educational experiences in the hope of enacting permanent, inner change.

This is where the concept, what I call, 'sustained dialogue' comes in. The concept rests on the facilitation of communication of one's own religious ideas and listening to the representation of the other's religious ideas in the personal space of all participants in a number of meetings stretched over time. This concept was trialled in a project that we named the "Encounters Project".

The idea of implementing such a project was not the product of one person, but rather it arose from the collective mind of a team of Muslims and Christians. The project seemed to be the natural end of a process where a group of Christians and Muslims engaged in a series of dialogue initiatives. The first initiative started in late 2002 when St Charles Catholic Church social-justice members contacted Affinity to arrange for a speaker to attend a special evening at their church to inform the church congregation about Islam and Muslims as well as answer their immediate questions. A successful evening of initial encounters led to a request to arrange a mosque visit and meet members of the Muslim community. The mosque visit took place on the 8th of February 2003. A group of about fifty church members visited Auburn Gallipoli Mosque. The visit consisted of a tour of the mosque and meeting other members of the local Muslim community and Affinity executives over afternoon tea. Affinity positively responded to the first steps from the Christian community of Ryde when it organised a return visit to St. Charles Church. A group of about twenty men and women visited the church. The visit consisted of a tour of the church, a questions and answer session and afternoon tea.

The reciprocal goodwill gestures had established a strong relationship and a high level of trust on both sides. We were now ready to further develop our relationship and take the dialogue initiative to the next level. In the ensuing discussions over what might be done, the idea of having home meetings involving Christians and Muslims in their personal space was born. The new initiative was titled the "Encounters Project" and attracted both support and a financial grant from the Australian Government's Living in Harmony community grants program.

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Governance and Format

An organising committee comprising of representatives from Affinity and St Charles Church was established to manage the project to completion. Representatives from the Strathfield Homebush Uniting Church later joined in this organising committee as well. The organising committee was authorised to formulate and execute the project to ensure that the following deliverables were achieved:

  • that people who would be willing to take part in the project would be found;
  • that the format of the gatherings would be structured;
  • that the topics of discussion would be identified beforehand and agreed on to the satisfaction of both Muslims and Christians;
  • that the meetings would be carried out with the full participation of members of both religious communities;
  • that the project would be videotaped from start to end, from which an edited documentary tape would be produced;
  • that the writings from both Muslim and Christian perspectives addressing the common topics would be compiled into a book.

The committee met regularly starting from July 2003 on a fortnightly basis and since January 2004 has been meeting on a weekly basis to manage the project. The committee has chosen six subject matters that they believed would cover the core doctrinal areas of each religion. Focusing on the core subject matters rather than peripheral areas was a courageous move as it inevitably meant that certain differences in Muslim and Christian theology would also be highlighted. The committee felt that for understanding to take place at the kernel of religion, we had to face these differences and give each other the opportunity to ask questions with the intention to understand rather than to challenge. Each topic was to be covered at each month's gathering. The six subject matters of discussion were as follows:

  1. Monotheism
  2. Prophethood
  3. Scriptures and their History
  4. Family and Marriage
  5. Spiritual Experience and Development
  6. Concept of Holy War

The evening gatherings were attended by four Muslims and four Christians who would meet in the home of a participant, alternating between a Christian home and a Muslim home each meeting. Two male and two female participants from each religious tradition were selected to ensure equitable gender participation. Considering that the project would run over six months, a number of reserves were also arranged just in case a regular participant could not make a meeting. A facilitator chaired each meeting. The six facilitators were trained in facilitation techniques and all participants were trained in listening skills prior to the commencement of the project.

The evening format1 was prepared to give people a chance to express themselves and also to listen to the other side. This was achieved by engendering a level of formality and informality to the two-hour gatherings. If the whole experience was made too formal it would be perceived as too rigid and prevent the expressions of genuine feelings and thoughts. If it were made too informal, there was the possibility that one group or certain individuals would dominate the discussions or people would easily diverge into many different areas with the result that the discussions might lose their coherence. The key was to have a balance between some structure and providing flexibility.

The meetings started with a fifteen-minute talk about the evening's topic of discussion from a representative of each faith tradition. A Muslim respondent, for example, would then summarise what he or she understood in his or her words from the presentation of the Christian participant. If anything were summarised incorrectly, the group giving the talk would clarify it. This would be then repeated for the other faith tradition. In this way, a minimum level of structure was set so that both Muslims and Christians would feel that they had equal time to express their views and beliefs. The role of the respondent was important as it forced participants to listen to the other side's presentation. But it was aimed at even more than that. Having to do a summary meant that the respondent had to try and understand the information provided by the other team so that he or she could put the other side's talk in his or her own words. The roles of giving the presentation and summarising were rotated between all participants so that everyone got a chance to present and summarise. At the end of a meeting each participant was asked to complete an evaluation questionnaire2.

The main role of the facilitator was to maintain the equitable distribution of presentation time between each group; to ensure that everyone got a fair opportunity to ask questions and make comments; to prevent pointless discussion and divergence into subject matters not related to the topic of discussion and to summarise the similarities between the Muslim and Christian perspective of each topic3. The last point is important as it ensured that each gathering ended on a positive note.

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Preparation of Papers

For each meeting a paper was written4 in preparation for the ensuing discussion. These papers would then be included in this book. In this respect, this book is unique for not only giving an account of a human encounter experience between a group of Christians and Muslims but it also brings together the Muslim and Christian perspectives—as understood and prepared by them—on the same set of topics under the cover of one book.

The Christian papers were prepared for the purpose of providing Christian participants with a starting point for their own reflections on the topic in order to engage in dialogue. In preparing the papers, the writers needed to constantly ask themselves what might the Muslim perspective on this topic be and what would they be likely to ask the Christian participants. This question constantly drove the content of the papers. They are not necessarily the papers that would be written by Christians for Christians on these topics, nor the papers that would be written for academic purposes. Further considerations in the writing of the papers were the group who would be engaging with the material and the context of engagement. It was prepared to facilitate people with little or no background in the subject matter to begin to understand in very broad and general detail some aspects of the topic. The material was to be presented and discussed in a home-based discussion group, not an academic tutorial. For the Christian participants, they were encouraged to engage with the material in a manner that deepened their own faith, rather than simply extending or reaffirming their intellectual understanding of the topic. Finally, the material was intended to be a springboard for discussion and dialogue. It was kept short according to the original guidelines so that it could be presented within the specified time frame of 15 minutes. Hence the papers are very limited in scope and depth. They depend on dialogue and discussion for their enhancement. They are not intended to be used for academic comparisons of Islam and Christianity outside of discussion and dialogue.

The Muslim papers were prepared as a general outline of each topic. Each argument was supported by the sources of Islam (Qur'an and sayings of Prophet Muhammad) and their rationale explained to aid understanding. In a similar tone to the Christian papers, the Muslim papers were also structured to address the likely questions from Christian participants. At the same time, the same content can also be used for Muslim audiences. The length of the papers sometimes went over the word limit because the topics of discussion were rather general and each topic had to be covered from more than one angle to address all most levels of misunderstandings. The Muslim participants were expected to summarise each paper to fit it in the time frame of 15 minutes.

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Key Outcomes

I can categorically state that all those who participated in the project have experienced a profound change. They are now thinking differently, feeling differently and certainly this change will result in a difference in their actions. There are four key outcomes of this project. Some were expected and some were surprisingly unexpected.

1. A Greater Understanding of One's Own Faith

The most surprising outcome of the project was that it has lead participants to increase the level of knowledge and understanding of their own faith tradition. Writing the topics of discussion, sharing insights between own group members, studying the topic knowing that one will give a fifteen-minute presentation and finally listening to the presentation in a meeting all augment one's understanding of the faith tradition that one belongs to. This was further enhanced by the questions that were asked by the other group and the answers that were given by the members of the same group.

For example, Grahame Ellis, retired Uniting Church priest, remarked "Not only am I learning about Islam. I am also appreciating some of the basic elements of Christianity. These basic elements are so often taken for granted but having to think and speak about them in a group that sincerely wants to know, makes me look again and in looking I find a richness that I hadn't realised was there." In a similar tone Muhammad Elbishbeshy, a Muslim of Egyptian background, said, "I cannot believe how much these meetings have made me appreciate my own faith".

2. The Level of Improvement in Understanding the Other Faith Tradition is Different for Muslims and Christians

Another unexpected outcome of the project was that the net change in the level of understanding of the other's faith tradition by Muslims and Christians was not the same. In general, Christian participants experienced a higher leap in their understanding of Islam than the learning by Muslims of Christianity.

This is mainly due to the fact that, prior to the start of the project, Muslims have already had a base knowledge about Christianity for two reasons. Firstly, one of the essential tenets of Islam is that it recognises Christianity as a God-revealed religion and Jesus as a person who represented God on earth. Naturally, the fundamental source in Islam, the Qur'an, talks a lot about Jesus and Christian concepts. In learning his or her religion, a Muslim inevitably learns about Christianity as well. Secondly, living as a minority in a predominantly Christian society, Muslims unavoidably learn about basic Christian beliefs and practices. However, the same can not be said about Christians whose faith tradition does not talk about Islam and Muhammad, and as a result they do not necessarily learn about Islam. Added to this lack of knowledge is the distorted imagery portrayed by media sources and the actions of some Muslims, which give an average Christian a bleak view of Islam and Muslims. Therefore, the Muslim and Christian reaction to the dialogue experience was fundamentally different.

For Muslims, the project provided an opportunity to understand Christianity within a Christian frame of reference. They had some knowledge about Christian beliefs and practices but did not appreciate them in through the experience and rationale of Christians. For example, Muhammad Elbishbeshy was eager to find out how Christians understood the concept of Trinity. In a similar tone, I wanted to find out what Christians were feeling when they were going through the experience of a Eucharist practice. For some Muslims the concept of Eucharist was a revelation in itself. We were able to ask our questions knowing that Christian participants would not be offended and as a result we received honest answers.

For Christians, the project provided an opportunity for them to learn about Islam directly from Muslims. They were also able to test the information that they received from media sources. The general observation was that the experience shifted the paradigms of Christian participants about Islam and Muslims. Again Grahame Ellis remarks, "The whole process has alerted me to the programs on television/radio and the articles in the press. Sadly, these have not helped much in my understanding of Islam but rather have helped me identify the stereotypes of both Islam and an Anglo-Celtic Australia, its insensitivity, crudeness and ignorance."

It is inevitable that our beliefs and practices shape our paradigms. We evaluate the world through our frame of reference and it is not easy to get out of that frame of reference. It seems that this project provided better understanding for both Muslims and Christians although this understanding was to different degrees.

3. Realisation of Commonalities

The positive tone of the word "dialogue" and an emphasis in the gatherings on highlighting similarities enabled the participants to see many parallels not only in certain beliefs but also in practices as well. I will not go into the similarities between the two religions as it is beyond the scope of this paper.

Once again the Muslim and Christian response to the parallels were different. For Muslims, these parallels were expected and were natural, as they believed that the same God revealed both Islam and Christianity. Their rationale was that if the same God revealed both religions, it is inevitable that there will be similarities. Makiz, a young Muslim lady and a university student remarked, "the dialogues re-affirmed for me how we are truly of the same Abrahamic descent." For some of the Christian participants, the similarities were more of a surprise for the reasons already mentioned in the second outcome. Exclamations of how many similarities there were between Islam and Christianity underscored the responses of many Christian participants.

4. Better Understanding of Differences

The usual tendency in a dialogue initiative is to push differences to the background due to the concern that they might cause people to be overly defensive and unwilling to listen. However, such an attitude does not give us any opportunities to discover the reasons for these differences. Perhaps a true understanding takes place when such differences are explored. Also talking about differences without getting offensive or defensive is a test of sincerity and respect for the other in dialogue.

We were able to ask questions in areas of differences knowing that the intention was to understand and not to challenge. This attitude was of paramount importance in the success of the dialogue initiatives. Having ongoing meetings also allowed the participants to build a trusting relationship so that such questions could be asked with ease. Gwen Fairall, a Christian lady, said "The need to confront, in a mature way, any serious tension between Islamic and Christian views has been positive. This has been achieved with a matured understanding of each other's faith and appreciation for both. There are differences, evident to all in the group but with questioning and hopefully understanding of differences and similarities of same, there has developed a much better appreciation of each other's faith." On a similar tone the same feelings were echoed by Zuleyha Keskin, a Muslim lady of a Turkish background, "I learnt that there are more similarities between Islam and Christianity than I had realised. At the same time, there are significant differences in our understanding and interpretation of our religions. It made me realise that we could talk about each other's religion openly without offending members of the other faith. I realise that we can build friendships with Christians and it does not make me feel uncomfortable. I learnt that Christians have a great interest in learning about my religion and that they are willing to put misconceptions behind them."

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Ingredients for a Successful Interfaith Experience

The feeling of the majority, if not all of about sixty participants in the "sustained dialogue" experiment, is that the experience has been positive and the project was successful. Their participation resulted in lasting change in people and enabled them to see each other as fully human. It is important to give an assessment of the key ingredients that created the environment for success. I believe the project succeeded because of the following seven factors:

  1. Strong Management and Organisational Support: The project was organised and managed by a committee made up of Christians and Muslims. It was not organised solely by one faith group. In this respect, there was a closer dialogue and relationship-building at an organisational level as well. Without the sponsorship of Affinity Intercultural Foundation and St Charles Church as the main organisers of the project, individuals would not feel safe to engage in dialogue at a personal level. The facilitation of trusted and experienced organisations is key to success in interfaith dialogue. The logistics of the operation was also significantly complex and it required a strong management team to make sure everything was running smoothly and consistently.
  2. Trust between Organisations: As I have explained before, participants took part in this project because there was already a developed relationship and an adequate level of trust that had been built-up prior to engaging in this project. Such a trusting relationship was created by mutual visits and "testing the water" initiatives that made everyone comfortable about each other's intentions.
  3. Personal Space in a Home Environment: Almost everyone noted that the idea of meeting in each other's homes augmented the personal comfort and created a positive psychology for all participants. This is mainly due to the fact that we usually invite our friends to our homes. So receiving all in a home implied friendship. The other reason is that sitting in living rooms, we were all in each other's personal space (within 3 metres), in which people feel less reserved. In the fourth meeting, for example, some participants in the group remarked that they did not feel at ease and did not leave the gathering feeling good about it. When we tried to understand why this was the case, it occurred to us that the living room of the house was large and the seating arrangement was too distant (about 5 metres) between the participants rendering people too distant at a personal level.
  4. Set Topics and Set Format: Knowing what topics would be covered in each meeting meant that there was an opportunity to prepare and anticipate certain expectations of each other. This made participants comfortable and confident in going into the meetings. Giving input on the selection of the topics also empowered both Christians and Muslims to own the subject matters of the discussions. The format also allowed for the benefits of having a structure and the flexibility and comfort of informality.
  5. Fair Opportunity to Express Oneself: One of the main motivators for people to participate in these meetings was not only to learn about the other faith tradition but also to have an opportunity to express their faith and religious feelings to others. Although this seems to be counter-intuitive to the purpose of dialogue, it is an essential part of human nature and a key ingredient of dialogue. That is, everyone wants to be given a chance to express himself or herself. A dialogue initiative that ignores this key ingredient is destined to fail.
  6. Listening: Just as dialogue that generates no new understanding is futile, new understanding does not develop if participants do not listen to one another. Knowing that our natural tendency is to express ourselves rather than to listen first, the format was specifically designed to force participants to listen. The appointment of a respondent made sure that at the very least the respondent would listen attentively. And since everyone took turns in this role, every participant went through an intense listening experience. The coverage of the respondent after a presentation was also a form of revision in itself. Moreover, it gave an opportunity to the presenter to clarify any misunderstandings. Furthermore, since we are usually not trained in the skill of listening to other people, we have run workshops on developing listening skills.
  7. Facilitation: Having an objective facilitator made sure time was equitably distributed between both groups and that one group or a few individuals did not dominate the discussions. The presence of a facilitator also made participants comfortable knowing that if any person stepped out of line (although this never happened in all thirty-six meetings), there would be someone to mediate or stop the discussion.

The idea of having home gatherings to facilitate learning at an individual level has worked well and has resulted in lasting change among the participants. The "sustained dialogue" experience was a unique community-education initiative as it was a large-scale operation that has the propensity to expand in the future to include hundreds of people and perhaps over time thousands. However, such a project need not necessarily be just for Muslims and Christians: suitable topics can be chosen to accommodate people of different faiths, so that they can come together in a similar manner. The project not only proved that a personal dialogue experience enables a participant to learn about his or her own faith but also to learn about the other faith tradition while having an opportunity to get to know members of the other faith tradition at a personal and a human level. Margaret Roberts has summed up the result of the project simply for herself: "I have learnt a lot about Islam as well as my own faith." A Muslim lady, Amine O. Atalay spontaneously expressed the feelings of all participants:

"An encounter of the yearning souls,
To share a taste of the Divine...
It was a night illuminated brighter than the day!
The sun of a spiritual dimension was gently on the rise
As the eager made their way to a home they had never been before."

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Footnotes

  1. The general format and timeline of evening discussions is given in Appendix 1.
  2. A sample questionnaire is given in Appendix 2. It does not ask if the person filling in the questionnaire was a Christian or a Muslim. This was not included in the start not to cause any such polarisation. However, it is important to know the religious identification of the person so that the comments can be considered properly.
  3. General guidelines and meeting rules for facilitators and participants are provided in Appendix 3.
  4. See Appendix 4 for guidelines on the preparation of articles.