{"id":5544,"date":"2021-08-01T20:57:15","date_gmt":"2021-08-01T20:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=5544"},"modified":"2021-07-23T22:03:54","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T22:03:54","slug":"interfaith-engagement-because-were-lutheran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/interfaith-engagement-because-were-lutheran\/","title":{"rendered":"Interfaith Engagement: Because We\u2019re Lutheran"},"content":{"rendered":"

With temperature and humidity pushing into the nineties, the football team broke early for lunch. As players headed over to the cafeteria for lunch, a few hung back. The coach approached, offering to walk with them. \u201cThanks,\u201d one replied.\u201d \u201cBut it\u2019s Ramadan, and we\u2019re fasting.\u201d\u00a0 When the non-Muslim teammates heard the reason for their absence at the meal, they decided to fast for a few days with them in solidarity, literally, \u201cleveling the playing field.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cReligion in Residence,\u201d a unique integrative learning course, invited Residential Advisors already enrolled in a world religions course to a biweekly discussion group with the residential life officer and a professor of Islamic Studies.\u00a0 Together they explored real-life issues in the dorms. Did the request by a group of Jewish students to light a menorah during Hanukkah comport with the school\u2019s fire safety policy? As they researched how other institutions handled similar situations, students learned a lot about Judaism. The religion professor observed: \u201cPeople expect we\u2019re about religious advocacy and we\u2019re not. It\u2019s really about religious literacy.\u201d[1]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

***<\/em><\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t get the hang of the hymn at that Wednesday night campus Communion service, so I turned to the student next to me. \u201cHelp!\u201d She smiled, \u201cI\u2019m Jewish, so I can\u2019t.\u201d I later found out that her roommate had invited her at the beginning of the year. Drawn to the darkness, the quiet, and the welcome she\u2019d received, she kept coming back.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Lutheran institutions are laboratories for interfaith engagement. Because these institutions are \u201cdeeply rooted in the Lutheran intellectual tradition,\u201d they are \u201cboldly open to insights from other religions and secular traditions.\u201d (Rooted & Open<\/em>, 1). For Lutheran institutions of higher learning, interfaith work is not a luxury.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[2] Interfaith engagement is embedded in the DNA of schools committed to educating the \u201cwhole person,\u201d body, mind, and spirit. Find it on the athletic field, in the classroom, in campus worship spaces and ritual ceremonies, as the examples above demonstrate. These encounters provide the raw material for engaging religious traditions more deeply, offering graduates the knowledge, skills, and sensibilities they will need in a religiously diverse world, whatever their vocational calling or professional goals.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[3] In the landscape of higher education, Lutheran institutions have a distinctive place. They join other faith-based<\/strong> institutions (e.g., the network of Jesuit colleges and universities), whose very rootedness in a particular religious tradition empowers them to be open to people of other religious backgrounds — and no background at all.\u00a0 They stand in contrast to faith-promoting<\/strong> institutions, on one hand, and faith-bracketing<\/strong> institutions on the other. Faith-promoting <\/strong>schools, like Bethel University (Christian) or Hebrew Union (Reform Judaism) or Zaytuna College (Muslim) nurture a particular kind of faith in curricular and co-curricular settings.\u00a0 Because of the separation between church and state, state schools are faith-bracketing<\/strong> institutions. Religious studies and philosophy departments pursue the academic study of religion in classrooms segregated from the activities of various campus religious groups.<\/p>\n

[4] Faith-based<\/strong> institutions, like the network of Lutheran colleges and universities, acknowledge that religion is both an academic discipline and<\/em> a practiced faith. A Muslim student introduced me to her parents at graduation, and they spoke of their comfort in sending their daughter to a Lutheran school: \u201cWe knew you weren\u2019t going to turn Nastaran into a Lutheran. We knew you\u2019d respect her own faith.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/a> These same sentiments could have been expressed by Jewish parents at Wagner College or Hindu parents at Muhlenberg.<\/p>\n

[5] Lutheran institutions have a particular purchase on interfaith engagement.\u00a0 Simply put, for these schools, interfaith engagement is not a luxury. Arguments from both scripture and Lutheran tradition support that claim. There are many; here are three.<\/p>\n

[6] A first reason is embedded in the tradition itself.\u00a0 The Lutheran movement is always in the process of reforming (semper reformanda).<\/em> God became human in an ongoing revelation called \u201cincarnation.\u201d In the person of Jesus, God participated in the full range of human experience, body, mind, and spirit. When God comes as a person, not as a set of sacred texts or a Book of Confessions, the only thing for disciples to do is to \u201cfollow that person.\u201d\u00a0 And people move around, showing up in company with people of other faiths — and no faith at all.<\/p>\n

[7] A second and related reason is a deeply embedded epistemological humility. <\/em>Lutherans admit to being saint<\/em> and sinner<\/em> simultaneously (simul justus et peccator)<\/em>, a double vision that operates against a clear-eyed absolute certainty. In fact, Lutherans should be quite certain they don\u2019t<\/em> have all the answers.\u00a0 That ought to make them humble, open to, even dependent upon the knowledge of those outside the tribe.\u00a0 <\/strong>All of this conspires to engender a kind of epistemological humility.[5]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

[8] Finally, a third and final reason why, for Lutherans interfaith work is not a luxury is Luther\u2019s theological focus on the \u201cneighbor.\u201d Luther was fluent in the language of \u201cneighbor,\u201d a theme that echoes throughout the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament (Leviticus 19:18, cf., Mark 12:30-31). \u201cNeighbor\u201d is not the language of \u201cfamily,\u201d a community bound by blood, or \u201cfriends,\u201d a community bound by loves and preferences, or \u201cenemy,\u201d a community bound by hatred. \u201cNeighbor\u201d is also not the language of \u201cstranger,\u201d language that erodes community like an acid, creating a place where no one belongs.<\/p>\n

[9] For Lutherans, interfaith work is not<\/em> a luxury.\u00a0 It is part of the mission and identity of each one of these institutions.\u00a0 Each institution lives it out in very different ways, because each institution serves different contexts and each institution bears distinctive gifts.\u00a0 But all of the institutions in this ecology of Lutheran higher education share a commitment to see<\/em> the other as neighbor, to be<\/em> neighbor to the other, and to live in our various contexts as if they were a neighborhood<\/em> or a \u201ccommons.\u201d<\/p>\n

[10] Let\u2019s see how a few institutions operationalize interfaith engagement.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Concordia College, Moorhead MN<\/u><\/p>\n

[11] Concordia College located its interfaith engagement in a Forum on Faith and Life, which former and founding director Jacqueline Bussie led from 2011-2021.[6]<\/sup><\/a> The center\u2019s title was a deliberate choice. The word \u201cfaith\u201d rather than \u201cinterfaith\u201d or \u201cChristian\u201d signaled a commitment to the lived practice of religion. It also created space for both interfaith and intra-faith conversation, i.e., dialogue between traditions and dialogue within them. After all, no tradition is a monolith; its practices and beliefs have multiple expressions. The word \u201cforum\u201d signaled a public space for these conversations, both within the campus community and with the religious leaders in the Fargo-Moorhead area. As a hinge between college and community, the Forum offered a Speakers Series inviting these leaders as participants and presenters. The Forum trained various cohorts of Interfaith Scholars who did learning projects in the surrounding community.<\/p>\n

[12] Locating the Forum outside Campus Ministry was also a deliberate choice. Interfaith work was not a subset of Campus Ministry. The Forum worked with rather than under CM, which gave it greater flexibility to link to other divisions across the college. A President\u2019s Interfaith Advisory Council with representatives from faculty, admissions, advancement, student services, dining services, Campus Ministry, and the Forum coordinated these various initiatives. Finally, the Forum worked closely with the chief diversity officer at Concordia to ensure that college\u2019s diversity training included anti-bias training in religion.<\/p>\n

[13] Recognizing the need for multi-religious literacy in every graduate\u2019s professional toolkit, especially, pre-law, pre-med, or business, Bussie developed an interfaith minor, which drew on the resources of a Religion Department with broad expertise in the world\u2019s religions and involves 35 faculty from 13 different departments.<\/p>\n

[14] Perhaps most significant was the development of an Interfaith Cooperation Statement, which states Concordia\u2019s \u201cpublic identity\u201d in terms of its interfaith commitments: \u201cConcordia College practices interfaith cooperation because <\/em>of its Lutheran dedication to prepare thoughtful and informed global citizens who foster wholeness and hope, build peace through understanding, and serve the world together\u201d (emphasis mine). After a year-long process of consulting with faculty, students, staff, and administration, the document was approved unanimously.[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Muhlenberg College, Allentown PA<\/u><\/p>\n

[15] In terms of the composition of its student body, Muhlenberg College moved from being predominantly Lutheran to interfaith to multi-faith. The college has long been attractive to East Coast Jewish families, who realized that their faith practice would be respected, even nurtured at this faith-based institution.<\/p>\n

[16] More recently, Muhlenberg has drawn a sizable number of Hindu and Sikh students from New Jersey, along with a small, but growing number of Muslims. A wildly popular baccalaureate service incorporates elements of each of these faith traditions, and in 2019 it featured a group of Bollywood dancers, Top Naach. Along with a freshman year candle-lighting ceremony,\u00a0 baccalaureate bookends the college experience of a religiously diverse student body. As former College Chaplain Rev. Kristen Glass Perez put it: \u201cEmbracing ritual helps us figure out who we are and where we are. If we focus on that, we\u2019re a lot more connected.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[17] Because of its climate and culture, interfaith engagement on campus was lodged institutionally in Religious Life. During her tenure Glass Perez tried to change that. In her reflection before every faculty meeting, she pressed the question: \u201cWhy do we do interfaith work?\u201d She had a ready answer: \u201cBecause<\/em> we\u2019re Lutheran.\u00a0 Because, because, because<\/em> \u2013 I really worked the because.\u201d <\/em>She consciously worked to move interfaith work into the institutional life of the college, into policies and procedures, into dining services, residential life, even the work of other centers.<\/p>\n

[18] Glass Perez advised the curricular\/co-curricular partnership that became the integrated learning course, \u201cReligion in Residence.\u201d Resident advisors in the course realized that, although the college offered kosher dining in its cafeteria, it had no accommodation for Muslim students during Ramadan. And Glass Perez pushed beyond accommodation. \u201cIf we take seriously our rhetoric about being open, we don\u2019t simply accommodate. We make people feel at home.\u00a0 This is your home.\u201d<\/p>\n

[19] As the college adjusted to its multi-faith calling, there were other shifts as well. For years Muhlenberg was home to the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding. Building on a legacy of interfaith cooperation, in 2020 the college expanded that mission of IJCU to embrace the world\u2019s religions. Chair of the Religious Studies Department, William \u201cChip\u201d Gruen heads the Institute for Religious and Cultural Understanding, and he argues the importance of multi-faith engagement: \u201cUnderstanding the religions of the world is essential to understanding the motivations and actions of people everywhere.\u201d[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Augsburg University, Minneapolis MN<\/u><\/p>\n

[20] Its urban location in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood brought interfaith engagement to the campus of Augsburg University. Adjacent neighborhoods were home to Little Earth, a vibrant Native American community, and one of the largest Somali Muslim communities outside of Somalia. Gradually the student population grew to reflect the demographics of its location, and today Augsburg has a larger percentage of Muslim students (12%) than ELCA Lutherans (9%).[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[21] Interfaith work at Augsburg started by gathering scattered initiatives across campus, which began with an interfaith coordinating committee composed of faculty and staff from advancement and campus ministry and now includes plans for an Interfaith Institute. Founding director of the Institute, Mark Hanson, puts it this way: \u201cInterfaith work is deeply grounded in the vocation of this institution. We strive to hold the what<\/em> and the why<\/em> together: what we do and why we do it.\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

[22] Augsburg\u2019s mission and its Lutheran identity supply the why<\/em>:\u00a0 \u201c\u2026our context demands it; our mission commits us to it; our future depends on it,\u201d as a paper on Interfaith Work boldly declared.\u00a0 And as the coordinating committee reviewed the curricular and co-curricular interfaith initiatives, it identified five dimensions of the what<\/em>:<\/p>\n