When I heard Ranya Idliby, Priscilla Warner and Suzanne Oliver first interviewed on the Today Show about their book, The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, a Jew- the Women Search for Understanding, I was fascinated. I had just read Rabbi Stahl's High Holy Day Sermon, Honoring Differences, online. In this sermon, he challenges us to think about our comfort with racist remarks and negative labeling of Muslims in America. He writes, “Many otherwise well meaning and intelligent Americans who consider themselves free of prejudice do not hesitate to defame Islam. They have accused Islam of fomenting violence. They have labeled every Muslim a terrorist. Even prominent religious leaders are now spreading obscenities about the faith of Islam and seem to be getting away with it.”
The sermon led me to reflect on my own personal responsibility in perpetuating this prejudice. I had unintentionally lumped all Muslims together, negatively, rather than education myself as to who was really at fault. Rabbi Stahl challenges us to become more sensitive and intolerant to bigotry against Muslims, just as we are to other forms of bigotry. Agreeing with Rabbi Stahl, I decided it was important for me to learn more about Islam, and in so doing, hoped I would become more tolerant-even if my prejudice has not been deliberate.
How fortuitous, then, that I caught an interview with these three authors the very next day! Already a believer in interfaith dialogue, as Pastor Gini Norris Lane and I have long appreciated the power of an interfaith friendship, I was eager to read about how others had handled such relationships, and if this written interchange could offer me the knowledge I was seeking.
The Faith Club is the culmination of two years of discussion between three women who come together in the wake of 9/11, with the original goal to create a children's book, helping to educate children about the three religions, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and to teach tolerance. Suzanne Oliver, Priscilla Warner and Ranya Idliby, after their initial meetings, quickly realized that they did not know enough about each others' faiths-let alone their own-- to meet this purpose. Recreating their goal, the Faith Club was born. They met monthly with the new mission to gain further understanding of each others faith. Each author takes a turn, in each chapter, writing and sharing the discussion and their take on such issues as stereotypes, Israel, prayer, and mortality.
One of their first assignments was to bring a story that they believed epitomized the core of their religion. Suzanne's story was of Pentecost, Jesus' resurrection. The story, of course, could not be told without including Jesus' crucifixion. Priscilla, the Jewish woman in the group, struggled with this story, explaining that it felt “anti-Jewish” to her, and felt that it had the potential label of “Christ killer”. After that initial discussion, each left the meeting disturbed and worried--Priscilla was so uncomfortable she seriously contemplated quitting the group. Priscilla went on to research the term and her emotional reaction, while Suzanne, who had never heard the term “Christ-killer” before, did her own exploration. Ultimately, Suzanne was able to reword the story, making it more comfortable both for Priscilla and herself. Thus the three survived their first crisis. This set up an important dynamic that became a theme in the book-when one became uncomfortable with an issue, they pursued it, not giving up when it became hard. They write of persistence in dealing with topics until they could find a place of commonality.
Ultimately, three things were achieved by this book. The first is that the women gained an appreciation and a deep respect for their colleague's faith. They began, in fact, to teach their families and friends about the other faiths with confidence. For example, Priscilla-the Jewish author-- writes, “ . . . I had never had a conversation about Jesus with my sons. Not a real conversation. Not a post-Faith Club conversation. So I started one. . . They knew very little about Jesus. They knew I'd been meeting regularly with Ranya and Suzanne, talking about religion, talking about faith . . . . so, as we passed houses already decorated with lit-up reindeer, Santas, angels and snowmen, we talked about Jesus, the man who had started all this. . . In that car ride, my children learned what I had learned over the previous two years.”
The second achievement is that they gained a deeper understanding and appreciation of their own faith, and became more deeply entrenched and proud of their religion. Each suffered crises in their individual faiths, and was supported on her individual journey by their friends. Ranya, for example, struggled with finding a contemporary Islam that empowered her as a woman, while still rooting her in ritual. Ranya writes of this journey: “Our discussions about God and prayer were allowing me to think through and refine my relationship with God and religion. Within the Faith Club, I felt and appreciated a newfound confidence and security about my Muslim identity. . . .” Ranya's journey included a deep struggle to find a community that supported her decision to not cover her heard, for example. Finally, she finds a like minded Imam and surrounding community. All three celebrate this victory.
Third, the woman developed a deep friendship. This friendship is one where God was a welcome subject and hard questions were not scary. A friendship where topics such as partners, work and children-are overlaid and colored with discussions about faith and doubt, about tradition and ritual. For example, Priscilla was able to talk to her friends about her mother's illness and impending death in a new way. She could now be mad at God, and know that her friends would not discourage her or be uncomfortable when she raised the topic.
I was pleased that I could hear about others enjoying such a friendship-for it is one that I have enjoyed for some time now, with Pastor Gini Norris Lane. Just as their friendship began under controlled circumstances, our friendship began with careful boundaries, talking only about what we had in common-issues that young ministers faced, such as career paths. But we didn't, at first, talk about our differences, only our similarities. As time went on, our boundaries began to break down, and we challenged each other to discuss our faith, both our similarities and differences. There were moments when we realized that we were exactly on the same plane, and there were times, tense moments-when we simply “didn't get” each other; moments when we have agreed to disagree.
The book, which discussed in depth how much they changed and how deeply they appreciated each others faith, did not achieve, for me, adequate exhibition of their dialogue. Suzanne wrote, “It was through my own discussions with a Muslim and a Jew that I was beginning to understand my Christian soul in a way I never had before. In talking with these two people of other faiths, everything I had believed had been called into question. Every assumption was up for examination and debate. . . In my attempt to understand Ranya's and Priscilla's faiths, I had begun to understand what was vital in my own.” However, while Suzanne writes, “ every assumption was up for examination and debate” these conversations-which I do believe happened-were glossed over in the writing of this book. For example, while a chapter is dedicated to the subject of Israel, called “The Promised Land”, it only highlights how Ranya and Priscilla felt in raising the subject, rather than how they solved it. In fact, after asking important questions, such as “Will Israel exist as a Jewish State in a few years?” and listing the stereotypes of the Middle East Arab population: “The Arabs want to push us into the ocean! They want to wipe us off the map!” the authors write, “That dialogue is never ending. New angles keep popping up daily. Suzanne, Ranya and I email each other articles and discuss ideas regularly, raising new issues, shedding light on old ones.” That's the end of that discussion; no notes about what issues they raise, or how they shed light on old ones. . . I sensed that they wanted us, the readers, to be flies on the wall only to a certain point, and then they shooed us away, to return to an issue that was more comfortable and less controversial.
They concentrated on sharing the positive results of discussion in more detail. The last paragraph of the chapter on Israel summarizes this goal well: “And Israel, for the time being, was talked about less. There was pain all around; Ranya and I never ignored the horrible headlines, but we turned inward. We began talking, with Suzanne, about that which united us: love, faith, hope and charity.” It was clear to me that the goal was to share how much we are all alike, and how much we have in common-and less so to acknowledge the reality that there are just times when we have to respectfully, lovingly disagree, as Pastor Gini Norris Lane and I have come to realize.
I picked up this book as a fan of interfaith dialogue, and a person looking for information about Islam. Sadly, the book only helped me become slightly more conversant about Islam. It taught me that there are a number of well educated, moderate to liberal Muslims in the United States, who struggle with the radical factions of their faith, and who are disturbed greatly by the radical Muslims and the bad reputation that they are giving to Islam. There is one page-I underline, one page-that offered interesting information: Ranya teaches about the Wahabi Islam, a faction that began in Arabia in the eighteenth century, which “reject the entire body of Islamic theory, law and theology that has been developed over the past fourteen hundred years of Islamic history, preferring to espouse a literal reading of the Quran based on the practices and laws of only the first three decades.” She goes on to explain how the Wahabists gained power, and have become the most recognized form of Islam. I really enjoyed learning this tidbit-but this book disappointed me in giving me the depth of information I had hoped for.
Perhaps I was asking for too much. Priscilla writes, “I'm not a historian, I say when I talk about many of the amazing things I've learned in my Faith Club. And I'm not a politician, a political scientist, a theologian, or a peace negotiator. My story is just the story of how I met Ranya and Suzanne and how they changed my life and the way I look at things”. Simply stated, Priscilla puts the book into context-an opportunity to watch as a friendship between diverse women unafraid to talk about faith, unfolded. This friendship should be enjoyed by all of us, as Ranya said, in an interview on NPR with Diane Rhiem. I don't disagree with her. Interfaith dialogue is vitally important. And becoming more comfortable discussing God and faith is also immensely rewarding. I can hope that as other Faith Clubs are created, that they will realize that the picture is not always rosy, and the learning and path often difficult. And I pray that they will persist, as Ranya, Priscilla and Suzanne did, and not be afraid of the hard moments-nor afraid to share them. Even as I go back to the drawing board to meet my original goal to become more knowledgeable about Islam, I know that I am richer for reading this book.
E-mail Rabbi Bergman Vann
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