Connections Quarterly Winter 2018 - World Religions | Page 31
C RE ATI N G J U S TI C E TO GE THE R
hold them, but at their core they are the same
values motivating our justice work.
language. A concentration on justice, on how
our values guide us to act in the world, creates
the space for traditional and non-traditional
belief systems.
You can see this technique—using justice
commitments as a way of building interfaith
partnership—at work all over the country.
Congregation-based community organizing
relies on different faiths coming together to
work for the common good. Eboo Patel’s In-
terfaith Youth Corps engages young people
around their faith and their work together.
And every natural disaster relief effort de-
pends on people of many faiths sharing a
commitment to healing.
“A concentration on
justice, on how our
values guide us to act in
the world, creates the
space for traditional and
non-traditional
belief systems.”
The technique can also be used to facilitate
conversation and understanding—even
without connection to an actual work project.
In many ways, a classroom really is an inter-
faith community, although it’s often uninten-
tionally or unconsciously so. Students come
together for shared learning without an ex-
plicit acknowledgment of the many different
beliefs and values they bring with them. Talk-
ing about faith can be tricky in an educational
setting, where some students may be steeped
in a particular belief system, others may live
entirely secular lives (and perhaps even feel
ostracized or oppressed by traditional reli-
gions), and others may be in the midst of
questioning their own or their parents’ faith.
By moving the conversation away from tenets
of belief and toward justice commitments, all
of those students are invited in more deeply.
“Non-believers,” after all, actually do believe
in something, often many things—though
they may articulate those beliefs in secular
It also brings religious beliefs and ethical
grounding out of the theoretical and into the
students’ lived experience.
• How do their values prompt them to
treat a new student in school?
• How about their response if a friend
comes out to them as queer or
questioning?
• How do their religious or ethical val-
ues inform their voting, or their en-
gagement in politics?
• What about dating—do their reli-
gious or ethical values have some-
thing to say about how they ap-
proach that, both in terms of what
kind of sexual activities they engage
in and also what they look for in a ro-
mantic partner?
Continues on page 30
CSEE Connections
Winter 2018
Page 29