Exploring the roots of our involvement in inter faith

 

 

Looking back, I think there are three roots to my interest:

 

The first is that in the early 1980s I was commissioned by the Family Service Units to write about the work of a school community worker on an estate in North Brixton.   I learnt from that something about what it felt like to be a member of a minority ethnic group. It changed how I saw the issue of race and I began to think with some passion that it was incumbent on those in the majority in UK society to take a more positive interest in minority groups and their culture. 

 

Not long after, I came across Christians Aware. The charity has just celebrated its 20^th anniversary, but I first knew it when it was still a part of USPG. It had then, and continues to have, a philosophy that you ‘do not try to teach anyone anything until you have learnt something from them.’  I found that perspective immensely valuable.

 

Through Christians Aware, I became aware of Westminster Interfaith and wonderful Brother Daniel Faivre. No-one who met Brother Daniel, a stocky Frenchman with a wonderful smile, a large beard and an exceptional warmth of manner could forget him. He had taken seriously the injunction of Pope Paul VI in 1965 for Catholics to engage in inter-religious dialogue, he was sent to Southall and he wrote a classic text about Southall called Glimpses of a Holy City. 

 

In 1994, I joined the ninth annual multi-faith pilgrimage for peace, led by Brother Daniel. It was a remarkable experience for me. That morning started at 8.30am at the Gurdwara Sikh Sangat in Bow, went on to the East London Mosque, the Bevis Marks Synagogue, St Peter’s, the Italian Church, in Clerkenwell with lunch in their hall provided (as in other years) by the Sachkhand Nanak Dham – a most kind and loving group of people. Wherever we met people from other faiths, I was profoundly impressed by the kindness and hospitality of all the people who welcomed us and their courage and dignity in the face of racism, ignorance and misunderstanding impressed me very profoundly. 

 

I have continued to benefit from mailings and meetings organised by Christians Aware and Westminster Interfaith, and, after a visit to Israel, I am now taking a more focused interest in Islam and doing a little voluntary work for the Christian Muslim Forum. 

 

Claudine McCreadie

 

November 2009