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On Faith The Rev. Samuel Domingo |
Pastor urges an interfaith
communityWe live in community. This is true for most of us.
Creating community is an integral part of our daily activity. It is like a magnet that pulls people together. We meet people through work. Our children make friends with kids down the street, at school or through sports, and through them our families participate in creating community.
People are drawn together through common interests: books and literature, arts, whether media or performing, crafting, collecting, music, environmental concerns, historical preservation, volunteering where there's a need. The list is endless.
Think for a moment of how many groups you are a part of or have been a part of over the years. It might be a formal organization or as simple and unplanned as a pickup game at the park. Creating community is happening. The friendships we make from these gatherings contribute to our growth as human beings and give us much joy.
For me, there is more than ever a yearning to meet and get to know not only my neighbor, but anyone who claims this earth as their home. There has been nurtured in me a curiosity about the person whom I do not know. And, thus, I am moved to push beyond the familiar into that vulnerable space trusting that my reward would be a new friend or friends. The promise of each day brings new opportunities for creating a new community or expanding one.
People of faith also live in community. Creating community should be no less an activity for people of faith. The Scriptures remind us of the great commandment to love God and neighbor. In fact, most of us who are part of a religious or faith community are involved in creating community through small groups like Scripture study, choir, committee work, interest groups or service projects.
There are countless opportunities to get and be involved. Some of us even do things beyond the local church or temple as we seek relationships with other churches and temples expanding the circle as wide as it gets.
However, not all faith or religious communities embrace this idea. Creating community without the pretext for proselytizing or conversion is difficult for some. We see all around us the devastation that intolerance espouses. Intolerance sees the other as alien, adversary, even enemy.
Today, religious intolerance is the machine that is making enemies of each other. It seems like our world is struggling to tone down the vitriolic shouting matches. I fear that the next step will be the complete cessation of communication, where the only message will be delivered by a fist, gun, tank, plane or rocket.
Religious tolerance or respect of and for the other person of a different faith is essential for creating a climate and arena in which people of different faiths will dare to come together and meet the other, face to face, in open and honest conversation. In such a time as this, there is a need to foster the development of safe places to have these conversations.
As a United Methodist pastor, I have encouraged my congregation to understand this urgency and to act upon it. And through the leadership of our United Methodist Women, we have created a program of interest not only for ourselves, but have extended the invitation for the wider community of Oahu to come.
I call upon all people of faith to work toward this end. Can we come together to create a new community, an interfaith community?
The Rev. Samuel Domingo is senior pastor of Keolumana United Methodist Church, 1425 Keolu Drive, which will continue its free public "Creating Interfaith Community" series at 7 p.m. tomorrow with Buddhist and Hindu speakers.
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