Print
this page
Email
this page Newsletters - Families at the Frontiers of Faiths
England
We all want the best for our children. For many Christian couples, and even those who have only a tenuous connection with the Church, it may mean arranging a baptism to welcome the child into the world and the Christian community. But what happens when one of the parents is a Christian, and one is from another religion, a Jew, perhaps, or a Muslim or a Hindu? While a mixed faith couple may feel they have successfully negotiated their own spiritual space, when children arrive there are new issues to decide - particularly issues of belonging and of faith identity.
There are three main approaches to a child's faith identity. The first is the institutional label - to which faith and worshipping community does he/she belong? In many traditional churches a person becomes a Christian and a member of the Church at baptism. For Jews and Muslims the faith of the child depends on that of the parents. The child of a Jewish mother is considered Jewish, and that of a Muslim father is a Muslim too. And in these three religions there is no sense of dual belonging; you cannot be a Christian AND a Muslim;* for all their common ground and shared ideas, ultimately the two religions are seen as mutually exclusive.
*It is possible to speak of a Jewish Christian, meaning a person who is Jewish by birth but has converted to Christianity.
The second way concerns the children's education and nurture. Many parents feel it important for children to understand and respect the traditions and heritage of both parents, even if they have agreed that the children will be brought up within one religion. So the children of a Jewish-Christian couple may attend church with the Christian parent and celebrate Passover and learn about God's actions in bringing the Israelites out of slavery with their Jewish cousins - something which incidentally enhances their understanding of Christian faith. Families who do not regularly attend public worship may still decide to celebrate both sets of festivals, Diwali and Christmas for example. One mother described it as “like walking a tight-rope sometimes, we need to get a balance, and it's not always easy.”
The third way is what the children understand themselves to be. Outsiders often worry that children in inter faith families grow up 'confused', although in my experience this is rarely the case. Some children identify more strongly with one faith, particularly if one parent is more religiously observant than the other. “Mummy and me are Catholic and Daddy is Jewish,” declared one little girl. But others will happily straddle two faiths: “I'm Hindu AND Christian,” claims another, causing her Christian friends to look puzzled.
Whatever the child's official religious identity, what is really important is their sense of being loved and valued. Parents should help their children develop a spiritual awareness, a sense of wonder and delight and meaning. Sometimes faith communities are exclusive, and dismissive of other religions, which makes this important task difficult for inter faith parents. Can our churches help and support parents who are attempting to give their children the best, “feeling our way, step by step” as one mother said? Because loving and accepting those on the edges of the faith isn't a woolly relativism, but surely part of our Christian witness.
In the summer of 2001, the northern industrial city of Bradford was the scene of some of the worst riots in mainland Britain for a generation. Whatever its complex and contested causes, one thing was clear: it had involved a majority of young British Pakistanis in prolonged and pitched battles with the police within a majority Pakistani residential area of the city.
This conflict clearly indicated that relations within the city of 300,000 between the 80,000 Muslims and the non-Muslims had begun to go badly wrong despite resources injected into inner city areas since an earlier major riot in 1995. The Muslim communities have settled in the city in the last forty or so years, attracted by jobs, especially in the labour-starved textile industry. A majority have origins in rural Kashmir - one of the least developed areas of Pakistan. Down the years separate communities have formed, so that now we have Muslim quarters in the city. Segregation is seen most dramatically in schools which are often all Asian or all white.
The tense international situation since 9/11 and atrocities such as Madrid and Beslan mean that the Muslim communities are exposed as never before to media scrutiny. Distrust is escalating. This was the situation in which a number of Christians and Muslims decided to initiate the Intercultural Leadership School (ICLS) in 2002. Its origins lay in a conference in 2001 on shared citizenship organised by the Archdeacon of Bradford, the Anglican inter faith Adviser and a couple of Muslim friends. The aim of the conference was to explore the extent to which local politics, business, education and urban regeneration were areas in which Christians and Muslims in the city were actively collaborating. The conference was a great success and had involved a leading Christian and Muslim from Berlin, Rotterdam and Copenhagen. It also attracted Geza Tessenyi, who then had the responsibility in the Council for Europe in Strasbourg for asylum seekers.
Geza had piloted a conference in the former Yugoslavia for young people from different communities after the civil war. He suggested that we try this in Bradford. We did and the ICLS was born. It involved selecting 15 young professionals in their 20s from Muslim, Christian and 'secular' backgrounds. Young people who were active in their respective communities and thus role models for young people - the 14 to 19-year-olds we could not reach directly.
We took these 15 away for a four days residential at Scargill Conference Centre. Each day had a theme: the first was 'religious literacy' whereby we invited a Christian, Muslim and humanist scholar to talk about ethics in their respective traditions and how space was made for outsiders and how differences were negotiated. This gave people a chance to ask all the questions they wanted about another religion or ideology. The second day was devoted to leadership skills with the specialist flown in from Pakistan, an inspirational teacher. The third day was devoted to media skills and the final day was devoted to conflict resolution skills led by a member of staff from Bradford University's Peace Studies Department.
An essential part of the four days was a cultural evening organised by the participants. This has become one of the highlights of the ICLS - where they work together, laugh together and draw from each other's personal and cultural repertoires to entertain and amuse the residents of Scargill: a marvellous team-building exercise.
Over the four days, lasting friendships are made across an ethnic and religious divide. After Scargill there are opportunities to work together in the city through an organisation that the alumini have set up - the Society for Intercultural Leadership (SOIL) resourced by a member of the organising team.
The ICLS runs twice a year and the sixth session took place in early October 2004. One of its many joys is to see fear and suspicion melting during the four days and deep friendships forming. One of our most successful included a young priest, an imam, a policeman and Muslim community activist. We have also drawn on teachers, youth workers, doctors, lawyers and business people.
In a city like Bradford there is no more urgent task than equipping a new leadership with the skills and competences to work across the religious and cultural divide. ICLS is one such contribution which is being multiplied elsewhere. Recently the first ICLS took place in Leicester and the organisers are working on an ICLS for Berlin and Rotterdam… “Great oaks from little acorns grow”…
Top
