A JEWISH student, a Christian student, and a Muslim student were sitting round a table in a Leeds coffee shop. During the conversation, the Jewish student observed, “We [that is, Jewish students] live in a faith bubble.” The Muslim student suggested that Muslim students did just the identical, and the Christian student agreed that Christian students acted in the same way.
This conversation inspired one in every of the authors to attempt to burst the bubble; and so it was that a number of families within the congregation of St George’s, Leeds (a church that has a thriving student congregation), each agreed to host two students from their very own congregation for a meal of their homes alongside two Muslim or Jewish students.
These went down well: in the primary round, a number of years ago, students didn’t leave their hosts until late — one group at nearly midnight, and others not much earlier. These meals have continued through the years, with a break throughout the ravages of Covid (although hosts now endeavour to complete slightly earlier. . . ).
TWO years ago, one in every of the coed staff at St George’s suggested that Jewish and Muslim students might join the St George’s students after they gathered on a Sunday afternoon for student teas. The first cohort consisted of two members of the Islamic Society. Since then, each the Jewish and Islamic societies have been challenged to beat the previous figure. The gatherings have grown to the extent that numbers now must be capped at 20 from each, to affix 40 or so students from St George’s.
Things have moved on from there. Christian students have been to meetings organised by the Jewish Society (JSOC), and have been invited to one in every of their Friday-night dinners on campus. Muslim students have invited students from St George’s to a sisters’ book-club meeting, they usually have used the church centre as a venue for a fund-raising event. Meal hosts are to be invited to a Muslim charity dinner in a neighborhood banqueting suite.
STUDENTS in Leeds are well aware of the expansion in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia which has manifested itself on campus. A house utilized by JSOC was daubed with graffiti, and a few of the society’s members were subjected to abuse. Muslim students have been asked whether or not they are terrorists.
The late Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, observed that, although Britain was presupposed to be a multicultural country, in practice it was as if different communities and faiths inhabited separate rooms in the identical hotel. He argued that society needed to come back together — in other words, different groups in society, especially those of various faiths, needed, like the scholars, to have their bubbles burst.
We have each been involved in an interfaith event at St George’s which was initiated by one in every of the church’s own students. The event, Faith in a Multifaith Culture, involved 30 or so students from St George’s in listening to a trainee rabbi, a vicar, and an imam, answering questions on their faith communities and what it meant for every to be a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim. The questions didn’t deal with differences between the three faiths, but on commonalities. So, each speaker talked about what they saw as similarities between the three faiths, in regards to the issues that their very own community was currently facing, and why they thought that being a member of a faith community was essential. Rather than simply learn facts about other faiths, students began to know what it is perhaps prefer to be a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim.
AT THE end of the panel interviews, the scholars held a discussion. One of the expressed goals of St George’s is to “serve town”: this includes interfaith activity, intended to assist community cohesion. The students discussed what they felt the congregation should do on this regard, and the way being involved in interfaith activity might enhance their very own individual faith slightly than — because it is typically claimed — weaken it.
Sharing their thoughts at the top of the meeting, one student was resolved to contemplate how he might support his Muslim colleagues throughout the approaching month of Ramadan. Another said that she had at all times seen interfaith activity as something not very essential: she had now modified her mind. A 3rd was inspired by the concept that adherents of all three faiths worshipped God — though they could each describe him in another way. And the Jewish and Muslim faith leaders encouraged the Christian students to remain firm in their very own faith, and to live out the Christian ethic.
SIR KEIR STARMER has suggested that interfaith work has been damaged by the Israel-Gaza conflict; and this makes it much more urgent that faith communities should seek to interrupt down the barriers between them. Jews, Christians, and Muslims have all recently faced a rise in negativity or lively hostility towards them. To speak up for, and defend, not only ourselves but one another, we must first understand each other; and we are able to only try this if we break out of our faith bubbles. Working together, we are able to achieve this way more than we would do alone.
The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim students involved in interfaith activity at St George’s would say that being a member of a faith community was something very positive. We must draw on that positivity in constructing relations beyond our own bubbles — with each other and the broader community.
David Kibble is a retired deputy head teacher, and a licensed lay minister at St George’s, Leeds. Qari Asim is the senior imam on the Makkah Mosque, in Leeds, and chairs the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board.
