Interfaith Dialogue

Prof. Susan Stabile shared remarks about yesterday's Weekly Manna reflection on her blog, found here:
We hosted a guest who is now a familiar face at St. Thomas, Neil Willard, rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Edina. I was delighted to hear him talk about interfaith gatherings with such candor. As Prof. Stabile writes, "Too often, he suggested, interactions between people of different faiths involve suppressing differences and watering down individuals’ expressions of their faith. He described experiencing some interfaith prayer services that seemed dull to him because of the participants’ fear of offending each other, leading to a blandness on what was left to say after everything else was excluded."
Neil went on to tell stories of interfaith dialogues, like a Jewish woman who cut his hair at the barber shop, that were more engaging and deepening than most conversations he had with persons of his own faith. Stabile writes, "He talked about how that for interfaith discussions to be meaningful, we need to be authentically ourselves, to bring our whole selves to the conversation. We cannot have meaningful interfaith dialogue unless we bring our differences to the table rather than pretend they don’t exist. As Neil put it, we need to act with faith, and then talk about it."
If you'd like to hear from other speakers, Weekly Manna gathers each week on Wednesdays from Noon to 12:30 p.m. in MSL 334, with lunch provided.
To read more about Neil Willard's reflection, visit Prof. Susan Stabile's blog.