3084 Interfaith Relations and Interfaith Challenges
President's Office, UUA
Speakers: Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy & Denise Davidoff
Interfaith work holds great promise, but in the wake of September 11th it has faced great challenges. This was the message from Welton Gaddy and Denny Davidoff.
"I had never founded a national organization before," Davidoff told us. As she told the story, her role as a founding member of the Interfaith Alliance http://www.interfaithalliance.org/ seemed to be sandwiched between more familiar tasks such as the laundry. However, from our perspective in the audience these mundane tasks were the cement that binds good sense into a solid resistance to the corruption of power.
Denny Davidoff From the perspective of the news media, the Interfaith Alliance was "taking on" the Christian coalition; to the media, conflict is more interesting than peace making. But behind the scenes, the members of the Interfaith Alliance employed the intimacy of confession. "Do you expect the media will ask about abortion or gay rights?" a member asked. "If so," he confessed, "I can't handle it." Davidoff realized with relief that she and the UUA had worked through all these issues decades ago.
"Some of the richest experiences of my life have been at Board Meetings of the Interfaith Alliance," Davidoff told us. An issue hits the table and a Muslim speaks from his religious experience; and then a Jew, a Buddhist, and a Texan Free Baptist speak; yet no one leaves the table.
"I am opposed to the government faith-based funding for social services," Davidoff said. "But it is one thing to be opposed and another to have your values tested." Congregations that are seeking funds are not good at reading a 72-page Request For Proposal (RFP), much less understanding it, and have little hope of complying with the bureaucratic rules.
"Just 8 days ago," Davidoff told us "I was told of a million dollar opportunity if only the Interfaith Alliance could put together the materials and get the RFP filled out. But as I got in the car to drive home from a business breakfast at Starbucks, I felt I was not going to let this organization that I cherished become compromised." Four miles from home, she thought: "They would pay us an administrative fee. They have this money to bribe us only because they have taken it from somewhere else." Two miles from home, she thought: "They are buying votes from poor black churches." And as she thought about how the Interfaith Alliance has opposed these faith-based initiatives, she knew she was blessed.
Welton Gaddy told us how the September 11th tragedy put interfaith work in the headlines, but the visibility has been accompanied by problems. In October 2001, more interfaith organizations were formed than ever before. But evangelical Christians are uncomfortable with the present focus of interfaith organizations and are saying: we cannot afford to be seen with "these other people." They confuse tolerance with agreement and don't even want the appearance of affinity with other religious groups.
Some Christian leaders have never met a Muslim or a Buddhist. Such leaders, who "know" they are right, are afraid they may not be in charge of an interfaith group. For these leaders, the audacity of defining their own god is exceeded only by the audacity of defining someone else's.
The divides are deep. Jews and Muslims are bitter, straining as they try to talk to each other.
At a Jewish gathering, the sponsor asked Gaddy not to be too hard on the Christian Coalition, adding: "They are one of the few groups affirming the Jewish people." Gaddy responded, "They are affirming not out of a deep respect for your religious conviction but because they think they own the Holy Land." His advice is: avoid searching for acceptance at any cost.
Muslim leaders have not known how to respond to faith-based funding programs. "If we go along with these programs" they said "it is a way in to the main stream: Jews, Christians, Muslims." Gaddy counsels them: "You are paying too much but you won't know it for some time."
"Speak truth to power," he recommends. Power is intoxicating. But after a while you begin to like that power relationship and you forget what you once believed.
Faith-based initiative is a solution in search of a problem. Its foundations are faulty. Government officials hope that faith-based organizations will be more honest than secular organizations but it is not so.
As an example, Gaddy reported on his experience with the Oklahoma State government. They wanted to set up a faith-based office so they took $300,000 out of another line item in the budget. The Muslims were represented by an organization bent on converting Muslims. Trained social workers lost their jobs and untrained volunteers replaced them.
Thus, in the US, the promise of interfaith action was great but the reality of faith-based funding has been fraught with problems all the way into the First Amendment.
Reporter Mike McNaughton; Web Designer Anna Belle Leiserson
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