In recent posts, we’ve explored what it means for social action to be truly interfaith, and we’ve touched on some of the questions and challenges that arise in this work.
Click here to read the rest of this post on the new SAM blog at socialactionma.wordpress.com.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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6 comments:
"Ministries" feels like a very Christian word to me... perhaps even more exclusionary than "interfaith." Perhaps because I have read a lot of humanist writing about ensuring they have a place at the table at interfaith events, I assume that "interfaith" includes those with no faith.
Even so, it makes me smile when Obama says things like "acts of service can unite people of all faiths or even no faith" because he's being explicitly inclusive. It just doesn't make for a very usable name for an organization or an event. :)
Thanks for your comment, David! We've heard from others similar reactions to the word "ministries," so it's something we're looking at really closely. You hit on another really good point as well- it's one thing to use long and explicitly inclusive when we're in a full conversation, and it's another challenge to succinctly communicate openness in a name or event title!
Thanks for writing!
-Caitlin Golden, SAM Coordinator
I agree with David - as a Humanist the word "Ministries" turns me right around. It suggests to me that "ministering" might play some role in the service work, and that to me is an absolute barrier to my participation.
Further, I don't really like the term "interfaith". I don't profess a faith, nor do I support the concept of faith, so being involved in "interfaith" work always makes me very slightly shudder. It is not an inclusive term.
I do agree with the idea that the work is more important than the terminology, but be careful to note where you're coming from when you say that - you're already included in the terminology, so it's a rather comfortable statement coming from a position of privilege.
The only problem is I don't have a good alternative word for you!
I think, on a basic level, faith is something most people share - whether it's in themselves or in others, in God or in something they can't identify, in random chance or in anything else. I think the word faith does have overtones of more traditional religions, and perhaps someone will disagree with me, but in the spirit of Stedman's words, I think the key is to make sure the language doesn't seem to favor any particular faith. And I think that is accomplished by simply using the word faith, so interfaith works for me.
People who identify as distinctly non-participants in faith communities might fairly not want to make the semantic adjustments to think of their beliefs as a sort of faith, and to be most inclusive of them, perhaps terminology such as "people for" or "community for" to describe ourselves could be best. But is part of the purpose of SAM to harness the power behind the idea of faith? If it is, I think such language fails to do so.
Is "interfaith communities for social justice" more powerful than "communities for social justice," or just more exclusionary? Would "communities of all faiths for social justice" help by avoiding the connotations of the widely used interfaith term, or just be more clunky? "Believers" is also a charged word, but could "belief communities" work instead? "Communities of conscience?"
I don't have the answer :). I think, after all my rambling, the important question is whether the goal is to appeal as broadly as possible, or to intentionally (and perhaps necessarily more narrowly) charge the language. In the struggle to find the middle, I think a term like interfaith does a good job of trying to do both.
James,
Thanks for your comment! Your remarks about privilege are very interesting. SAM explicitly does not affiliate itself with any particular religious tradition, but - as the word "ministries" in our historical name - indicates, we have had strong Christian involvement over the years. That's exactly why we're examining this issue now, and why your feedback - and the feedback of others who don't identify as coming from a place of religious privilege - is so important as we acknowledge our history and make changes for the future.
Your post today on www.stateofformation.org calls for Humanist spaces that struggle with some of the same questions that religious spaces do. I hope you'll keep thinking with us about what language we can use to describe the commonality of those spaces - religious and nonreligious - as we join together for social action.
-Caitlin, SAM Coordinator
Anonymous,
Thanks for writing! You bring up an interesting point: how do we use language that is not only not-exclusive, but also has a depth of meaning behind it that motivates communities to come together for social change?
I look forward to hearing additional ideas about how we might do this!
-Caitlin, SAM Coordinator
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