Three women (African-American, Asian American, and White) explore the connections between interfaith work and racial justice work.
Transcript: Interfaith and Racial Justice
Mary: It's when you get to know folks from those faiths that you understand, like there are a lot of different ways to be a Muslim, just as there are a lot of different ways to be Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Daoist.
Michelle: One of the things is just coming together so that we can actually see one another and not just assume who the other is.
Penny: And that doesn't mean that I have to believe everything they believe about God or or salvation or Jesus. But I can accept them and work with them for the greater good for these other things that are so important to living life in a society that has diversity in it.
Mary: And there's this intentionality to the way Jesus shapes his ministry, that's toward the other, toward the people that he grew up with other people saying you don't associate with those people. And he did all the time.
Penny: Welcome, everyone, to another episode of the Diversity and Inclusion for All podcast of Calvin University. Today, we're looking at interfaith work and racial justice work and how those two pieces of what we can do in life intersect and help each other out. I'm really excited to have this conversation with Pastor Mary Hulst and Michelle Loyd-Paige, both of Calvin University. Pastor Mary is the campus pastor and Michelle Loyd-Paige is the executive associate to the president for diversity and inclusion.
Intro: Welcome to the diversity and inclusion for all project supported by Calvin University and the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship. Together, we'll listen to key prospective, build our knowledge, inform our thinking, and get a little better equipped to engage our world.
Penny: I'd like to start out by asking each of you, what is your story of how you have been called to and become involved in both interfaith work and racial justice work? And Michelle, I'm wondering if you could start out.
Michelle: Oh, thank you, Penny. I'm delighted to be here to have this conversation. This is this is an exciting way to have this conversation. You know, that's such a good question about how I came to be involved in this work. And honestly, I wouldn't have given a thought about how interfaith work and racial justice work would come together. Had it not been for my work at that Calvin, and had it not been for some of my interactions with students who come from a different faith perspective here at Calvin, because of my work, because of who I am, I identify as an African-American woman, I've always had a passion for racial justice work because it was my life. Right. But it was my work here at Calvin, getting to know the stories of some of our students who come from different faith traditions. When I really got to see them, when I got to know them. It became something that was much more important to me. And now it is hard for me to really see doing racial justice work without also having some thread woven throughout with doing some interfaith dialog work, because there's to me, there is overlap between the two. And in some ways, all forms of diversity are related. They might not have the same experience, but there is some relationship and there is injustice that is directed towards various people groups. And we have that in common. So my story of how I got involved is simply because of my work, but not just my work, but getting to know people who are impacted by different faith traditions, by different racialized experiences. And once I got to know people, I was able to see the connection.
Penny: I think, for me too learning more about other religious groups and getting to know people who identified as something other than Christian has really sort of been good practice for me and great opportunities to engage across lines of difference in this case, religious difference. Right. So as I engage across those lines of difference, it sort of helps me practice and recommit and gain new understanding for engaging across other types of lines of difference. And that really helps with my racial justice work as well.
Mary, I wonder if you could share a little bit of your story, how you have been called and become involved in both interfaith work and racial justice work.
Mary: As Penny mentioned, I'm Mary Holst, and I've served as the university pastor at Calvin for several years. I grew up here in West Michigan. I identify as a white woman, and also grew up in Holland, Michigan, which is then was pretty much homogenous as far as race, although my younger brother and sister were adopted from Korea. And so my family didn't look like other families. And I know that my siblings had a very different experience of growing up in Holland, Michigan, than I did. And that's something that we've only really recently talked about because of the larger conversations happening about race and gender dynamics in the United States and beyond. But because I have these two these two siblings who are from a different country and looked different, my parents were very intentional to teach us about the world, to teach us about global communities and the global communities of different faiths. And so, you know, with food, with dress, with holidays, it was very much an understanding of not everybody does it like Americans do it. And that was an important part of my childhood that I didn't even realize until I was older that that was a real gift to me.
And so the racial justice piece has always been, I would say, a really small thread, because it's the big sister. I was always looking out for my younger brother and sister. But in the last couple of years particularly, it's become really central to how I think about my preaching ministry, my pastoral care ministry, the worship ministry we do here at Calvin. Is it inclusive? Am I mentioning underrepresented groups in my sermons, in my prayers? Are we singing in different languages and styles and traditions that better represent the global church? And so the racial justice piece has really grown. And then the interfaith piece in the last few years has really become crystallized for me. I had the opportunity to study in Jerusalem and spend time with Palestinians who were Christian, who were Muslim, with Jews of all different types, and just understanding that we can learn from other faith groups.
And I grew up in a community that was pretty homogeneous as far as faith went. And I think along with many of us who grew up in the states, kind of caricatured other faiths in certain ways. And it's when you get to know folks from those faiths that you understand, like there are a lot of different ways to be a Muslim, just as there are a lot of different ways to be Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or Daoist. And that's been really important to me.
I also think, for example, as a Protestant Christian, I did not grow up in a tradition that practiced, for example, the spiritual discipline of fasting just wasn't really part of the deal. On World Hunger Sunday, my mom made us eat rice three times a day, but we still had rice three times a day. But other than that, there was no real fasting. But when I'm with my either my my Christians from Orthodox Catholics traditions, when I'm with my Muslim friends who talk about Ramadan, the Jews, who talk about Yom Kippur, there is a deep fasting tradition in these faiths that I can learn from. And so that's just one example about how the spiritual disciplines and expressions that other people have, even if we believe differently about them, I can still learn from them. And that's been a really important thing for me to move away from the caricature and move toward like, oh, these people take their faith very seriously. What can I learn from them about how to take my faith more seriously?
Penny: I think that for me, too, getting to know and have conversations with people of faith who think differently than I do about God and religion has helped me sort of practice articulating what is most important to how I engage with my faith life in this world. Right. And it's not that I'm out to convert them or anything, but it's just actually helped me kind of clarify some things. Well, how do we see things similarly and how do you see them differently? And in those conversations, things kind of become clear to me: oh, that is really important to me. Or as Mary said, oh, I could learn something about the spiritual discipline of fasting. That just isn't something I grew up with. But because I'm having this conversation, I'm learning about, I'm in a relationship with people for whom this is a part of their faith, doing their faith, living out their faith. I can kind of see what what is good in there for me? What can I learn, how can I grow in my own faith because I'm interacting, learning from these others.
Michelle: There's a there's a term that I heard recently, it was called Expanding Our Circle of Grace.
Penny: Ooh, I like that.
Michelle: That circle of grace. It's, you know, who do we give the benefit of the doubt to or who do we see …the other as being human, who do we see as being human? Who do we see as deserving of the benefit of the doubt, or who do we see as wanting to have a relationship with? And at the very center of that circle is ourselves, right? Well, we'll give ourselves a pass. We'll give ourselves grace. Outside from that, you know, it's family and friends. You know, the circle around us is people who look like us or people who are like us. And then the question becomes, who's not in those circles? And the strategy is, how do we expand those circles of grace so that we can include these other people who are not like us. And the way that we do that is we build relationships, intentional, authentic relationships, so that we can expand those circles of grace so that we can really begin seeing the other and understanding the other, not just see but see understanding and building relationships with you.
Penny: I'm interested today and talking a little bit, exploring the intersection of interfaith cooperation, interfaith work, and then racial equity and racial justice work. And we're interested in kind of the Christian take on this. Why is it important for Christians to to try to bring these two together? What do we have to gain and what do we have to give when we talk about interfaith work and racial justice, kind of coming together.
Michelle: For me, it is about Christian witness. It's about Christian witness for me individually, if I am identifying myself as a Christian and I am trying to align myself in the image of Christ. Then my witness needs to be one that expresses the heart of God and I believe the heart of God … in the heart of God comes love. And an understanding for justice and a call to reconciliation. And it's not just reconciliation of what we like or what we prefer, but a reconciliation of all things. So my my witness, as a Christian, it's important for me that this foundation of loving neighbor as self and standing up for those who are oppressed, coming together as a community, not necessarily a Christian community, but I think especially in a Christian community, but not just in a Christian community. And then there is the witness of the church itself. Right. There is the witness of the Christian church. And unfortunately, there have been way too many headlines about different denominations or different churches within the denomination or churches that aren't part of a denomination where I just get this cringe because of the headline that's associated with it, because it's not a message of love. It's not a message of welcome or inviting. And it doesn't represent the love that I think that Christ is calling us to. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that all things are tolerable or that there are multiple ways to get to heaven. I'm not saying that. I am saying what I believe God is calling us to is to love our neighbors and to let God decide who gets to heaven and who doesn't.
Penny: Amen. Amen to that. I think, too, for me, I see interfaith cooperation as part of living in a society together with people who think different from how I do. And so I need to be able to work together for common goods, including racial justice, with people who have different faith traditions. And that doesn't mean as Michelle said, it doesn't mean that I have to believe everything they believe about God or or salvation or Jesus, but I can accept them and work with them for the greater good for these other things that are so important to living life in a society that has diversity in it.
Mary: I've been thinking about two things. One, about the model that Jesus himself gave, where he moved toward people who are outside of his own community of faith. He moved toward the Roman centurion. He moved toward the woman from Sidon, and he moved toward the Decapolis and healed people who are all like beyond. And the teaching moment, when the woman has the daughter with a demon and she goes to Jesus and asks for healing when he's kind of on a retreat, like his intent was like, I'm going to chill out over here. And she was like, no, I know who you are. I know you have the authority to do this. And people have debated this forever and ever about his response to her is like it's not fair to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And what he's saying there is, you know, why I have come. You understand that what I'm about? And she says, I do understand what you're about. And I know you're not just about the Jews, so I'm going to ask. Like, I still get crumbs. I still get crumbs. And he's like, you're exactly right. You get it. You get that the reach of my mission is beyond just the Jews. And there's this intentionality to the way Jesus shapes his ministry that's toward the other toward the people that he grew up with other people saying you don't associate with those people. And he did all the time. Loved them, healed them, taught them. That's our chief model.
The other big thing I think about when it comes to these conversations is power. And as a white hetero Christian woman reared in the United States, fluent in English. Like there are lots of ways in which I have power. And Jesus invites me to lay down my power for the sake of the other, just as he did. And, you know, you see these bumper stickers like if someone else gets more, that doesn't mean you have less. It's not a pie. Right. And when I think about authority or rights or things like this, like it's not a pie, it's not like if I'm advocating for my Muslim neighbor to have freedom to wear what she needs to wear to express her faith like there's any less freedom for me, there's actually more freedom for me to express my religion if I advocate for her freedom to express hers.
Penny: Yes. Yes.
Mary: And as a white person, you become very aware of the way that the world has, particularly United States, particularly in western Michigan, the world has been designed to benefit me because of my whiteness. And it would be irresponsible for me not to use the advantage and privilege of my whiteness for the sake of the other, for the sake of people who have grown up not having that same privilege and access. And Jesus says to me, you keep your eye out. You, You lay your power down. And so if that means like I get to I get to give something up so that a black or brown person has access, has a voice, has a way of being in the world that feels safer and beloved, and they can use and express their gifts to the glory of God just as I can. Then I'm not just invited to do that. I am required to do that by the sake of the gospel. I'm required to lay down my power so that others can find their voice and their safety. And I take that very seriously when I think about systemic racism, when I think about the racism in my own heart, when I think about how we do our racial justice work on this campus and beyond. Those are the things I think about. What has Jesus invited me to do? How did he live? How does he invite me to live? What does that look like here in the 21st century in North America?
Penny: When I think of the interfaith cooperation and I’m looking at scripture, the stories that come to my mind, too, are like the Good Samaritan and the woman at the well stories where it really feels like like Jesus is reaching across some of the religious lines of his day. And he's saying: the insider, the people that you think are inside who don't always have it, right.
Mary: That's right.
Penny: And that we can find grace and inspiration for life. We can find faith and important insights from people who are on the other side or on… across, a religious divide that we perceive. Right. And that together there's good to be done and there's good to to aspire to. Seeds in scripture that help me see how to cross those lines of difference or engaging across lines of religious difference can actually be really helpful and useful in my life and in the world.
When we engage in interfaith work, often we talk about different skill sets that are important, like active listening, identifying shared values, building relationship and trust across those religious lines. And I wonder if we can draw some good insights about those interfaith skills and how they can be applied to racial justice work.
Mary: I use with students the language of building your muscles. You got to practice these things to build your muscles. And if your muscles are really strong and interfaith work with these skills like active listening and imagining what the life is for the other and shared values, those muscles are used again, when you're talking about race and listening to the other and what's your experience like and what is it like to be you? And so it's a lot of the same muscles get used. And it's advocating for the other and saying I am not the center of the world. Both of these conversations remind me I'm not the center of the world. My experience is not the center of the world.
Penny: Yes.
Mary: And I am a better person. I'm actually better reflect the image of God when I help other people better reflect the image of God. And when I see the image of God reflected in them. And so these muscles that we develop when we actually, I will say as a white person woman, when we just shut up and listen and say, what is it like to be you? These are skills that can just take us a long way in empathy and compassion and advocacy and reminding, reminding ourselves like it's not all about you. In fact, that's pretty much the central one of the central themes of the scriptures. Not all about you. Not all about you.
Penny: I love that you mentioned empathy. I feel like in our last year or two in this country, there's just been a lot of polarization and tribalization and a real lack of empathy and even the capacity for empathy across, let's just say, political lines, but also racial lines and sometimes religious lines. And I feel like that interfaith skill set, right, that really being able to develop and flex and use empathy muscles can be so important to navigating life in this country today.
Michelle: I so appreciate this conversation. We should have had this conversation a while ago and energizing. You know, I would give an amen. Yes. This de-centering of self, de-centering of our way of understanding the way the world works so that we can acknowledge there's multiple ways. Right. So this skill set with, you know, how it helps in doing racial justice work in this de-centering, it can help us if you're the person who has the privileged identity, when you decentered your experience and open yourself up to see how life live on the other side. What does it look like also for the person who has the marginalized identity or someone who's feeling oppressed, experiencing oppression and injustice? De-centering our own experiences, either me as a black woman, de-centering my experiences as a black woman to understand, you know, what indigenous populations in the United States are experiencing something different. Koreans are experiencing something different. Latin Americans are experiencing something different. But there's this commonality in there, right? So de-centering my own experiences to help us see this greater work. Racial justice is not just about one racial group.
Mary: That's right.
Michelle: But understanding what does it look like from the other side? It's not just about white people understanding BIPOC people. It's also BIPOC people understanding white people and black people understanding other BIPOC people, as well as international people. So it's just this de-centering to help us have a fuller understanding of what is going on. And if we have a fuller understanding of what's going on, we'll understand the systemic nature of what's going on, so that it's not just a character flaw in an individual, but there are some systemic social forces that are going on that we need to be aware of.
I would say adding to this list of, you know, an interfaith skillset would be this having common cause. What is it that we can agree on? There are some things we're not going to be able to agree on. OK. But what can we agree on? Can we work towards that common good? Can we can we agree that worship is important? Can we agree that having freedom of worship is important? Okay. So how does that translate into racial justice? So what can we agree on? We might not be able to agree on the definition, the 10 words to define racism. But can we agree on what isn't right? Can we agree on those and those things that we can agree on? Can we work to relieve that? Because sometimes in racial justice work, it fails to progress because people just get into the weeds and they quibble over definitions.
Just the act of coming together. Right. So we have the inter and the interfaith coming together. If we can just come together for a racial justice work, talk with each other and not talk at each other, not assume what the other person might be thinking. I mean, I can't imagine what I would have lost, what I would be losing if I had assumed that because Mary is white, that she must think about racial justice, work in a particular way, in a way that doesn't align with the way that I think of it. If I were to just assume that it was in those coming together, these meetings to talk about like these meetings to talk about our work. Having these meetings about how we could be mutually beneficial to one another, just that act of coming together, it helped me to see, oh, no, we're on the same team, but I would have just assumed, oh, my gosh, she she's a Christian pastor. Christian Protestant pastor in in a very conservative denomination. I'm not even going to ask what she thinks because I want to maintain the relationship. We got to work together. But it was in these asking to to come together. So I would say one of the things is just coming together so that we can actually see one another and not just assume who the other is.
Penny: I love this idea of coming together. It's really about relationship building and trust building, and that's community building. So if we can reach across our religious lines to build a stronger community, that's going to help all our other work that we want to do as a community as well.
Interfaith. Racial justice, if we were to combine sort of the ideas and the best hopes for interfaith work with racial justice work, then it seems like interfaith racial justice would be this great place where we could leverage all the skills of interfaith leadership and work together across those religious lines to achieve to to build our communities and to make progress, if you will in racial justice work. I'm wondering if there’s a last story, insight, or experience that you'd want to share about where you have been able to form a relationship across religious lines, where you have seen sort of the intersection of race and interfaith work happen in an inspiring way.
Mary: The first people who come to my mind are my students. And at Calvin, you have students from all over the world, many Christian traditions, and then a few from other faith traditions. And I think when I first was thinking about interfaith stuff years and years ago, there was a fear. And I think it's really important to acknowledge that, that we can be afraid and think, well, first of all, do I have to evangelize to these people? What if I don't? What if I fail? The fear that the caricature of whoever would be accurate and I would find that the person of the other faith would seek to convert me or be really upset about their experience and see Christians as oppressive. And we just wouldn't have a shared commitment to just being with each other. And to name the fears. I think, that's been really important to me, because then it allows me to say, well, is this actually happening in your conversation with this student who happens to be a Muslim? No. You know, they they have the same questions that every other student has. And so then it allows me to be less led by my fears and more by my hopes.
So when I meet with a student who's from a different faith, I think about what is their student experience. You know, maybe they're from another country. Here they are in the United States. That's crazy enough. Then they've got their whole Christian university experience as a person of a different faith. How do I how do I help them bridge? How do I help them navigate? How do I love them? How do I remind them to like, you know, go to sleep and drink a lot of water and stay healthy? You get your homework done. The same things I would say to any other student. And I hope for them that they have a good experience where they are valued as who they are. And so I'm thinking here, I won't name them because of confidentiality, but I'm thinking about a few different students who really shaped my understanding. When I talk about there are a lot of different ways to be a Muslim. Like I've seen that in our students. And I'm not talking about the big things of Sharia. It's it's like how devoted they are. And some are way more devoted than others. Not unlike our Christian students.
Penny: Hmhmm.
Mary: And so to just name my fears and then live more into my hopes as I seek to pastor everyone on this campus has been really important to me.
Michelle: Honestly, for me, it's more aspirational. I've seen glimpses that give me hope. And part of this being more aspirational and having only seen glimpses up to this point is because I'm really just coming into this understanding myself. So because it really wasn't high on my mind, I wasn't looking for the signs. I wasn't looking for it. I wasn't anticipating it. But now that it is higher and my level of consciousness, then I'm seeing more and more glimpses and I am more and more hopeful that it’s possible.
One of the things I will say is that I appreciate how Calvin University is stepping into this space and stepping in the space, not with the idea: We have the answer. We know exactly how to do this. But stepping into the space with questions, stepping into this space with curiosity, stepping into the space with humility and stepping into the space, realizing that sometimes we're going to get something wrong. But our aim is to get things right. Being gentle with ourselves, being fearful that others would also be gentle with us, but that we're on this path together. I think it says a lot that our university pastor is involved in not only interfaith work, with racial justice work as well. She doesn't have to be, but she is, not from compulsion. It's not in her job description that this is what she has to do. It's not even really a part of her personal identity. But she does it. And that's what the kingdom building is all about. We do this out of a sense of calling. So for me, it's aspirational because I my eyes are becoming more and more open about how this is possible and how my life is impacted by all this as well.
Penny: I think for me, too, I just see so much potential. I see that the lessons I can learn and the experience of trust and relationship building that I can learn by engaging across lines of religious difference can help me in my trying to engage across lines of racial difference. Right. If I can understand and help and come alongside of my Muslim neighbor who feels sometimes oppressed or marginalized, that will help me come alongside my BIPOC or other minority neighbors who feel oppressed or challenged by the situations in life. And so I feel some I feel there are so many similarities in a way to engaging across religious lines and embracing across racial lines, and that if we can build our skills and build our relationships and trust and across religious lines, it will have great benefits for us as communities and individuals when we're dealing with racial justice work as well.
Thank you so much for joining me today in this conversation. I hope that our listeners can take away a little bit about how different three different Christian women have come to both interfaith work and racial justice work and how we see the connection and the the potential serendipity of it all coming together and in a really aspirational and inspiring way for our future.
And I love actually wearing what you said. When you talk about this is a time really where we need to be led less by our fears and more by our hopes. And I hope that listening in on this conversation will inspire some of our listeners to do that same thing, to be led less by our fears and more by our hopes for what this nation and our country and our communities can become and do together.
Mary: Amen.
Penny: Amen.
If you found your way to this episode through the diversity and inclusion for all project of Calvin University, you may be interested to know that this episode is also part of learning materials for the Interfaith Youth Core in cooperation with the Coalition of Christian Colleges and Universities, the CCCU. The Interfaith Youth Core and the CCCU have partnered to produce two great learning modules: Christian Foundations for Interfaith Bridge Building and Religious Literacy. This episode is part of an anchor activity that links those two learning modules with a third learning module on Interfaith Cooperation and Civil Rights.
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