UNWIHW

 This is the second time around that I have participated in what still seems like a new discovery to me. United Nations World Interfaith Harmony Week, inaugurated in 2011 in Jordan and observed worldwide the first week in February, locally organized and sponsored by Calgary Interfaith Council. Not only am I impressed, but increasingly inspired by this organization. As stated in their website, The Calgary Interfaith Council seeks to build a more just and respectful Calgary through deepening relationships across faith traditions, celebrating diversity and learning from and about each other. Here is the poster for this year’s celebration.

My enthusiasm for C.I.C. is not only its ongoing array of theological opportunities for dialogue and education, but also the constant opportunity to “Just Serve” including food bank and various neighborhood collections to help those who are needy in our communities. Very likely there is also something about my ‘retirement space’ which has made this a timely involvement. It goes something like this. An unavoidable midlife health issue, depression, brought this clergyperson to a return to the highways and biways of Canada and U.S. as a long haul trucker. This in turn provided a surprising rediscovery of the very faith and life I had been preaching about. The obvious and surprising presence of God in so many sacred and profane locations during those trucking years probably now still drives my enthusiasm for this interfaith organization committed to the common good rather than the focus of most ecclesial and religious institutions these days in survival mode. So this retirement involvement seems like further confirmation of what I had begun to suspect while in ‘institutional employ.’ God’s presence is slightly beyond what everybody is trying to explain from pulpits, or podcasts or websites or publications. Words, words, words!

My thinker (yes the thinker still 😏) is inspired not only by this interfaith organization, but double inspired by those persons who give the gift of organizational leadership. The Chairperson (co-chairs this year), the secretary, the treasurer, and those who step-up for myriads of specific tasks - each of these persons obviously making a professional choice, requiring clear communication with and probably endorsement from their faith traditions, thereby multiplying the effectiveness of interfaith religious presence in our urban setting, and also greater purpose and likely peacefulness in the churches or mosques or synagogues or other participant institutions. As it says in the Bible, A little yeast leavens the whole batch (1 Cor.5:6). The organizers themselves are an inspiration. I know from experience that pastors not interested in ecumenical or interfaith or community involvements are usually plagued by people in congregation wondering what they do with their time.

Another thing I also acknowledge. This particular ‘good thing’ is a Calgary thing! Once upon a time in the 1980s I spent a very enjoyable decade of very positive ministry and training in Edmonton, and in some ways the sentiment of those years has driven certain continuing allegiances like Edmonton Oilers and also my socio-political orientation more in keeping with that city to the north! Of late I am discovering that Calgary Interfaith is quite hospitality-oriented as compared to Edmonton's more academic oriention. This of course is an over-simplification, but I know academics and business types and friends from both cities who agree with me on this. Academics and hospitality are both important especially in community building. My observation is that each city in this province of Alberta represents a slightly different face of a common good thing. Oh, and by now after thirty-two years in Calgary I am a Flames fan – right after the Oilers.😉

And, one more thing. Recently I heard a television preacher holding forth on apostasy, which apparently will precede the rapture (the removal of Christian believers from this earth before the great tribulation. 1 Thess. 4:17). From the tone of his presentation it was obvious he had us interfaith participants among the apostate ones – those ever learning but never able to acknowledge the truth. In my mind this is fearmongering, perhaps seeking personal gain rather than making the effort to be a gospel preacher, a bearer of good news. Who are bearers of good news? I do not presume to carry the ‘license’ to that one, but the Class 1 in my pocket over the years has probably helped! I received some clarification on that theological topic when I traveled the highways of North America. I had already become weary of orthodoxy spiced with erroneous right wing God and Country rhetoric all over the U.S. and increasingly Canada. Even as a born-again Christian, I have never been comfortable to cast suspicion at another’s interpretation of how God, or Allah or Creator is present among us. The irony (confirmation?) is that good news (ie Gospel) is the opportunity to speak of what I have seen and heard. Both among the truckers of North America and now this Interfaith organization I have found more invitation to speak of faith in Jesus than in my regular church circles. I scratch my head about that. Indeed we read clearly John 14:6 “I am the way the truth and the life” but no hint of how that truth might or should be proclaimed correctly. And then there is also Matthew 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Myself, I find the doctrinaire purists as the ones who may also be surprised in the end. There is so much to learn from those around us. Even the Apostle Paul, often accused of being a bit of a purist himself, says it quite clearly “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you” (Romans 12:3). The Apostle James also, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time" (4:6).

A friend of mine who blogs regularly, recently wrote of the importance of being able to describe viewpoints we are opposed to in terms that would be acceptable to the ones who held that particular view. Very important, says Ryan Dueck, “Nothing is easier than taking cheap shots at a caricature." Nothing is easier than labeling others as apostate, or as enemies. I thank him for sharing this perspective. Here is good rationale for speaking with one another, dialogue maybe, and why not diplomacy instead of warfare? When persons of faith see one another as neighbors it’s good news for the community they are a part of. Calgary Interfaith Council models precisely that approach. Good news in this city kind of looking for some good news these days.

Maybe the Interfaith Councils of our two big cities will eventually bring The Battle of Alberta to an end. No?