Coexistence

On Sunday, March 9 Fourth Church Rising took a field trip to the Muslim Education Center in Morton Grove.

Like most pastors and youth workers who lead confirmation classes, I've been making trips like this for many years. I've taken groups to Jewish synagogues, Hindu and Buddhist temples, and Muslim mosques.

As a religious leader passionate about inter-religious education and dialog, these trips are often a highlight of the year for me. I love seeing young people step outside of their comfort zones and realms of familiar experience to encounter people that are very different from themselves yet very similar at the same time. I love seeing prejudices and false presuppositions dissipate through direct interaction with those who act and think differently from ourselves.

As expected, this trip had many of those elements. But what made this trip different, and what got me even more excited about it, is that our young people had a chance to speak with Muslim young people their own age. These trips usually involve hearing a presentation from an adult, which is often good, but not nearly as effective as speaking with peers.

We spent most of our time in small groups, two or three of our students and two or three of theirs. Some of the groups talked about substantive religious issues. Most of them talked more about school and video games and other realities of being teenagers. This was probably the most valuable thing, a real opportunity to see that Muslim teens aren't really that different from Christian teens when it comes right down to it. This is what trips like this are all about, and we were blessed to share such an experience together.

When I sat down to write this blog post, I searched the internet to find a website for the Muslim Education Center to link to. I didn't find one (they should really get on this), but I did find several news stories that reminded me that the mosque attached to this school was recently the center of controversy. It seems that some residents of Morton Grove were very much opposed to the construction of this mosque, an all too common trend in the post-9/11 world of fear and prejudice against Islam. You can read about it in this USA TODAY article.

Being reminded of this sad controversy made me even more glad that we visited this particular Muslim community. I hope that our small acts of inter-religious partnership might be a sign of hope for even greater cooperation and coexistence among the various peoples and religions of our communities and country and world.

I believe with all of my heart that this is what God is calling us to do. And I'll keep looking for opportunities like this one to live out this call.