Making Space for Each Other

Do we have to compromise on deeply held beliefs in order to be able to work together?

The whole area of inter-faith cooperation is something of a mine-field. ‘Tread carefully,’ the signs should say. With the risk of accidentally setting off one or two explosions, I would like to look more closely at one of the assumptions those of us who wish to build bridges and find common threads commonly make. At a time when ‘fundamentalists’ in all camps look for (often violent) confrontation and talk with approval of a ‘clash of cultures’, it is natural for many of us to seek to do the opposite – to stress uniting factors, to search out common ground and, as far as possible, to use a ‘common language’. In seeking harmony over discord it of course makes sense to dwell on the things that unite us. It is also natural, to some extent, to want to play down the particular things that may divide us.

But only to some extent. A common language is useful, perhaps on occasion vital, but can only take us so far. This was born in on me when reading an account by journalist Mike Lowe of a visit made to Australia at the end of last year by Imam Muhammed Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye. The Nigerian duo, who were once active in bitterly opposed Muslim and Christian militias, now work for peace and understanding between Muslims and Christians. The award-winning documentary film The Imam and the Pastor, which has been screened around the world, tells of their work based at the Muslim-Christian Interfaith Mediation Centre in Kaduna, Northern Nigeria.

What caught my attention was an exchange Lowe describes at a seminar they addressed at the National Prayer Breakfast in Parliament House, Canberra. During questions, they were asked what each had had to compromise in order to work with each other. Both replied, Lowe records, ‘with an emphatic “Nothing at all!” – which drew spontaneous applause’. Both assert that they have been able to hold fast to their own faith without dilution while continuing to work together. However they had found unity, it had not been by playing down their core beliefs or glossing over their real differences.

It seems to me that the whole point of their remarkably effective partnership is that the two are different – and deeply and passionately believe different things. ‘We don’t have full agreement on beliefs and values’, they say. ‘But we are children of Abraham, sons of Adam and as such have a duty to each other as fellow humans… It is not about compromise. It is about creating space for each other.’ In the film they share how this is a constant struggle. And they tell how they have each been challenged from within their own faith to forgive, to allow wounds to be healed, to let go of hate and reach out in love and care.

The art is to be distinct and bound together at the same time. It is the difference between unity and fusion. This is the secret that Ashafa and Wuye’s partnership encapsulates. The harmony absorbs, but does not hide, the difference. ‘Peace is not unity in similarity, but unity in diversity,’ writes Mikhail Gorbachev. Or as the French Christian thinker Teilhard de Chardin put it, ‘True union does not fuse the elements it brings together, but by mutual fertilization and adaptation it gives them a renewal of vitality.’

Do we sometimes try too hard to minimise the differences in our beliefs – to be tempted to airbrush out the bits that cannot easily be part of the common language? For the truth is that it is often these very particulars, that would seem to divide one faith from the other, that gives that faith, that belief, its true depth and power. Marginalise them and you risk emasculating your faith, cutting off the roots of its transforming power.

‘If we cherish our own faith, then we will understand the value of others,’ writes Britain’s Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks in his book The dignity of difference. ‘Understanding the particularity of what matters to us is the best way of coming to appreciate what matters to others.’ The generous-hearted Gandhi would have appreciated this. His advice to British Christians in India was, ‘Firstly begin to live more like Jesus Christ. Second, practice your religion without adulterating it or toning it down.’

NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.

Since graduating in Modern History from Oxford University, Paul Williams has worked for Initiatives of Change – mainly in India and Wales. For 20 years he was Secretary of the national twinning link between Wales and Lesotho.