THE FAITH CLUB
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THE FAITH CLUB
The faith club is a book written by three faiths- the Islam, Christianity and the Judaism. It was written basically for their children to find out the connections between their religions. No sooner had they started talking about their beliefs and the various ways to explain them to their children, than they started having misunderstandings. We are told that after several meetings in this book, women becomes clear since they needed an open environment, where they would admit, discuss their own concerns and misunderstanding about one another. The three women were Ranya, Suzanne, and Priscilla. They came to an agreement of discussing on issues which unites them together.
The writers discussed on issues relating to anti-Semitism, they also talk on prejudice against Muslims, and the preconceptions of Christians. They wrote very well especially on issues affecting their families and their loved ones. As the writers express their issues of their deep beliefs, readers at the faith club watch the growing of the interfaith friendship and the birth of various new ways of relating to other people. The faith club book is a spiritual reflection in three voices which makes leaders feels that they are eavesdropping especially on the author’s private discussions in making controversial opinions and conclusions. This book provides an inspiration for women in that it provides hope for mothers of all backgrounds that it is possible to create dialogue among hem in this world.
The Imam Feisal Abudul Rauf was the founder of Cordoba initiative. This is an independent multipath and a multinational project which operates with the state and non state actors to improve Muslim west relations. He provides solutions to those areas undermining conflict between Islamic and western communities. Under his strategy, he crafts avenues of approaching the divisive Muslim-west tensions. He come up with programs like Muslim leaders of tomorrow(MLT), which nurtures next leaders of Muslim community all over the world, and the women’s Islamic initiative in spiritually and equality(WISE), which empowers Muslim women in the whole world.
The two commandments as stated by Leonard who I believe can be successful for an interfaith dialogue are commandment number seven and commandment number ten. Commandment number seven requires that dialogue is among equals. This means that for dialogue to be effective, the parties should be at par cum pari. For instance, if the Muslim views Hindus as inferior and also the Hindus shows that Muslims are inferior, there will be no dialogue at all.
The tenth commandment requires that the parties should experience others from within. In this case, the participants should attempt to understand other’s religion or an ideology since it is not something of face value but comes from within,” a Christian will never fully understand Hinduism if he is not, in one way or another, converted to Hinduism. Nor will a Hindu ever fully understand Christianity unless he, in one way or another, becomes a Christian” (Raimundo Pnikkar).
It becomes difficult for these three women since they all come from different religions. They thus agree with this principle since from a wider perspective, it allows them to remain true to their different religions, but again they have gained a lot from each other. In life people are aware of different disagreements which again after close consideration and mutual discussions will put hem together and move on with life. This disagreements strengthened these thee women and gave them the urge of searching for solutions to solve the conflict among their different religions.
Rabbi Neil Blumofe believes that people’s best lives are before them as they continue to share and learn experiences from one another (Lippman, Thomas W. 1995 pp. 89).The question the boy asked whether one individual or a believer has truth is right since they believe that each religion is superior in its own way and this means that there is truth in whoever believes. I believe that from the question of whether to discuss about the commonness about religion or the differences is very appropriate. When discussing about traditions, I suppose that in an interfaith relation, people should discuss about the commonalities first and the differences to come later. This is because, the discussion of commonalities will put them closer and they will believe that they are sharing some things in common. If one discusses on the differences, then the disparities will increase and they will never agree on anything there after.
The three Abrahamic faiths are the Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They revealed to God as define religious who were to shape outlook of life, people’s perception, culture to enhance relation between God and human universe. However in the recent past, the three faiths provoked people to live with peace, love, unity but the problem of ideological divergence, religious extremism, and political interest led people to get involved in aggregation, violence and destruction such as those in crusades of Christian Europe against the Muslims and Islam Phobia. The world, contemporary has observed hatred, violence, extremism as an aggregation between Muslims and non Muslims. This has greatly contributed to mistrust, disunity, and unsteadiness because of prejudice and unequivocal ignorance against one another.
The followers of the three faiths through dialogue plays vital roles in establishing the world security, justice, peace and unity through transforming of moral, religious and socio-cultural values for shaping a better and bright future for the whole humanity. It is of great concern that the following be observed as the study focuses, one is the understanding moral and ethical obligation and cultural integrity through moral values, two realizing the three religious faiths values and responsibilities. The biggest challenge which have created a lot of divergence among the three faiths include, the Islamic activities and resurgence which is an imaginary threat in the west, giving of priority in reason and ignoring divine knowledge, utilizing scientific equipments without moral and ethical support, and the process of secularization in both political, social and cultural issues in life.
The three women discussed intensively on the Abrahamic religions. They realized the importance of dealing with their own questions especially on the stereotypes so that to solve the problems which faced the Abramic and the west. To my view dialogue as discussed by these women and from other writings is the best way of getting into discussions. People should be given an opportunity to express themselves in terms of their religion and also cultural values. We as society we should not accept the spirit of Judaism and prejudice to enter our hearts. The commandments factored out would be the best strategies to help us integrate these problems of the three different groups of people in the book of faith.
This book of faith is very crucial especially to the Muslim community, Christian and the Judaic communities since, it defines and digs out different ways in which these communities perceive about one another in terms of religious virtues. We as listeners and readers of this book, we should always be judgmental in that we should not overrule other people’s religion but try to understand them as part of us in that each and every person has his or her own ways of believing. The book also helps us to understand that despite the differences initially existed between these people, through negiotions in church and other several meetings, they came to a consensus.
Work cited
Idliby, Ranya, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner. The Faith Club: A Muslim, Christian, Jew Three Women Search for Understanding. New York: Free Press, 2007. Print.
Lippman, Thomas W. Understanding Islam: An Introduction to the Muslim World. New York: Meridian, 1995. Print.
