Near Neighbours and Good Friends?

Revd Liz Carnelley offers a personal perspective on the theology that underpins Christian engagement with people of other faiths, cultures and backgrounds

Why should we get involved, as Christians, in engaging with people of different faiths and backgrounds?

There are a number of possible answers to this, such as: that’s reality of many of our neighbourhoods; we want to get on with our neighbours; we want to avoid problems.

But for me the answer is theological.

We will all know of the injunction, repeatedly in the Hebrew bible, to care for the stranger or sojourner (meaning from a different tribe or group) in your community (along with widows and orphans), people who have no resource or independent standing in society.

Leviticus 19:34

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God. You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

And we know of Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, in Luke’s gospel, who helped someone of a different faith, a Jew, who had been attacked and was lying in the road – and Jews, we are told by a Samaritan woman, “have nothing to do with Samaritans” (John 4: 9).

But also, in the New Testament, we are compelled to be reconcilers.

2 Corinthians 5: 19 – 20

He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His appeal through us.

The importance of gift, grace and hospitality, to be generous, to be ambassadors of grace: these are persistent themes in Scripture. Jesus offers his grace and generous love to everyone, worthy and unworthy, of diverse backgrounds.

So whether they were born in West Africa or West Wycombe, Delhi or Doncaster, Jew, Jedi or Jehovah’s Witness, as Christians we have a duty to love. To be ambassadors of reconciliation.

When I was 23, I went to live in India for six months to teach in a school. I had never been abroad before; I lived in the school complex. I soon discovered the need for human relationship, the grace of strangers, and the importance of learning about the faiths of others. It was also about practice and culture; what I thought was normal, was abhorrent to them (questioning openly issues of faith in public – this can cause riots in India), and vice versa (most of the Indians I know think handkerchiefs are disgusting - carrying snot round in your pocket? and simply eject snot onto the floor outside). These are trivial examples, but there are real issues of disagreement, cultural conflict and disputed values.

I once tried to enter a temple only to be told that it was restricted to higher caste Hindus (as a Christian you are lower than the lowest Hindu caste). Another temple refused to let me enter as a woman, because women were banned in case they were menstruating and made it unclean. To name a few other contentious issues: gender selective abortion; the caste system; dowry; forced marriage, and the marriage of children. Which are contested of course also in India, but also very evident. These are not “religious issues” as such, but Hindu faith and culture are entwined together, and just as in Christianity, we find it hard to disentangle the two. This is not to say that Christian faith and my own English culture are perfect – of course not, and in my own church, I struggle with the position of women, the attitude to LGBT people, the worship of consumerist culture, the egotism of Christian leaders, and the racism, all too evident in my own church, and which I must also recognize in myself. These are again an intertwining of culture and faith.

There also are clear theological differences – in the Hindu Dharma, the various avatars of God, the belief in reincarnation, the adoration of statues/idols of the many forms of God. For Hindus our own Christian beliefs are strange, crude and primitive – the cross of Jesus, the Trinity, and where is the female divine?

I need to say that many Hindus became friends, and that I loved visiting temples, and found God both in the chanting and bustling, the spectacle and ritual, as well as the still and the silent. I have a deep respect for Sanātana Dharma, the eternal way, which is both a philosophy and a way of life. The ideals of peace, of seva (service), the oneness of all things, the ultimate meaningless of that which is material, people’s deep devotion to God, and an inherent respect for spirituality, so obvious everywhere in everyday life, are very powerful.

But it is important to recognise that to commit to live in a community with, and to work together with, people of different beliefs and backgrounds, does not mean that this will be easy and always agreeable, and that we will instantly agree on everything.

We see in Paul’s writing the approach of trying to build bridges (“the unknown God you worship, I now proclaim to you”) whilst holding firm to his own faith in Jesus Christ, which he proclaimed amid imprisonment and death. Not easy, but vital.

So I am not advocating syncretism – religions are all the same – they are not. But I do believe that the God we see in Jesus, who created the world and all that is in it by the Spirit of God, through the expression of love, is not confined to our “religion”.

Relationships are mostly where we experience the grace of God – forgiveness, care, love, joy. In relating to those around us from different faiths and backgrounds we can see the grace of God at work, we can give and receive it.

Near Neighbours has been working to bring people together from different backgrounds for 10 years now and there are many examples of people from different backgrounds and faiths working together, learning together, becoming friends. I can think of the female vicar and the Muslim woman in the Black Country setting up a mental health project together; Rabbi Tanya and Saj Mohammed setting up a Muslim/Jewish pop up kitchen for the homeless and those in need in Nottingham; a young Jewish woman in Leeds who said, “I thought Muslims hated us, now I see we can be friends”; the project in West London for migrant women, who are Muslim, Hindu and Sikh, and of no faith, learning to support each other and gain confidence together.

Long term commitment and a perseverance to build lasting trust is a keystone on which all else is built. It is also about allowing others to welcome us and to accept their hospitality. This is not easy – we go into unknown territory, we risk looking foolish, we have the problem to face of graciously raising issues where we differ. But kindliness and neighbourliness need to be at the heart of our faith, and in all we do as Christians.

The name Near Neighbours is of course referring to Jesus’ teaching about the Good Samaritan – who is my neighbour? We are commanded by Jesus to love neighbours “as yourself”, and that means anyone in need. It is in living with, working with, engaging with, our near neighbours that we can express our Christian faith in word and deed.

The diversity of our communities can be an asset, as we learn to understand one another, commit to support each other, and work together with those of goodwill to improve our communities.

Within Near Neighbours I have met many remarkable people, going above and beyond in order to make a positive impact on their communities.