To the Editor:
The recent BG Interfaith Breakfast held at the Junior Fair Building was a success that drew 200 persons
to celebrate not only different faiths, but all parts of our community. Congratulations to South Side
Six, Grounds for Thought, co-chairs of our peace-making breakfast, our city administrators, our school
teachers and leaders, and our citizens.
There have been hundreds of interfaith events here and around the country. To name a few, there’s the
MultiFaith Council of Northwest Ohio Banquet, Temple Shomer Emunim’s Interfaith Seder, the spring
National Prayer Day held annually since 1952 (sadly, ours next spring will depart from its interfaith
purpose), and Al Gore’s “interfaith service” at the Atlanta Ebeneezer Baptist Church where 600 persons
gathered.
Most of us gather in interfaith groups at work, school, sports, card games, houses of worship and
families without recognizing them as such. We take the diversity of those groups for granted, but by
calling them interfaith, we intentionally attend to each other, identify our religious community or
none, seeking understanding of our similarities and differences, learning from them, erasing
stereotypes, agreeing to live together in respect and peace.
Interfaith events are a forceful response to our toxic divisions and national polarization, fault lines
that have caused anger, social fragmentation and violence. We know that each of us can be seen as the
other.
But when we are truly together, friendships are born. When we sponsor interfaith dinners, seders, climate
talks, or workshops, and when we interact as real persons, we question stereotypes, there are no others
and we reach across the tables in solidarity.
There is an image, Peaceable Kingdom, that captures the power and magic of an interfaith world.
Although it is not considered religious, Edward Hicks’ painting from 1833 exemplifies Quaker ideals of
equality, criminal and social justice, peace, protecting the earth and seeking personal wholeness and
social harmony.
The animals and children are taken from Isaiah 11:6-8 including the lion eating straw with the ox. Hicks
used his paintings as a way to define his central interest, which was the quest for a redeemed soul. May
those images of lions and oxen together enter our dreams and hopes.
Tom Klein
Bowling Green