What is in Kelvin's Head?

Scottish Shia Community shows us how to do interfaith work

31/07/2015

It was a great honour and privilege last night to be a guest of the Scottish Shia community at an Eid meal to celebrate the end of Ramadan. The photograph shows me with Sayed Ali Abbas Razawi, the Director General of the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society.

There are many reasons why we need to have interfaith meetings and many ways of doing it. Last night, the Shia community in Scotland offered us a wonderfully relaxed and easy way to go to engage with one another – they took us out for a meal. Well, it was more of a banquet than a meal, in the Village Curry House in Tradeston which served us splendid food.

The good thing about eating over a meal is that you can dip in and out of conversations – mixing chatter about where people are going on holiday with theological questions and all the while you are learning about each others traditions. As I hear the Shia people talk about the universal search for justice that they are engaged in, inspired by Imam Hussein, there are obvious connections to be made with the work for human rights and human dignity that Christians and other people of goodwill are engaged in.

And so we found ourselves chatting away about how Muslims and Christians think of John the Baptist, how we think about Middle East politics, the Usual Topic (human sexuality) and the interesting ways that people are arguing about it within our communities. And we talked about Scotland too – how it is changing and how we are changing in it. There were folk there from different parts of Scottish society – charities like Breast Cancer research and Alzheimers Scotland who are helped by the Shia community and services like the Fire Service and Blood Transfusion Service and there was an MSP representing the Scottish Government. Bishop Idris was representing the Trades House of Glasgow and there were loads of us from the Christian communities in Scotland – the Moderator of the General Assembly and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow were tucking into the curry and naan with the rest of us.

I’m interested that sometimes these days the Christians meet best whilst engaging in conversation with people outwith Christianity. Ecumenism often doesn’t seem very exciting but Interfaith work sometimes makes it happen in a new and relaxed way that you don’t see coming. Last night, it was Muslims who brought the Christians together and that’s worth thinking about a very great deal.

So – thank you to the people who honoured us with their invitation last night. It was a wonderful example of religious generosity and a time when all kinds of relationships could be built.

20 responses to “Becoming a Welcoming Cathedral”

Meg Rosenfeld

08/11/2014

My husband and I became members of All Saints Parish, San Francisco not long after our first experience attending Sunday Mass in that charming little church in the notorious Haight-Ashbury district. At that time we’d been members for over 20 years of a parish in another diocese, but were beginning to stay in San Francisco on weekends. What inspired us to join All Saints as members was the receipt of a simple hand-written letter from the rector some two or three days later, saying it had been a pleasure to have us there and hoping we would come again. Neither of us had ever had such an experience in any church we’d attended. We were absolutely amazed (in a positive way!) and made up our minds then and there that we would, indeed, go back. Mind you, we were also welcomed by the official greeters, urged to come to coffee hour, and approached at coffee hour with friendly overtures from the regulars–which is not always the case in Episcopal churches, at least in California. I guess it was just the right balance between friendliness and respect for one’s privacy. In any event, we are still at All Saints, almost 20 years later, up to our ears in choir, committees, and activities. To me, it was the letter from the rector which did the trick. He (an introvert like myself) wasn’t too busy to acknowledge new people, and in a way which was totally unthreatening.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/11/2014
  
  Thanks Meg – that’s a great story.
  
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Andrew Connor

08/11/2014

I go to a church which gets the coffee just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which gets the welcome team just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
I go to a church which denies that I was born gay and have chosen to love my same see partner whom I am not allowed to celebrate with. You see? I don’t feel welcome.
The homilies never include such exclusion. Never did they mention my being part of the Us of the parish though.
We have regular celebrations of love but not mine.
Many speak of going home to love one another and others exhort us to reach out and love the stranger. But I am in the midst of you and m only loves if I deny my own self.
There is indeed much still to do.
Welcome in our Church? Discuss.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/11/2014
  
  I know Andrew. I know it all too well. And I know that the ease with which these loves can be spoken of here in St Mary’s in pulpit and pew is tragically remarkable in its rarity.
  
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Father Ron Smith

08/11/2014

Bravo, Kelvin. I always feel that we in the Church are standing in the place of Christ – who welcomes all. Agape, Fr. Ron, ACANZP

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Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

09/11/2014

Strangely enough about 1 hour before you posted this, I had been in a meeting in which one of the subjects discussed was getting more people to come to the church. The comments were full of “what can we do” I know that unless someone is willing to do outreach work nothing changes. I feel that as the church, St James the great, in Dingwall, will be having an open day when the refurbishment is complete, an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of the church.
I have taken on board the difficulties of being welcoming and at the same time not being separate, as you put it us and them. I have had experience of being both, part of a group and the new face

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Janet Koch

12/11/2014

conscientize?

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