The Feast has held different events over the years for Interfaith week. We find it a wonderful opportunity to connect and celebrate all that is happening between people of different faiths. This year we are setting ourselves a personal challenge by encouraging all of our staff, volunteers, local advisory group members and Trustees to host a dinner at home over the course of Interfaith Week (10-17th Nov). The idea is for each of us to invite a small but diverse group of people (or one family of a different faith or culture, if you have a family of your own) to our homes to share food and conversation… and in true “Feastian” style use our Guidelines for Dialogue to discuss a challenging topic or topics.

My job continues to blow my mind:

Yesterday I sat across the table from a 12-year-old Korean young lady who comes to one of our groups (which is about helping people of different faiths and cultures live well with differences and build friendships across those differences). She has been coming along for a few weeks now. I had assumed she was South Korean. But yesterday she told us that her parents are from North Korea, and that they had defected/escaped when mum was pregnant with her. Not all the young people grasped what an astonishing thing this was… She told us about how her parents had lived in the mountains living off the land, with hardly enough rice (almost a luxury) to feed them. They escaped through China and a whole bunch of other countries…

There’s a South African term called Ubuntu, which is quite tricky to translate. But it speaks of the commonness or shared humanity that we all have; how my welfare is tied up with your welfare and cannot be detached. From my Christian worldview, I would call it recognising the ‘Image of God’ that we all share… the common dignity and value that every human has because God made them. That dignity and value that is yours, which requires that I always treat you a certain way (with dignity and value!) even – especially – when I disagree with you.

I love watching our young people exhibit Ubuntu, and treat each other as “image bearers” (they wouldn’t all use that term, or accept the God premise) … I love watching them learn to speak confidently and positively about their own faith and worldview – rather than speaking negatively about that of another. It’s far too easy for us to only spot what is “wrong” with other faiths and cultures, and only see what is “right” in our own; and at the same time to be blind to the “good” in other faiths and cultures, whilst being blind to the “bad” in our own faith and culture.

One of the things I love about my job is that The Feast doesn’t try and pretend that all faiths and cultures are the same. We recognise that there are fundamental differences on very important things and that we need to grapple with those differences, work out how to live well together with those differences, without glossing over them. But at the same time, we have much in common, which we also want to celebrate and enjoy.

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