"Embracing Pluralism, Respecting Heritage: Making Interfaith ‘Work’ at a Christian Institution"

As any good workshop at this Conference does, Katie Basham and Courtney Brooks began by sharing their stories.

Katie grew up in a conservative Christian family from Kentucky, and when she attended Berea, she met Buddhists and Muslims for the first time. Unsure how to navigate diversity but keenly interested in it, Katie studied religion as an undergraduate and later in seminary. Her interest in interfaith dialogue was further fuelled by her time in Jerusalem, where she encountered religious conflict firsthand. She now directs interfaith programming as the Chaplain at Berea College.

Courtney comes from ‘‘rural, rural, rural’’ Appalachia and descends from long line of coal miners. She was afforded the opportunity to attend Berea as an undergraduate where she thrived as a result of the diversity of students, ideas, and programs she encountered. She is now finishing a PhD in Sociology where she is exploring the intersection of identity and Appalachian life, and also works in the Office of Student Life at Berea.

Katie and Courtney offered a wealth of best practices and strategies for driving interfaith cooperation forward on campuses. In particular, they explored how to start from ground-zero at a Christian college to build religious pluralism. Here were a few of their suggestions:

1) Know your institution

a. One must be able to articulate interfaith cooperation as not only a vital addition to a campus, but as a necessary extension of a campuses long history and guiding principles.
b. Know the religious tradition of your institution, and how the tradition mandates and understands interfaith cooperation.

2) Begin with natural partnerships

a. Find affinity groups such as local religious institutions, student organizations, service-learning groups, and international education/study abroad organizations on campus to build bridges with.

3) Reconciliation of past encounters

a. They called this healing and unlearning. They ask students and their advisors to confront directly difficult situations of the past and help facilitate that through deliberate counselling, support, and advocacy.

One of the key verses upon which Berea College was founded comes from the Book of Acts: ‘’God made of one blood all the peoples of the earth.’’

This workshop was further evidence that Berea is embodying that ethos through its interfaith programming, and inspiring other campuses to do the same.

Dave Ellis
Interfaith Youth Core Development Associate
October 27th, 2009