Sharing stories with other faiths

Anna Thomas-Betts, vice chair of the diocesan committee for inter-faith concerns, on a faith dialogue day in Oxfordshire for people of all ages.

More than 60 people aged from 17 to 70 gathered for an interfaith dialogue at the Global Retreat Centre in Nuneham Courtnay, organised by the diocesan committee for interfaith concerns, the Brahma Kumaris and the United Religions Initiatives.

All those who attended were of diverse religious beliefs, but with an interest in interfaith matters and sharing their own faith experiences with others.

Two BK sisters, Daxa Shah and Els Bracken, facilitated the structured programme of conversations to tell each other about a spiritual experience, that we felt connected to something bigger than ourselves.

The intention was to match a younger person with an experienced person, not of the same religion, to discover what happened to us and how it changed our lives, by interviewing each other in a ‘spirit of appreciative enquiry’. We had to try to enter into the other's experience, later telling out each other’s story. 

It emerged that similar themes – of light, of awareness of each other and God, of lightness and a lifting of burdens, of the participants being linked together – were running through the nine groups. The young people, many of them sixth formers, were not at all fazed in the presence of the older generation; on the contrary, their self-confidence and enthusiasm were an inspiration.

People found the afternoon very worthwhile. Some valued it because there was ‘a simple directness in sharing personal experience’. Some found it a relief to be ‘talking ‘non-doctrinally’ about faith matters’. This afternoon had taken a great deal of effort to set up on the part of Drs Hugh Boulter and Marcus Braybrooke of ODCIC.

Hannah Chalmers, a Mechanical Engineering undergraduate, said: ‘The dialogue has left me with two particular memories. Firstly, a striking similarity in [our spiritual] experiences, even though we have different religious beliefs and, secondly, incredible warmth and laughter after we’d spent so little time talking and listening. It is also heartening to realise that I can do this in friendship and fellowship, listening and learning from my own reflections and the wisdom of others.’