How can Muslims and evangelicals work together?

In a couple of weeks, I'm speaking at Wheaton College - often known as the Harvard of Evangelical Christian schools - with my Evangelical friend, Skye Jethani.

In November, I spoke about Evangelicals and interfaith outreach at Pastor Bob Roberts Global Faith Forum outside of Dallas. Folks from around the world gathered to discuss faith relations, with a heavy hitting speaker line up including Prince Turki Al-Faisal and renowned scholar of Islam John Esposito.

These events only contribute to something I have thought for a long time: Evangelicals are a hugely important community in advancing a global interfaith movement because of their size, their strong faith commitment, and their keen perception of culture. To begin a new year and a new decade, I asked a handful of my prominent Evangelical friends to put down in words why they believe in interfaith cooperation, what they're doing about it, and - for the many people who have questions about the definition of 'interfaith' - what they think it is.

We launch today with my friend and a true leader in this field, Pastor Bob Roberts. Look out for more posts in the next week.

Today's guest blogger is Bob Roberts, Jr., the founding and Senior Pastor of NorthWood Church in Keller, Texas. NorthWood has started 130+ churches in the United States and trains young pastors here and around the world. He has led numerous development projects through a volunteer movement of mobilizing people to serve from one part of the world to another. His most recent book is Realtime Connections.

If working across various faith and national lines has taught me anything in the last fifteen years, it's that we really don't know each other like we think we do.

There is a real problem with merely reading and hearing lectures - it is outside the context of real people and everyday life. I was once visiting with Grand Mufti Ceric Mustafa of Bosnia and I made the comment, "All this talk seems to lead nowhere, instead we should focus on how we can serve people together." He chimed in that he had been in talks for 60 years and had very little to show for it.

How do we do interfaith cooperation or collaboration?

First, start with the hand. If we start with the head, we go nowhere because every faith has various points that are irreconcilable with other faiths. What in our city needs to be fixed, addressed, or healed? How can we work together?

The response I often get is that unless we know how we are similar and different, working together is dangerous. I strongly disagree. We all pay taxes to the same government, use the same hospitals, go to the same schools, are protected by the same police. And you're going to tell me we can't network and come together around the common interest of our city in our faith communities? For all of society to work together except our faith communities doesn't speak well of our faiths or faith.

Second, the heart is engaged. When we come together and serve our community we come to respect one another and become friends. We even come to love each other and discover one another as neighbors. Now it becomes relational, and we are going to listen better to those that we care about and value. We've had cooking classes, home remodeling, and other projects with people of various faiths. As a matter of fact I'm taking the local imam and his son hunting in Texas because he wants to experience it!

Third, it's time to use our head, because now we're ready to talk. Chances are while we've been working, we've gradually started talking. Talking through first serving our city, and then becoming friends is going to be far more fruitful because we know and trust each other. We already know we disagree, so our relationship and cooperation isn't based on agreement of theology. It also allows us to be safe in sharing what we really believe. If we don't have a relationship or common interest then we may not be as clear or as honest as we could for fear of being misunderstood or being labeled negatively.

The content of this blog reflects the views of its author and does not necessarily reflect the views of either Eboo Patel or the Interfaith Youth Core.

By Eboo Patel  |  January 4, 2011; 10:46 AM ET  | Category:  Interfaith Issues , Morality , Personal Religion , Religion & Leadership Save & Share:                 
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