"Who's out there?"

When I was a child in the 1950’s in the Midwest of the United States everyone, it seemed, was a Christian. That was our world. On Sundays just about everyone, it seemed, went to church. The only difference – confusing to me as a child and still confusing to many adults at the present time – was which denominational church one attended and why. But going to church (with one’s whole family) was what was normal.

As incredible as it may seem, I think it may not have been until I was about 8 or 9 years old that I learned there were Jews. The first time I heard about Muslims was when Cassius Clay became one, changing his name to Mohammed Ali. My world was, it seemed, almost exclusively Christian.

By contrast (in religious terms) we are living at a time when, in various parts of the world and in the UK, some people yearn to see established ‘a universal caliphate’ – everyone would either be a Muslim or accept their lives being governed by Islamic teaching. To give another example, in parts of north London there is the desire of some to have a geographical area physically marked out, perhaps by a ribbon, as an ‘Orthodox’ area.

For 35 years I have lived in and around London and what is normal to me now – and presumably to many of you, too – is to live in neighbourhoods where one’s neighbours may belong to some of the major world faith traditions or may be people to whom the concept of faith is either confusing, or something they dismiss without much thought.

I wonder which option you would prefer – to live in a community where you knew that most people adhered to the same religious tradition as yourself, or the jumbled together, very mixed nature of many of our London neighbourhoods.

We are often told that we live in a global community, and that Britain comprises many local communities that are multi-cultural and multi-faith, and, moreover, that the internet is opening things up all over the world, giving us all many more opportunities than previously to learn about one another.

This ought to mean that we frequently talk with our neighbours about our differences.

What have you found in your experience?

In my experience I find that many people who owe an allegiance to one culture and/or one world faith community use the internet and other media to return time and again, more and more deeply, into their own culture and/or their world faith community.

For instance? If you read a religious journal or newspaper or look at religious websites, what are they? The options range among The Jewish Chronicle, totallyjewish.com, somethingjewish.co.uk, Islamweb.net, Islamway.com, The Church Times, faithworks.info, Gujarat Samachar, Guravi Gujarat, and many, many more. The fact that some of you, reading this, could quickly add other examples of journals or websites from your own religious tradition reinforces my point.

Despite the fact that many of us live in neighbourhoods that are mixed culturally and in terms of religious adherence, for the most part in my experience people simply do not speak to one another about their differences. The safer option would appear to be to remain within one’s own familiar ‘world’.

So, I encourage you: open some doors; open some windows. Find ways of speaking to others in your community across the differences of culture, and faith.