RELIGIOUS literacy was the theme of messages from faith leaders supporting this year’s Inter Faith Week, which runs until Sunday.
The Archbishop of Canterbury posted on Twitter that “Inter Faith Week reminds us of the vital importance of religious literacy. The command of Jesus to love our neighbour requires that we know something of the beliefs of others. Religious literacy can help us live together well across difference.”
Also on Monday, the secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, Zara Mohammed, described religious literacy as a “powerful antidote to ignorance and prejudice”. “Let us use this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment of service to all those in need, and to strive for a society that withstands hatred and division,” Ms Mohammed said in a statement.
The Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, wrote on Twitter that it was important to “continue to harness the power of interfaith engagement whenever the opportunity arises”.
This was echoed by Canon Hilary Barber, who co-chairs the Inter Faith Network, which has been organising the annual week since 2009. He described it as “a tremendous opportunity to celebrate and explore the vital place of faith in public life”.
Canon Barber, who is also the Vicar of Halifax Minster, said that “connections made and strengthened during the week add to the resilience of our communities, and help enable us to live well together, to navigate differences, and work productively together for the common good.”
He emphasised that the impact of Inter Faith Week was felt throughout the year, as it provided a staging post for planning towards longer-term goals, and is “often a time when new initiatives are launched. For example, this year will see a hospital in Stockport opening its new ‘reflection centre’, and the West Midlands Faith Alliance is launching a toolkit to help reduce violence of all kinds and to build safer communities.
“It’s a time new links and partnerships blossom — often between secular agencies and faith groups.”
He gave the example of Birmingham City Council’s renewal of its Faith Covenant, attended by the Bishop of Aston, the Rt Revd Anne Hollinghurst, along with civic and religious leaders.
Because the week coincided with COP27, many events this year had an environmental focus. The Bishop of Norwich, the Rt Revd Graham Usher, hosted a breakfast attended by representatives of nine faiths, which he described as a chance to “discuss what our traditions teach us about creation care and how we can work together for the good of the climate and biodiversity in Norfolk”.
The cost-of-living crisis was another recurrent theme. The Trussell Trust held an event in the Lambeth Palace Library. In a video message for the event, posted on Twitter, Archbishop Welby said that “some issues are too large: they transcend all our communities and are so urgent that we must work together and not alone to tackle them. Food poverty is one of these.”
He emphasised the challenges facing foodbanks, as demand increases while donations have dropped. “The cost-of-living crisis leads to a drastic increase in the number of people forced to turn to charity for support”, he said.
The executive director of the Inter Faith Network, Dr Harriet Crabtree, said on Tuesday that Inter Faith Week “continues to grow” every year.
“Workplaces and schools have doubled in number, and there has been significant increase from other types of organisations, like police services, hospitals, and hospices. A social-media trickle has become a waterfall,” she said.
Dr Crabtree, who has been involved in Inter Faith Week since its inception, said that one of the privileges of her position is “hearing the stories of those who have had their first deep conversations with a person of another faith, or visited a place of worship of someone else’s faith for the first time, or have helped their organisation building new links and connections for the first time, or are full of happiness at a special Inter Faith Week class at their school, or an interfaith football match or cricket tournament.”
The Woolf Institute’s Public Engagement Fellow, Dr Elizabeth Phillips, echoed Dr Crabtree’s comments about the continual growth of Inter Faith Week. “I think there’s a very positive sense of the general growing awareness of the importance of diversity and the importance of understanding one another across diversity.”
The Woolf Institute, which is affiliated to the University of Cambridge, is hosting a two-day conference this week exploring harmony between faith communities. Dr Phillips also highlighted the Living in Harmony workshops in schools, run by the Woolf Institute, in which children learn about the history of peaceful relations between Jewish and Muslim communities through music.
Dr Phillips said that having a specific week focused on interfaith work helped to raise awareness of the issue in “organisations or spaces where people may not be thinking about interfaith relations in their everyday work”. He gave the example of interfaith training that the Woolf Institute has provided for the staff of the mental-health charity Mind.
