I’m standing in a long row or “ring” of people in Toronto with Rabbi Elyse Goldstein of City Shul and Imam Shabir Ally of the Islamic Information and Dawah Centre. We are carrying a sign that includes the logos of all three of our congregations: City Shul, Islamic Information & Dawah Centre, and St. Anne, Toronto. We are together in friendship for our fourth Ring of Peace.

In this ring, we are joined by a growing circle of congregations and friends to be with the people of Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Parish in Toronto; members of the Sri Lankan community are a significant presence in this congregation. For the first time, Hindu and Sikh representatives stand with us, as do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We hold our signs of support. Some drivers honk in encouragement. We stand in quiet conversation, sing songs, and in silence. We provide a clear path into the church for members of the community coming for mass.

We are invited into the church for a vigil. Some enter to hear and share fellowship. For others, the quiet witness on the street is enough. Inside the church, we are addressed by Cardinal Collins, Bishop Andrew Asbil and many others. We hear reflections, prayers and words of encouragement. The hardest part is a first-hand account by Roshanthini Rajju. In tears, she tells us about her family who were in the cathedral in Colombo and were injured during the explosion.

It feels terrible to say it, but we are starting to have a formula for a Ring of Peace. We invite our emerging network of partner congregations. We invite our friends on social media. We contact the police for traffic safety and the media to come and share our public witness. We take pictures. Afterwards, we eat together. People mix freely and have what might be their first conversations with a person of another religion. The great opportunity of a Ring of Peace is that it gives us a way to stand beside someone of another faith and build friendship.

This week, there is another shooting. This time it’s at a synagogue in California. Even if we say we know how to do it, can we summon the emotional energy for another Ring of Peace less than a week after the last one? Rabbi Goldstein commented: “My immediate reaction: oh no, not another Ring of Peace. Not because the rings aren’t beautiful and not because they aren’t meaningful. Quite the opposite: because they are becoming too standard, too normal, and too easy. I can now ‘push a button’ and they are organized, publicized and successful. And I hate that.”

As these Rings of Peace spread across Toronto, it’s time to look for deeper results, even though the rings are deeply appreciated. Our diocese’s new Interfaith Committee did a survey of parish leaders and learned that many of our Anglican parishes have no connection to a congregation of another faith. A first opportunity for friendship with someone of another faith is a beautiful beginning. The deeper challenge is going upstream and connecting with isolated people before they become radicalized into anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, and anti-Christian violence. We want to learn about and address the deeper causes.

Please reach out to me if you’re also interested as we reach out in shared interfaith witness to those who are isolated. May the day come when interfaith friendships, not interfaith Rings of Peace, help bring an end to violent extremism.

The Rev. Canon Gary van der Meer is the diocese’s interfaith officer and the incumbent of St. Anne, Toronto.

The post It’s time to look for deeper results appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

“I would be happy to help, but from what I have heard you say about becoming a neighbourhood church, it might be better for St. Anne’s if you get to know a downtown synagogue,” he said.

He recommended Elyse Goldstein, a Reform rabbi at a newly planted congregation on the campus of the University of Toronto. “We are not interested in spiritual tourism,” she told me. “It’s either friendship or we don’t have time for it.”

Friendship is what we have done. We met for coffee, then visited each other’s services. For our first shared learning event, we brought together roughly equal numbers of Jews and Christians on a weeknight to present, explore and compare our traditions of Chanukah and Christmas.

Our people sat in mixed table groups for the initial “getting to know each other” conversation, followed by our presentations on the traditions and significance of our upcoming celebrations. The conversations grew in volume; we enjoyed hearing each other’s experiences and learning together.

Over four years, we have come a long way together and have had a variety of learning evenings and annual sermon exchanges. City Shul comes to St. Anne’s and Elyse preaches on the Christian lectionary texts. St. Anne’s goes to City Shul and I preach on the synagogue’s lectionary texts. I attend Yom Kippur and Elyse comes to Christmas Eve.

We also have a friendship with our local mosque. I met Ilyas Ally, the assisting imam of the Islamic Information & Dawah Centre, at a social justice event. When we realized we were neighbours, we decided to meet for lunch. When St. Anne’s started its annual Christmas concert, I invited Ilyas to give the closing prayer.

The Christmas concert brings together local people, including many who do not participate in any religious services, and we wanted them to know about the friendship that exists between St. Anne’s and the mosque. News and world events often give the negative impression that religion fosters violence and intolerance. Our friendship is always well-received. When we announced our shared refugee sponsorship plans, the audience was excited with us; when we introduced our refugee families the next year, it was to a standing ovation. We have had shared learning events and a shared sermon, but our relationship with the mosque became most real in the meetings of our shared refugee committee.

As the diocese’s new Interfaith Officer, I appreciate questions about starting an interfaith friendship between your congregation and communities near you. What has surprised me more has been how many such friendships and partnerships already exist.

We might be tempted to think we just happened on a great idea. What better place to learn about world religions than at our doorstep in multicultural Toronto? What better time to appreciate what other religions can teach us than when “religious nones” are the fastest growing segment in the census?

The time and place are right, but this isn’t a new idea. The Parliament of the World’s Religions is coming to Toronto in November. The gathering was first held in Chicago in 1893. It resumed in Chicago in 1993 and has since travelled to Cape Town (1999), Barcelona (2004), Melbourne (2009) and Salt Lake City (2015). The Parliament will bring together participants from more than 200 religious, Indigenous and secular beliefs from more than 80 nations. There will be workshops and presentations on a number of subjects, including climate change, women’s experiences, Indigenous experiences, youth, and comparing experiences of engaging the next generations across religious traditions.

The coming months will offer many opportunities to organize delegations, plan presentations, volunteer and learn as we host 10,000 visitors to Toronto. The parliament’s mandate is “to cultivate harmony among the world’s religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its guiding institutions to achieve a just, peaceful and sustainable world.”

In the words of the Rev. John Joseph Mastandrea, parliament ambassador and a minister of Metropolitan United Church in Toronto, the gathering “is more than a symbol – the parliament is an instrument of peace.”

To learn more about getting involved in the seventh Parliament of the World’s Religions, visit www.parliamentofreligions.org.

The post Parliament of religions coming here appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.

Stephen was talking about our new clergy reading group. He had hosted our latest informal group discussion at St. Bride’s, Clarkson, and we were talking about why reading theology together was so helpful. “The relationship is more important than the opinions,” he said. “That’s where the Body of Christ is – lots of opinions coming together.”

When I first began to study theology, it was like a light coming on and I couldn’t get enough of it. In the years since I was ordained, I have continued to buy books. Sometimes I finish them, but often I don’t. They sit on my shelf, the bookmark a quarter or a third of the way through, at the place where other priorities of pastoral leadership intervened. I might have referenced a quote or a chapter in a sermon or a Bible study. Then I moved on – and there the book sits while I wish I had greater self-discipline.

Last year, I brought a particularly compelling book to our annual clergy conference. At a time of open announcements, I got up and talked about the book. The Crucifixion would be so relevant for preaching during Holy Week, and the author, Fleming Rutledge, was coming to give a talk at Wycliffe College. Who would join me in reading it, so that I would be sure to finish the book? We would get a lot out of it if we could meet and talk about it. I followed up with everyone who expressed interest, and we began.

Our first gathering included people I didn’t know, and people who didn’t know each other. Maybe we recognized each other’s faces from diocesan events, but we had never spoken. The discussion was wonderfully stimulating, and I think we all appreciated the diversity in the room. Some loved the book, some hated it, but the discipline of meeting together helped us finish it – and our shared reading informed our sermons during Holy Week.

We are in the middle of reading our second book, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation by Richard Rohr. Some love it and some don’t, but the conversation is stimulating, respectful, and honest. We are looking forward our next gathering, when our focus will be, “How will you preach this?”

Stephen and I are both reluctant to say that our group represents the full spectrum of theological views in the Church, but the diversity of views is evident in our conversation. We have experienced the breaking down of stereotypes. Talking together about our faith pushes back at the tendency to slot people.

“We are building shared experiences with other leaders and reflecting on pastoral care through what the text is saying,” says Stephen. I think what we are building is a bridge. When you build a bridge and then stand on it together, new things you’d never thought about become possible.

We welcome clergy to join us reading theology together. We will start our third book after Christmas.

The post New clergy reading group builds bridges appeared first on The Toronto Anglican.