INTRA-Faith Dialogue for Interfaith Understanding- a drama unfolding between Muslim and Christian youth leaders

[Marites Guingona Africa]

Dear Friends,

Greetings of peace! And best wishes on this new day for the Filipino people!

The overwhelming vote in the Senate Impeachment Trial Court to convict CJ Corona ushers in new hope for true justice to prevail in our country. I hope that this heralds a new era of less corruption in government and more vigilance among our people in safeguarding the rights of every Filipino and the wellbeing of our democratic system.

The high drama at the Impeachment Court has ended, but our efforts to build our nation every way we possibly can must continue. 

In this light I share here with you our own efforts at The Peacemakers’ Circle to promote peace through interfaith dialogue and relationship-building, especially between Muslims and Christians in Metro Manila. In the course of our efforts, we have realized that if interfaith dialogue is to be successful at building true, respectful and harmonious interfaith relationships, there is a need to build on the foundation of faith which, in my experience, can only be reinforced through the process of INTRA-faith dialogue. 

Last Sunday afternoon (May 27), this realization came to the fore again as I was conducting our 10th workshop session for Muslim and Christian youth leaders from four grassroots communities—Tala (Caloocan), Culiat (Quezon City), Quiapo (Manila), and Maharlika-Bicutan (Taguig)—who are participants of our action-reflection youth leadership training program for grassroots community peacebuilding. This is a 10-month program (consisting of 20 workshop sessions) and this is being funded by the Australian Embassy’s Strengthening Grassroots Interfaith Dialogue and Understanding (SGIDU) Program. This aims to—

1. Develop in the youth leaders capacities for inspiring and organizing fellow youths in their community to action and participate in helping their elders address the challenges that they face

        in their community.

2. Promote faith-based values and attitudes among the youth leaders that enable them to build interfaith relationships of mutual respect, understanding and cooperation in their midst.

3. Provide training that would teach the youth leaders how to handle money wisely (and with a sense of accountability and desire for transparency) and to invest seed funds on community 

        projects in ways that ensure long-term and sustainable positive impact on their community. 

The 10th workshop session last Sunday was focused on faith. The assignment was for them to pick a verse from the Holy Bible (for the Christians) or a sura from the Holy Qur’an (for the Muslims) which spoke to them most meaningfully about their faith.

During the workshop, they were assigned to small mixed groups and encouraged to share their reflections on why they were Muslims or Christians, and why they chose the particular verse or sura as most meaningful to them in describing their faith. 

While most of the Christian participants spoke about love and fear of sin, it was noted that the Muslim participants also believed in the same. What then was the difference between the Christian and the Islamic faith? I challenged them. 

It was interesting to note that the Muslim participants seemed to be more confident about their knowledge of Islam and the Holy Qur’an. One of them highlighted this sura from the Holy Qur’an—

  Sura al-i-‘Imran (3):64:

    “Say: “O People

            Of the Book! Come

            To Common terms

            As between us and you:

            That we worship

            None but God;

            That we associate 

            No partners with Him;

            That we erect not,

            From among ourselves,

            Lords and patron

            Other than God.”

When the young Muslims in the room asked their Christian counterparts why Christians worshipped many Gods and idols, the room started to heat up! The young Christians started to protest by saying that they believed in only One God, too! Isa lang yon pero pinaghati-hati sa tatlo! (Just One God, but divided into three!). Lively bantering among friends ensued, and one fifteen year old Muslim boy stood up and said” Whew, umiinit na masyado dito! (Whew! It’s getting very hot here!).

As facilitator and observer, I felt that their animated attempts at “defending” their faith, while rather amusing, was sadly affirming the urgent need for INTRA-faith dialogue.

At the end of the session, I challenged the kids to prepare to “defend their faith” in the next workshop session (on June 10). I paired two Muslims with each other and two Christians with each other in each community to work together in preparing themselves for the “faith defense’ exercise.  The kids were excited, and our team of facilitators—Orlan, Alan and I--look forward to seeing how this exercise will turn out to be. We are preparing to ensure that respectful dialogue of faith in the spirit of mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation can be possible here among these young leaders! 

The drama in the impeachment court has ended, but the drama in this Muslim-Christian youth leadership workshop program continues to unfold for us…

Thank you for listening! We are deeply grateful for your friendship and support!

All the best,

Marites

 -- 

MARITES GUINGONA-AFRICA

Founder & Executive Director

THE PEACEMAKERS’ CIRCLE FOUNDATION, INC.

Rm. 105 PhilDHRRA Partnership Center

59 C. Salvador St., Varsity Hills, 1108

Quezon City, Metro Manila

Philippines

Cell phone no.: +63 917-538-9358

Tel. no.: (63) (2) 925-2815; (63) (2) 788-6402

Fax no:  (63) (2) 426-6737 local 102

E-mail: thepeacemak...@gmail.com

            shek...@gmail.com        

Webpage: www.thepeacemakerscircle.org                 

[Alberto Catangcatang]

maritess,

Hi.
I was very delighted with your experience in handling the workshop.. and more to go.
The young are always challenging...
And amusing;
but am hoping they are not closing for dialogues like the old.

Mahirap na topic ang tinalakay at pinagdebatihan kasi it was older than the coming and introduction of faith in our land.
And even those who studied Theology for quite sometime found it still hard to explain such dogma.
One has to see it from the point of view of eternity. . and what is this eternity?? I ,too, am not sure if I understood it correctly.

Anyway,  more power to you and to your team.

Pasensya ngayon lang uli naka-email sa yo.

thank you.


Tang