LAFF Society

NEWSLETTER

Two Religions, One Family

By Sheila Gordon

 

A recent study by the Pew Foundation reports that 15 percent of new marriages in the United States are inter-racial. And gay marriage is breaking legal barriers daily.
 
These trends are good news for our society. They signify that many people who were previously marginalized now are being accepted into mainstream society and are able to take advantage of strong social support systems. In turn, their extended families and neighbors are enriched and enlightened by the diversity that these relationships represent.
 
When I left the Foundation a dozen years ago, I began working full time on another trend affecting families: inter-religious marriages. In places like Northern Ireland or the former Yugoslavia religion can be a manacle, trapping practitioners in patterns of fear and misunderstanding. In the United States, on the other hand, boundaries between religions are opening not just through formal interfaith dialogue but at the breakfast table, in the very organic nature of family life. Such marriages are breaking barriers in this country not unlike race and gender. Today, 40 percent of marriages are interfaith. 
 
At the same time, however, the forces of contemporary American life that are making many boundaries more permeable are also weakening traditional support structures. The pace of change, the electronic barrage, the geographic separation of families can be destabilizing.
 
Religious affiliation can provide families solid social capital. In Amazing Grace, Robert Putnam details the enhanced social engagement of affiliated families, which makes them “better neighbors” not only in their congregations but in secular settings where they donate and volunteer much more than unaffiliated adults.
 
The very trends that contribute to interreligious marriage, however, tend to lead couples away from affiliation with traditional religious communities. This is particularly true for the growing number of interfaith couples who emphasize mutual fairness and respect in their relationship and want to find a way to “do both” religions. That liberal impulse runs counter to the stance of most religious institutions, which argue that “doing both” can rupture the family, distort the essence of the religion and harm and confuse the children.
 
So the new interfaith family is left at sea. “Doing both” on one’s own is very difficult. Few couples have the knowledge, resources or time to be successful in imparting two traditions to their children—or even to understanding one another. And even for those who succeed, doing this in the absence of a community that provides the affirmation of others is at best daunting and can leave the children feeling isolated.
 
Interfaith Community, which I founded, has moved into the breach, designing and providing carefully built programs and delivery vehicles for addressing these issues. Focusing on the family unit, we began our work with Jewish/Christian families. Over time, modest engagements with other religious combinations—Muslim/Christian, Jewish/Hindu—have convinced us that the model is replicable. 
 
At the heart of our model is a pioneering and comprehensive K-8 curriculum about Judaism and Christianity, developed and taught by teams of Jewish and Christian educators from Union Theological Seminary, Jewish Theological Seminary and other leading institutions. In addition, holiday celebrations, counseling and adult education are offered through vibrant communities in a growing network of locations in the Northeast, including metropolitan New York City, Connecticut and Boston.
 
Meaning in ordinary lives
 
On a Sunday when they might otherwise be sleeping in or watching the morning news programs, a diverse group of parents in a suburban county of New York City—investment bankers and plumbers, teachers and computer programmers, full-time parents—gather while their children are in interfaith classes. The parents are motivated to have their children know something of their religious heritage and acquire tools to address their own spiritual needs. They are inspired by the idea that they can pass on to their children a sense of values or love of ritual. And they are reinforced by having a community of others who share this interest.  
 
On a typical Sunday they may re-visit Biblical text with new insights, participate in a structured exercise about what they hope their children will gain from learning about their two religious traditions or plan together for a community-service outing. As they enrich the learning environment of their children, they themselves become more engaged in the pursuit of meaning. They come to appreciate—as adults—the lasting virtues of their religious traditions.
 
At the same time, their children are willingly—even enthusiastically, I am often told—in class. Under the expert team tutelage of professional Jewish and Christian educators, they learn in a non-doctrinaire way about both religions and begin to explore their religious identity.
 
When class is over—and just before the mad dash to the SUVs for noontime soccer practice—the children, their parents and their teachers may join in a circle for a moment of quiet reflection, perhaps focused on a shared concern for a member of the community who is very ill. 
 
Their observations, revealing emotional strengths, critical thinking and openness, are compelling. Consider these recent comments from parents:
 
“I can now understand why rituals like baptism or bris have such lasting power.”
 
“I no longer recoil from the cross in my husband’s church as a threat to my Jewish identity, but understand its peaceful symbolism for Christians.”
 
“I can read the gospel of Matthew on Ash Wednesday and find deeper meaning in it because, through my wife, I understand the Jewish view of repentance.”
 
“I haven’t thought so much since I was in school myself.”
 
And here are comments from their 12-year-old children:
 
“I felt so relieved when I started these classes. At last I was with other kids like me.”
 
“The teachers can’t just tell us what to think. They can give us information but we have to figure it out ourselves.”
 
“We learned about Abraham and why the idea of hospitality is important in religion. But I wonder, when you take someone into your home do you also have the right to kick them out?”
 
“Interfaith Community classes help me understand myself and religion more.”
 
“People don’t understand what it is like to have two religions in your family. For us, I think it opens new doors.”
 
Beyond individual families
 
The program sits on the cusp of change and is helping shape attitudes and institutions. It is beginning to have a widening ripple effect—for familes, for religious traditions and for the future. 
 
As families become more religiously diverse, interfaith communities provide a locus for understanding, a lever for change and a building block of stability. Marriages once at risk for rupture over religious difference have thrived as partners have found encouragement to deepen connections to their own traditions. And children once isolated by ill-defined identity have grown into proud advocates for interfaith understanding.
 
Just 10 years ago, IFC struggled to find well-trained teachers who would risk teaching aoutside their denominations. Today we are blessed with a growing stream of young educators whose work with us connects them to the needs and circumstances of the new interfaith family—and who are becoming ordained and moving on to lead congregations around the country.
 
And the children not only are building their own capacity to think critically about religion and spiritual needs but also are becoming a growing cadre of ambassadors for genuine interfaith understanding.
 
Sheila Gordon worked initially at the Foundation with McGeorge Bundy’s school decentralization project and more recently in program recruitment in Human Resources. She encourages members to visit www.interfaithcommunity.org, or to contact her at sheilagordon@interfaithcommunity.org or by mail at Interfaith Community, Inc., 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1945, New York, NY 10115.

 

 

 

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