Religious communities can lead dialogue, area clergy say
A year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the religious community continues to foster relationships among diverse faiths in the Chattanooga area, clergy and other leaders said.
“The religious community plays a large role in our adjustment to this new global reality,” said Deborah Levine, executive director of the Women’s Council on Diversity. “It’s something we need guidance on, and religious groups can lead the way.”
One problem, according to local Muslims, is that some Americans perceive the war on terrorism to be a religious struggle, and believe the attacks were motivated by a religious fervor.
“Some people try to tell Americans that Islam is a religion of hatred,” said Khalid Hashmi, a spokesman for the Masjid An-Nour mosque. “That does a disservice to the community of Americans and the whole world. Muslims have had to come forward to tell everybody that nothing could be any further from the truth. We do not do crimes like (those of Sept. 11).”
Kabah Raheem, imam at the Chattanooga Islamic Center, said
open-minded people understand that Christians, Muslims and Jews have lived together for centuries.
“Islam is not the way some people are trying to paint it — as a terrorist religion,” he said. “(Those people) are narrow and dogmatic. We need to understand
and appreciate our similarities as well as appreciate the differences.”
However, Phillip Anderson, pastor of New Life Church, a Southern Baptist Convention affiliated congregation in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., said he is not sure there can be a large measure
of unity among the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
“The two, Judaism and Islam, are so diverse. They’re mortal enemies back to Creation,” he said. “They both come through (the lineage of) Abraham, one through Esau (Islam) and the other through Jacob (Judaism).
The Bible says they’ve always been at odds, and they always will be.”
The only way for Christians to come together with Jews and Muslims, Mr. Anderson said, is through faith in Jesus Christ.
“We love both (the Muslims and the Jews) because we believe Jesus Christ can bring peace through belief,” he said.
Others said shared conversations among faiths allow for community building.
“I think the religious communities have come together in a way that is without precedent,” Ms. Levine said. “(There have been) activities that involve people of different faiths that haven’t been going on in Chattanooga. And I think there is an expectation it should be like that.”
Janice Robertson, associate pastor at First-Centenary United Methodist Church, said people are quicker to raise spiritual questions about faith and Sept. 11. Communities of faith are the proper places for such questions, she said.
“We can’t wait for the schools, the government or the mayor to raise them,” she said. “(The congregations) have been the last places where it has been done, but the separation of church and state frees faith communities to really be the places where we can be in public, spiritual discourse.”
Mrs. Robertson said she has seen congregations realize they’re not entities among themselves and attempt to build bridges to other congregations.
“They want to be part of the solution,” she said.
Mr. Raheem said he has seen people “seeing what is real, like their immediate family, as opposed to all of those other things in our lives.”
There also has been a great interest in the Koran, the Muslim holy book, by people of all faiths, he said.
Mr. Hashmi said there have been positive changes, but not enough.
“We love each other more and respect each other more, but there are barriers,” he said. “There can still be more unity, friendship, intermingling and understanding.”
That will take some time, Ms. Levine said.
“I think history will show this event to be an incredible, major historical landmark, taking us into a different frame of mind as far as relating to and looking at the world,” she said. “And we’re just in the beginning stages of it.”