[Committee] interfaith meeting

[Raftery, John]

Hi commmittteee! I learned a few things from the meeting I went to today. Let me paint you a picture of what the interfaith initiative is. In fact, you may find it worthwhile getting a friend to read this out to you so that you can close your eyes to get the full effect.

The chaplain and a few students are trying to put together a society comprised of representatives from each of the 14 'faith societies' at IC. The aims of this society will be to: promote interfaith dialogue (not debate), increase tolerance, understanding and respect between different 'faith groups', reduce prejudice, further the knowledge among students about different faiths, unite faith groups towards common objectives (eg raising money for charity) and to generally bring love and peace to all mankind :-p

They intend to accomplish these aims through dialogue events. The first of these will be in the MDH on the 16th of November. There will be 8 speakers (one from each religion represented by a society at IC), who will speak for 5-7 minutes, bringing verses and stories that highlight unity and dialogue. This will be followed by group discussion. The first event is supposed to lay the ground work, kicking off the interfaith initiative. There will be several more of these events throughout the year, and oppurtunities to discuss what is unique to each religion. I started to take a bit more interest at this point in the meeting - it made be think of Andy Towner's talk last night (sorry to those who are not at TBT). He was speaking about God - the Trinity, and why it is so wonderful that God is a Trinity! This interfaith thing may turn out to be a genuine oppurtunity to tell people about our God, and why He alone is worth following!

CathSoc and CMF weren't at the meeting today, there was just the chair of ENC society and myself. The CU is the main Christian society at IC, so they've given us responsibility for getting a speaker for the first event. In fact, they seem to have assumed that we would be on board with this whole thing. The deadline for finding a speaker is this Friday. If we haven't found anyone by then, they'll find a Christian to do it (when I say 'they', I mean the two Muslim students who have been organising things thus far).

These dialogue events need organising. The committee of the interfaith society will be made up of 14 'interfaith reps' (one from each 'faith society') + Andy the Chaplain who will provide oversight. The reps are appointed and replaced by their 'faith society'. Because of this, the committee is actually going to be quite a fluid thing, with the reps changing round every now and again. A rep might only serve on the committee for a month or so, but if they're enjoying it, there's no reason why they can't stay on.

Because of this unusual committee structure, the interfaith society won't be an offical society affiliated with the union. Instead, it will operate more like a branch of the chaplaincy. This means that it get's the benefits of the chaplain's unique links with the college, which is how they were able to get the MDH on such short notice and for free.

They've got a facebook group, "Imperial College Interfaith" if you want to know more.

Let's pray about it now.

John