Clergy Beyond Borders

Once I've gotten the little guy off to school, I'll be hopping in my minivan and navigating traffic to spend my day off hanging out with rabbis and imams.

Early last week I got a last-minute request from an organization called Clergy Beyond Borders, asking if I could attend a gathering of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders interested in furthering dialogue human rights, pluralism, and the role of faith. It's organized by an imam and a rabbi who've been working together to resolve some of the...err...unpleasantness between their faiths. Evidently, they've been having some trouble finding Jesus-people-leaders to attend...which, given the season, is not much of a surprise. Pastors tend to be completely overwhelmed with the minutiae of planning Christmas at this time of year.

From my review of their online presence, the group seems mostly Muslim and Jewish, reflecting it's roots. This also may be an inhibiting factor to Christians, given that even followers of Jesus...being human...often feel freaked out around strangers and the "Other." Yeah, He taught us different, but we have this tendency to ignore what He said and focus instead on ourselves and the biases we've allowed to define us.

Whichever way, it seems they've had difficulty getting pastors willing to participate, so much difficulty that they're down to notable leaders of major and influential Christian communities such as myself.

Heh.

So I thinks to myself, sure. Why not? I'm game. Might make for an interesting day-and-a-half, particularly given my personal "interfaithy" predilections.