Interfaith Youth Café

St. Sava’s Serbian Orthodox Cathedral

8 February 2009

It’s already a rare event when Christians, Jews, and Muslims get together, eat, talk and laugh together. But when you bring in some Unitarian Universalists and Serbian Orthodox, you have something special indeed!

That something special happened at St. Sava’s, the cathedral and faith community whose home sits right behind Serb Hall, the famous eating and meeting place on Oklahoma and 52nd Street, in Milwaukee.

We had among us the following youth:

• Unitarian Universalists form the First Unitarian Society of Milwaukee
• A Jewish group from Congregation Sinai
• Muslims form the Islamic Society of Milwaukee
• Christians of various denominations from House of Peace
• Serbian Orthodox from St. Sava’s Cathedral

It started with a tour of the cathedral – every inch of its walls are covered with icons created with mosaic tiles. Saints, Bible stories, artistic designs and Serbian writing are on the walls, ceilings, and stained glass windows.

Deacon Nick gave us a brief history of the church and pointed out the various icons of saints and Biblical figures. The first assembly of Serbians, at which this first Serbian Orthodox church was founded, took place on that same day we were there, February 8, ninety-seven years prior, in 1912.

Back at the “café,” the groups of mixed teens discussed their differences, especially considering the theme for this café, Visual images of God. Muslims have no visual images of God, where as Christians have symbols of God, and pictures and statues of Jesus, who is one of three persons in their unified, Trinitarian image of God. Unitarian Universalists don’t require religious art, but they welcome the images of all faith traditions.

The youth were asked to list the things they learned that day. Their learning included the following new insights:

• Muslims have 99 names and adjectives for God.
• Muslims and Catholics both use a form of prayer beads.
• St. Sava is the patron saint of the Serbians.
• Jews pray facing the western wall.
• Muslims pray 5 times a day.
• Icons are not worshipped, but they are reverenced, since they represent holy people who are very dear to the congregations that have icons.
• The Unitarian Unversalist is a faith group that welcomes people from all different faiths as members.

The groups came up with good questions for future cafes, such as…

• How do ethnic traditions and relationships affect your sense of faith and religious identity? (From Congregation Sinai)
• Do you completely identify with your faith as it is, or do you consider your faith to be a “work in progress”? (The Unitarians even put this into a more pithy question: “Does your faith define you or do you define your faith?”)
• What are the main beliefs that define a group as one unified Congregation? (From House of Peace)
• What is the difference between an Orthodox Jew, a Conservative Jew, and a Reformed Jew?

A very powerful moment was witnessed when a Jewish participant observed how the Muslims introduced themselves at her table. One gave his name and stated, “I am a Muslim.” The second gave his name and stated, “I am a Palestinian Muslim.” The third gave his name and simply said, “I am Palestinian.” Her comment led to that future question regarding the connection between ethnic identity and religious identity

.

A Muslim boy from Yemen, a member of the Unitarian Society, who is a transfer student living here in the US with a Jewish host family, said that he has changed his attitudes very much because of his time in the USA and the relationships he has made. He said there was a time when he did not wish for peace, there was a time when he did not understand the need for work for peace. But now after spending time here, and after becoming friends with people who are both Christians and Jews, he does pray for peace, and he realizes that many of his former ideas were not accurate.

Eboo Patel, of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC – visit www.ifyc.org), has this to say about the importance of youth programs that teach tolerance and pluralism:

I was starting the Interfaith Youth Core because I thought young people could be a major force in building religious cooperation, and I was having a hard time getting anybody to pay attention. Even people within the small interfaith movement generally treated young people’s involvement as a sideshow. But reli­gious extremists didn’t view young people as an afterthought. Religious extremists saw a fire in young people that others were missing. They were stoking that fire and turning it into targeted assassinations and mass murder. In my mind, I was picturing a movement of young people working for religious under­standing through cooperative service. In my newspapers, I kept on reading about teenagers and twenty-somethings killing other people in the name of God. Their movement was strong and growing. I began to investigate why...

The totalitarians have put their resources into building youth programs. The pluralists haven’t…

From The Youth Programs of Religious Totalitarians By Eboo Patel,

See http://www.ifyc.org/files/file/RFInt'l%20Youth%20Programs.pdf

(last successfully accessed on 2-10-09).

It’s essential that we continue programs such as the Interfaith Youth Café events. We look to the recommendations that our young participants have for their peers:

• “Attend a café. You have the opportunity to learn about other religions.”
• “Learn about your own beliefs by talking with others about their beliefs.”
• “The diversity of the café is very interesting. You can meet so many new people different from yourself.”
• “It’s a great way to learn about different faith groups, meet new people and have a fun time!”