Leading Interfaith Dialogue

“I’ve always been intoxicated with books,” says Harold Kasimow, professor emeritus of religious studies, who was hired by the College in 1972 to help establish its Religious Studies Department. “I’ve been studying many faith traditions for nearly 50 years. I probably have 5,000 books looking at me in my office at Grinnell. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s become as intoxicating to actually talk with people of other faith traditions.”

Kasimow was one of 41 core group leaders at a conference in October in Florence, Italy, entitled “Awakened World 2012: Engaged Spirituality for the 21st Century.” The conference was sponsored by the International Interreligious Peace Council, the Interreligious Engagement Project, and the Association for Global New Thought. Other leaders included Sister Joan Chittister, writer and co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, and Ela Gandhi, granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi and former parliamentarian, Republic of South Africa.

Conference conveners suggested that the world is experiencing a new age and a new global consciousness, with “exclusivist certainty” developing into “open-minded inquiry.” They designed the conference to map the evolution of religion and spirituality worldwide and to inspire new initiatives of humanistic and environmental service. It was attended by more than 200 spiritual and religious leaders, scholars, peace activists, businesspeople, physicians, and other professionals. 

“I saw incredible people,” Kasimow says. “In spite of the radical differences in religions, cultures, and even clothes, there was a real commitment to dialogue toward harmony and peace.”

Kasimow led a session titled “The Passing of Exclusivism: A New Openness,” where 20 participants worked to identify signs of change, shadows, and strengths of openness in spiritual traditions.

Examples of change included the 1962–1965 Second Vatican Council, which opened dialogue between Catholics and those of other faiths, as well as the acceptance of religious studies in the academy. 

Shadows included religiously sanctioned violence, bigotry and prejudice, extremism, literalism, the exclusion of indigenous traditions, lack of ethics in capitalism, and nationalism. 

Strengths included a growing recognition that all is sacred and a willingness to be inclusive and open to dialogue. 

As the conference progressed, proposals for initiatives emerged. These included creating more interfaith centers in colleges and universities; expanding knowledge of existing programs that address poverty, hunger, and other injustices; and establishing more global online networks to link resources to those in need, such as microfinance loans to women entrepreneurs in developing countries. 

Kasimow has been a scholar of interfaith dialogue throughout his career, for intensely personal reasons. Beginning in 1942, after the first year of the German occupation of Poland, Kasimow, then age four, spent 19 months and five days in complete darkness with his parents and two sisters. The family hid under the cattle barn of a Polish Catholic farmer, with Kasimow’s father slipping out at night to get bread and water for the family. In the summer of 1944, the family was liberated by the Russians. The young boy, 6 years old, did not remember that daylight existed. Today at age 74, Kasimow says, “Interfaith dialogue is important to me because I don’t want other children to lose their childhoods.” 

“I’m not sure if we truly live in a new age as the conference conveners suggested at the outset,” Kasimow admits. “With all that’s going on in the world, I can see arguments for and against. But the one thing we can’t give up is hope — that things will get better, that to some degree human beings can free themselves, that everyone is capable of becoming a mensch, a human being who is compassionate and to some extent free of egoism, hatred, greed, and delusion.”