Personal Reflections on Interfaith Dialogue and its role in BIAPT: An Interview with Owen Griffiths

As part of interfaith week, we are interviewing a number of people connected with Practical Theology Hub about their work on interfaith dialogue. In this interview we ask Chair of the British and Irish Association for Practical Theology (BIAPT) and our Assistant Editor, Owen Griffiths, about his personal experiences with interfaith dialogue and its role within BIAPT.

Tell us about yourself.

I live in the Rhondda valley in South Wales and having been the minister of a small independent congregation for the past twenty years I will soon take up a new role as Minister of South East Wales Presbytery for the Presbyterian Church of Wales. I am the Chair of BIAPT and the current holder of the Great Carmel Church Bake Off title.

When we asked you if you’d be interested in participating in this interview, you noted that you lacked experience with interfaith dialogue. Could you tell us a little about the state and role of interfaith dialogue in rural Christian communities in Wales?

The valleys of South Wales, where I was brought up and where I still live and work, are a curious phenomenon. They are often described as urban communities within a rural setting and I think that this is a fair description. They are densely populated strings of villages and towns running south from the Brecon Beacons highlands to the Glamorgan lowlands and coast. The area experienced a vast immigration of workers during the coal-rush (1860 – 1930). But these migrants came primarily from poorer regions of England and Ireland and very few came from those parts of the world where Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism are the predominant world-views. Wales did experience a huge growth in immigration from Somalia and the Far East in the first few decades of the twentieth century. But these immigrants formed their communities around Cardiff Docks and did not spread very far northwards. Following the decline of the coal industry there has been little reason for anyone to move into the South Wales valleys. Poverty tends to result in population decline rather than growth. Consequently the opportunities for interfaith dialogue are minimal.

I think it is also fair to say that interdenominational dialogue has also struggled to move beyond the general pleasantries towards genuine intimacy. The rapid decline of the churches and chapels (in the valleys ‘church’ refers to Anglican and Roman Catholic places of worship whereas ‘chapel’ refers to non-conformist places of worship) means that most congregations are preoccupied with survival rather than with exploring Christian unity. Where denominations do co-operate these efforts are usually focused on the urgent need to alleviate the symptoms of the poverty crisis that continues to characterise many parts of the valleys and which has been steadily worsening since the introduction of austerity as a political policy by the UK government in 2010.

You are of course also Chair of BIAPT, how has this played into your experience with interfaith dialogue?

Not as much as I would have liked. The sad fact is that BIAPT is not attracting as many members as we need to from the Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist faiths. I think this is a real problem, not only because we want to be a diverse association, but also because as long as we fail to appeal to a wider religious demographic we are, quite simply, failing to reflect the practical theology world in the UK and Ireland today.

Having said that, my own experience of meeting with people whose faith differs from my own – and I’m not just speaking about Anglicans here! – has been one of the highlights of my time in BIAPT.

Ultimately, the study and practice of theology is all about people and relationships. As such the people I have met through BIAPT from Muslim, Hindu and Jewish backgrounds have challenged my own faith in the most positive ways. They have shone a light on my own beliefs and practices and, in doing so, have revealed to me new directions in which I can grow.

Each of these relationships has been mutual, which to me represents a generosity of spirit on the part of others. (My surprise at being welcomed into a mutual relationship is not, I think, humility on my part I think it is far more likely to be a relic from the inferiority complex that is the birthright of almost all who are brought up on a council estate). I think there is a vitally important lesson here for BIAPT as we look to expand our interfaith dialogues. The conversations we have and the relationships we establish must be mutual.

There is a danger that efforts at interfaith dialogue can be acts of Christian imperialism, where we expect others to conform to our rules, adopt our definitions and fit in with our assumptions. The hideous irony of this is exposed when we remember that Jesus, when responding to his disciples’ contest to be recognised as the greatest, instructed his followers to welcome everyone as though we were welcoming him (Luke 9:48). In doing so he undermined the very idea of social hierarchy and gave us the tools to dismantle all power illicit power structures, including imperialism.

Thank you for sharing your experience! What can tell us about BIAPT’s engagement past and present in interfaith dialogue?

Practical theology is often seen as a specifically Christian discipline. Perhaps this is because Christianity dominates the teaching of the subject at universities. However, if practical theology is an ongoing dialogue between belief and practice then we have to recognise that we – BIAPT – have a huge amount to learn from from practitioners from mosques, temples and synagogues across these islands and beyond.

In its membership and its emphases BIAPT must reflect the reality of practical theology as it is to be found in the everyday life of people in the UK and Ireland. Doing so would result in a further enriching of the amazing community that is BIAPT and a significant evolution in the general conception of practical theology. I believe that this, in turn, would feed into the academy and greatly enhance the teaching of the subject.

In order to create the environment where this development can happen the trustees of BIAPT have been discussing the need to become more welcoming as an association. This, we recognise (and welcome), will necessitate us engaging with new conversation partners, working alongside other organisations whose membership reflects the richness of faiths and ethnicities we aspire to, and, if we can figure out the practicalities of doing it, conducting research into the nature and state of practical theology broadly defined across the UK and Ireland in order to better assess how BIAPT measures up to the on-the-ground reality.

Having said this, we are making progress. It was a pure joy to welcome Dr Saiyyidah Zaidi (a BIAPT trustee) as only the second ever Muslim to give a keynote lecture at our annual conference earlier this year. Last year Shruti Dixit became the first Hindu to deliver a paper at the BIAPT Annual Conference. I also believe that the establishment of the Practical Theology Hub has been a significant step in this direction for BIAPT. What these events have taught us is that BIAPT really does need interfaith dialogue to become fully integrated into its day-to-day existence.

You mentioned Practical Theology Hub. We often receive positive feedback about the breadth of our material, was the aim to create a platform which focuses heavily on other traditions?

Absolutely! Very early in the planning of PTH we identified the need to include voices from all religious and faith traditions. One of the joys of these few months since the launch of PTH has been to see the huge breadth of articles that have been submitted and their popularity once they have been published.

We had two primary goals in establishing this website. One was to disseminate knowledge and experience, for a two-way, mutual conversation to be established between academics and practitioners. The other was for it to help BIAPT to better reflect the true nature of practical theology as it is being thought about and practiced in our universities, our places of worship and on our streets. After a really good start I think we can say that the potential of PTH to make a lasting contribution to interfaith dialogue within the field of practical theology is really exciting.

One of the stated goals for BIAPT is to ‘become a learning community marked by mutual accountability, honesty and hospitality.’ I believe that PTH is crucial to BIAPT becoming a continually learning community. It exists not only to share the vast knowledge that our members possess but also – and much more importantly – for BIAPT to learn from the greater knowledge that exists outside of its current membership.

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Cover Image: “ReligionSymbol” by Tinette (derivative work Mouagip) is licensed under CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.