Interfaith movement gains new strength

Breaking barriers, creating bonds with other religions

By Julia Duin

This is the first in a series of reports that will look at new efforts — driven largely by American faith leaders — to bridge old divisions among the nation's and the world's believers.

NEW YORK When FaithHouse Manhattan has its twice-monthly interfaith gatherings, the guest list is a carnival of religious belief and creed.

An Islamic Sufi dervish greets you at the door, but the program director, an Episcopalian, makes the announcements. A rabbi, a female Muslim and a Seventh-day Adventist share leadership of the meeting.

The night's program at FaithHouse, in a posh office just off Fifth Avenue, was the Jewish holiday of Purim. Oranges, nuts, apricots and hamentaschen, a Jewish holiday pastry, were offered as snacks. Participants put on costumes to act out the biblical story of Esther.

"People who have a hunger for religious experience can have a taste of it here," said Samir Selmanovic, the Adventist co-leader. Born in Croatia to a Muslim father and a Catholic mother, he helped found FaithHouse 18 months ago. Then he wrote a book, "It's All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian," on the plethora of religions that Americans are increasingly sampling.

FaithHouse is probably the only multireligious church in the country, but its jumble of faiths and practices is becoming less unusual in today's religious marketplace.

In a world in which sectarian divisions fuel some of the most violent and dangerous confrontations, the interfaith movement — once thought as irrelevant — has emerged as a force in American religion like never before.

The movement has made for some unlikely bedfellows, such as an emerging think tank for Jews and Mormons in Salt Lake City.

It involves unlikely alliances, such as when one of the most conservative Christian pro-life groups staged a news conference on Capitol Hill in September applauding a Muslim prayer service on the Mall.

It involves unlikely allies, such as leading Christian "emergent" leader Brian McLaren, who was roundly criticized during Ramadan last year when he fasted the entire month out of solidarity with Muslims.

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