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Promising Practices

Promising Practices is a collation and expansion of existing documentation on promising practices in interreligious dialogue. Our database offers guidelines and focuses on the concrete implementation of interreligious and intercultural dialogue practices around the world.

Describe your idea, or activity of an interfaith practice for others to replicate
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Disclaimer:

Through providing different aspects and ideas our aim is to compliment the great work that has been already done in the field of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue. Information and field data published in this resource are for informational purposes only, and neither KAICIID nor the Dialogue Knowledge Hub guarantee in any way success of the implementation of the activity.

While we wish all the activities and initiatives featured in this resource could be replicable in as many context around the world as possible, there are often certain limitations, such as the suitability for particular cultures or religious communities. However, there is always room to explore and adjust activities in regards to the community’s environment.

Note: The content below is displayed with the most recent upload first

Interfaith Travel

Interfaith learning through international and interfaith travel to different countries, as well as weekend immersion trips to local houses of worship help build trust and relationships. In every conflict or area of tension, there are different sides to the story. The dual narrative tourism initiative is meant to provide visitors with two successive different narratives from two different guides, each one narrating their own perspective, for them to build their own opinion and expand their understanding of the situation. This practice can also take the form of visits to different religious spaces. Opening one’s religious space to others is a way of showing a facet of one’s religious identity and break down misconceptions. Inviting people to visit a place of worship is an opportunity to increase awareness and educate participants about a particular religion, answer questions and reinforce one’s faith through.

Interfaith travel can involve visiting different regions or countries. Interfaith region consists of touring one given region to shed light on similarities in terms of religious integration. Hence, this practice uses travel and tourism to focus on the question of identity and culture regardless of faith, and fosters interfaith unity through initiating discussions on interreligious similarities and differences.

Moreover, in countries where there are still indigenous communities, city-dwellers and these communities are not well-linked, as they live far away from the cities and are rather isolated. Interfaith travel can enable people from the city to reconnect with their backgrounds and the way their ancestors use to live, in order to recreate a link between all communities and to promote and support the indigenous way of life.

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Interfaith Theatre

The practice of interfaith theatre can be utilized in different ways to suit the context of the subject matter in question. For example, one practice called Bibliodrama invites participants to understand and discuss the main religious figures present in the holy texts of a religion other than their own. Another form of interfaith theatre brings together youths of different faiths to act together in a play based in a zone of conflict between groups of different religions. Another example is “The Hindu and the Cowboy”, which is a theatrical production created from the stories shared by the residents of Kansas City. It showcases how interfaith communities in a city do not need to be viewed as a ‘melting pot’, but rather as a mosaic, in which each faith has its own integrity and identity and contributes in their own way to the beautiful full image. Lastly, the “Theatre of the People” is a mobile theatre where people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds create and perform a play, and travel together for representations. Along with all the preparations and performances, the theatre troupe engages the masses through workshops in schools and public spaces, and promotes inclusion and reconciliation through art and theatre.

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Interfaith Prayer

The practice of interfaith prayer is an initiative that can take place anytime, anywhere. It is especially appropriate when there is a natural disaster or tragedy affecting a community. It can also be used during times of peace. Interfaith prayers aim to emphasize the common values of the religions involved. It can also be used when and important religious leader passes away. This gives believers of different faiths the opportunity to come together in an act of solidarity and goodwill. Another form of interfaith prayer involves believers from different denominations of the same religion uniting for prayers at the same location and praying in the same language. This aims at compensating for reduced resources of religious minorities, while giving participants the opportunity to unite with people of different practices in a common prayer. An organization can also invite individuals to a gathering, where they reflect on scriptures from different religions. These workshops emphasize the similarities between religions, instead of just highlighting the differences. Interfaith prayers require a space where individuals can gather, regardless of their faith, to observe a moment of prayer, meditation, or silence, thus share a spiritual moment side by side. 

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Interfaith Movie Discussion

Movies that tackle interfaith coexistence are a great practice to initiate dialogue in diverse communities and promote mutual understanding. Such movies are a way to share the narrative and the experience of various communities, which permits communities to tackle their differences. The purpose behind these activities is to bring together individuals from different religious backgrounds to engage in interreligious dialogue while participating in an entertaining activity.

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Interfaith Sporting Events

Youth from different religious and social backgrounds can play a sport together, for example football, in mixed teams to showcase interreligious coexistence. This event normally takes place in the environment linked to this sport (ex: on a football field), with a greater impact when it is implemented in neighborhoods of a city where there are interreligious tensions. It is advised to organize such sport encounters on a regular basis (more than only once as a symbolic event), so as to animate the neighborhood and establish long-term bonds.

Moreover, youth of different cultural and religious backgrounds can gather to hike along and across conflictual borders for peace and as a symbol of unity. Through this initiative, the participants can prove that living and walking through the same path regardless of their differences is possible.  

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Attend Each Other’s Religious Celebrations

Attending or participating in celebrations and ceremonies of different religious communities generates a better understanding of each other’s religions and creates an opportunity to connect across religious traditions. The practice can take place in worship places, in people’s houses during celebration times of the respective traditions or even in neutral rooms, depending on the needs, and may be conducted by individuals and groups alike. It is also possible to come together for meditation or common prayers without the context of a particular religious holiday. Designed as an interreligious experience, the practice encourages deeper understanding of participating religious communities as well as the place of the dialogue participants within each of them, as such visits further consolidate the dialogue by seeing a religious person ‘in action’ within the context of their respective religious communities.

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Interfaith Fund Raising Activities

A religious or interreligious group gets together to raise funds for any interreligious project. It begins with selecting which project(s) will be allocated money and how much.  The process of jointly agreeing on which project(s) is/are to be funded and how crosses boundaries between those participating religious communities. It also allows to focus on activities that all parties involved consider worth supporting. Meeting rooms of religious communities or NGOs or individual homes can serve as a meeting place. By taking professional decisions connected to finance, participants practice interfaith engagement, collaboration and agreement and gain more trust in each other. This, in turn, can trigger a chain of solidarity between different faith communities.

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Interfaith Consultation Network

Several religious leaders of majority and minority groups act as volunteer consultants for national institutions of a certain country or try to resolve conflicts between groups. The individuals and groups will be able to advice on how to approach their communities and transmit knowledge about cultures and traditions in their respective beliefs. Through this, bridges are built and contact among groups and between the executive and citizens becomes more trustful.

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Interfaith Care Institution

One or more religious communities and/or organizations join forces to build a care center with the aim of treating or taking care of sick people from all different faiths, with a commitment to also foster interfaith dialogue as part of its activities and services.  This promising practice can also be done as an ‘add-on’ to existing care institutions.  Caring for people regardless of their religion can build relationships and strengthen interfaith relations. The action is designed for any religious organization that has the capacity to found an institution especially considering that specialists/doctors are needed.

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Interfaith Blood Drives

People from different faiths donate their blood for saving lives, thereby contributing to peace. Symbolically, this practice aims to convey the idea that blood can flow for positive purposes as well and not just because of conflicts. This action can happen on a set date, in any place that allows for a successful implementation. It is above all designed for organizations that attempt to bridge religious differences and strengthen interreligious dialogue through bringing together people in an intimate event.

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