Classroom of peace: Jonathan Doering visits the Jewish-Christian-Muslim Conference

‘There is an energising range of cultures, faiths, and experiences.’

‘Where are the schools in which we learn how to wage peace?’

This question was posed repeatedly by Lionel Blue, the much-loved rabbi, spiritual leader, and broadcaster. Over fifty years ago, Blue made contact with Winfried Maechler, a pastor at the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Church in London. They soon made common cause with Islamic reference scholar Eid Salah and Roman Catholic theologian Anneliese Debray to create the Jewish-Christian-Muslim (JCM) interfaith conference. JCM offers the chance for members of the three Abrahamic faiths to live and learn together for a week each February. Originally based in Bendorf, near the Rhine, the conference has migrated around Germany, and is now convened in Vallendar.

The week features an intensive timetable of lectures, workshops, and discussion groups, with participants encouraged to attend all the religious worship that features through the week, from Tuesday Taizé meditation, to Thursday Dhikr, Friday Muslim prayers, and on into the Shabbat meal and services on Friday and Saturday, Havdalah on Saturday night, and concluding with Sunday Christian worship. Three lectures through the week, one from a member of each of the faiths, address the conference theme, this year’s being: ‘Have we failed God? Fifty years of interfaith dialogue.’

Another feature is ‘Speaker’s Corner’, where any attendee can offer a session on any topic. This year included: an Israeli secular rabbi discussing his work; a Palestinian Muslim actor talking about her involvement in an Arabic reality TV show; and an ‘OutoftheBox’ spiritual storytelling showcase.

During the initial planning days, when details are still being hammered out, my wife (a team member) asked me if I would be happy to do a session on Quakerism. She said four or five people might come.

I’ve run some workshops in primary and secondary schools, so have a PowerPoint that I can rework. It’s safe to assume that the audience will know little, if anything, about Quakerism. I have some early talking points about chocolate and Quaker Oats. To my delight, a German Quaker, Lea, is also attending. We agree to deliver the workshop and develop it together. Our slot is on Saturday afternoon, the penultimate day of the conference.

Over the next few days, there are so many different encounters that I don’t think much about our workshop. A Jewish Israeli academic from Haifa University, and a trainee Protestant priest, are interested in coming along. Among this year’s participants are people aged between fourteen and eighty, from the USA, Britain, Canada, Germany and Israel-Palestine, and the week sees thought-provoking talk, open-minded and -hearted meetings, and some robust conversation.

Acquaintances and friendships are newly-minted or rediscovered. There is an energising range of cultures, faiths, and experiences: a seventy-six-year-old white German Muslim who converted to Islam when she was fourteen, and is now a renowned scholar, delivers Torah-Qu’ran study workshops with a Liberal rabbi; a secular Israeli rabbi attends the same discussion group as a German-born Liberal rabbi from West London; a Maronite Arab woman, who considers herself atheist but who finds the theological discussions interesting, shares a dinner table with an octogenarian British Roman Catholic; a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship studying for an English degree, who hopes to become a trauma therapist, befriends an Art teacher who is planning to train as a Reform rabbi.

Saturday afternoon arrives, and we set out a modest crescent of chairs, open up our PowerPoint, and wait. The door opens and a dozen teenagers troop in. The academic has been pulled into another meeting and the trainee priest is unwell. The group includes ten Palestinians and a Muslim teenager from South London, all of whom know little or nothing about Quakerism.

Lea and I agree to cut the presentation down and make it more free flowing. We keep in the chocolate references. As we ask what anyone knows about Quakers (no hands go up) a lightbulb flashes in my head. ‘Has anyone heard of Ramallah Friends School?’

Most faces remain blank, but one girl holds her hand up, ‘Yes, me.’ We’re off.

I flash up images of chocolate. Interestingly, the Palestinians don’t know of Cadbury (we speculate that it may have different trade names in their country), but they get Rowntree’s instantly. Fry’s Chocolate Cream, alas, seems to be a memory personal to me. We segue into Quaker Oats and discuss the reasons why non-Quakers might want to associate their products with Quaker products and business practice.

That opens the way to a whistle-stop tour of core liberal Quaker beliefs, before we throw the floor open to questions:

‘What happens in your services?’

‘How do you view Jesus?’

‘Is the Bible important to you?’

‘How many Quakers are there in the world?’

Very quickly our forty-five minutes are finished. One boy approaches us afterwards. Lea and I had both agreed during the Q&A that we believe in the Divine, and that Jesus of Nazareth was a great spiritual teacher, but whether he was himself God is not central for us personally, but rather what he taught. The boy is keen to point out the parallels between that stance and Islam. We have a further conversation about this, and the teenagers begin to slip away; there is another Speaker’s Corner before dinner. The Spirit is endlessly surprising: our expectations have been turned upside-down, with a fruitful conversation and sharing of experience.

There were many responses and insights into the conference theme, but the overall conclusion that I have brought away is that, of course, humanity is flawed and imperfect, but that we must keep on trying, failing a little better. As ever, the conference ends and, with sweet regrets, we make our many ways home. The following day, as we quickly work our way around the canteen, wishing old and new friends well, the Art teacher and English student remark that they will be connecting when they are back in Israel.

We and our Israeli academic friend catch a lift into Koblenz and share a final coffee at the train station; he talks about his research into a trove of papers discovered in a rubbish pit at a Cairo synagogue. And with that, we catch our train to Frankfurt.

In the next few weeks, we plan to meet with a friend, a Catholic convert to Anglicanism, who has worked as a priest and academic and has been active for many years in Christian-Buddhist dialogue. My wife will continue with her work in a multifaith hospital chaplaincy; I’m hoping to set up an interfaith dialogue society at the college where I teach. We’re both relishing returning to everyday life, trying to fail a little better in the classroom of peace.

Enlarging the Tent, a book Jonathan has written with Nim Njuguna, is due out in December. Details of the JCM conference are available at: www.jcmconference.org.

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