Tag: interfaith

I grew up in a Punjabi household while living in one of the whitest towns in California. I was raised knowing and believing in Sikhism. I spent Sundays going to the gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs, and learning about the history from my uncles and dad.

As I look back on my childhood, I realize how lucky I am that my parents gave my brother and me the choice. We were able to choose what we believed in and how we believed in it.

Religious practices are based on man’s imperfect understanding of observations about what a messenger of God said or did, tales changed in the telling over generations throughout millennia.

We sit across from them, face-to-face, not to convert them to our denominational brand, but because one of the worst storms in human history is brewing, and each one is already (as per the Book of Jonah) crying out to their own gods.

And here, I arrive at the the reason I support what Spokane FāV’s has accomplished, and is doing. On Jan. 6, the congregation, known as Origin Church—known formerly, as Covenant Christian, and previous to that, as Central Christian--votes to make a gift of its property to the imaginative and prophetic genius of a religion journalist, Tracy Simmons, and to the Board of Spokane FāV’s.

I know what you are thinking, why invite someone from a different faith tradition to be a minister at your church for the day?

According to Mace, the goal of the picnic is to start a conversation on the issue, educate people on what is happening, “introduce people in Spokane, with the congregations, to Nimiipuu, to the Nez Perce,” and describe what is at stake to this group and what the salmon mean to them.