Muslims Belong in BreadBreakers. Jews Belong in BreadBreakers.
Pluralism isn't a lie - it's a window for light to shine in the darkness
Hello hello,
I know what you’ve been thinking. “Where on earth is the next issue of BreadBreaking News??” Well fear not, good reader. Here it is, just in time to remind you of our next community dinner in just 10 days (3/26, sign up here!)
One of the reasons it took so long is that I was busy traveling to sunny Ocala, FL (don’t hate me) to share BreadBreakers with ~100 amazing people from around the country at a church conference called the Fresh Expressions National Gathering. (Welcome to the email list, Ocala friends!!)
As we broke bread together in two “immersions” modeled off our last dinner and a small group called a “connective,” I was reminded yet again of how many good people there are out there; people like those in our BB community here in Virginia who’re eager to create spaces of true belonging and have meaningful conversations that shine a light on our common humanity.
Speaking of common humanity, I hope you read to the bottom of this newsletter to take a look at this issue’s Food for Thought. It addresses a pretty heavy topic, but an important one for a community like ours.
One more thing - all of our past editions of BreadBreaking News are now available to peruse on our new substack page! (Yes, that’s what you’re reading now, but I copied this from the email newsletter…) Give it a look if you need some good bedtime reading. Works for my wife every time.
Food for Thought - Muslim Belong in BreadBreakers. Jews Belong in BreadBreakers.
I had intended for this Food for Thought to be about spirituality; why it matters in an endeavor like BreadBreakers, what it means for a pluralistic community like ours with people of all sorts of beliefs, religious and not.
Then several things happened which, taken together, seemed to take a swipe at the idea that we could have a genuinely pluralistic society in the first place.
Last week, a Congressman posted on X, “Muslims don’t belong in American society.” He followed it with the sentence, “Pluralism is a lie.”
A few days later, a US Senator posted a picture of the 9/11 attacks and NYC Mayor Mamdani with the comment, “The enemy is inside the gates,” and another Congressman posted, “We need more Islamophobia, not less.”
The same day, a synagogue outside Detroit was targeted in a terrorist attack.
It all made my blood boil. As someone living and breathing pluralism, it represented everything I stood against.
As a Christian raised on stories about a Jewish rabbi who crossed lines of ethno-religious hatred to show radical love to a Samaritan woman, who chose a Samaritan as the hero of one of his most famous parables, it clashed with something rooted in my soul.
As a dad trying to teach his two kids compassion for every living being, it broke my heart.
I thought long and hard about whether to write about these events. Would my talking about it be viewed as “being political”? Might members of our BreadBreakers community who are conservative or Republican feel I was trying to shame them, to hold them personally responsible for the comments because the people who made them had “R”s next to their names?
I hope not. I know that in all likelihood, most of you disagree with the comments regardless of how you vote. When we say we see each person in BB as an individual, with their own complex stories, motivations, values, and thought-processes, we mean it.
Regardless, I decided to say something about it because silence can be misread as approval, or at least indifference. Because I knew there are probably a lot of Muslims and Jews across this country - maybe some on this very email list - feeling that much less free to be open about their faith. Feeling that much less sure that if they could read the mind of any random passerby in the community where they live, work, and play, they would find that they were wanted; accepted; seen.
In BreadBreakers, they are.
In BreadBreakers, you are.
Here, you are your own unique person, sacred and beloved, worthy of belonging in all the nuance and nitty-grittyness of who you are; the good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly...but mostly the good and beautiful.
Here, you are not defined by the extremists claiming the mantle, but not the spirit, of your faith to conduct violent acts. Not by the “Muslim” extremists. Not by the “Jewish” extremists. Not by the “Christian” extremists.
On that note, I would like to ask the three elected officials, two of whom describe themselves as Christian and one as Jewish, the question that afore-mentioned Jewish rabbi once asked: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
I would like to introduce them to our practice of curiosity, which might have led them to this FAQ page on Sharia in America by a nonprofit seeking to advance pluralism by improving understanding of Islam. The House Speaker pointed to concerns about Muslims seeking to impose “Sharia Law” in explanation of his colleagues’ comments, but my own “curiosity expedition” suggests Sharia is better understood as a set of religious principles governing personal conduct, with no credible documented efforts to impose it on non-Muslim Americans.
I would like to introduce them to the people I’ve met, both around my own neighborhood and in BreadBreakers, who may follow all different faith traditions but each carry that same divine spark; who each contain those grand libraries of human stories; who each have hearts that both beat and break.
Imagine if we all got to have that kind of firsthand view more often. Imagine if the synagogue attacker had been able to grasp the lives on the other side of the temple door before he carried out his attack and then took his own life. Imagine if the leaders who carry out wars could grasp the lives of each individual killed in war; individuals including four relatives of the man who decided to attack a metro Detroit synagogue.
Pain, trauma, desperation, loss - these are the things that make such dark realities as terrorist attacks, war, and bigotry possible.
But the darkness cannot overcome the light. And we know where to find the light - it’s in communities built on wholeness; it’s in the eyes of the people sitting with us at the table. The agnostics. The atheists. The Hindus. The Buddhists. The Sikhs. The Baháʼís. The Christians.
The Jews.
The Muslims.
So yes, Muslims do belong in America. Jews belong in America.
And they belong in BreadBreakers.
All the best,
Michael Graham
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