“My sense is that religions have not failed God!”

Discussions between different Religions: That's the spirit of JCM. Photo by: Malte Möring, UEM

„Have we failed God? Interreligious response to a broken world” – this year’s JCM conference didn’t take an easy topic, but a productive one for sure: All three speakers, coming from Jewish, Christian and Muslim backgrounds, found their own way to answer the question of the conference:

Judith Silver, speaking from a Jewish perspective, decided to take a stand for religions not having failed God. Muhammad Khan, this year’s Muslim lecturer, was led by this question to another question: “Have we let each other down?”. Christian Pastor Lusungu Mbilinyi opened not just one, but many other questions, like: “Can we fail God?” and “What is actually failing?”. All three of them were led by their own biographic experiences and informed by their respective traditions.

Beside the lectures, there was plenty of time for the participants to get in touch, and to exchange their views on religion: In the “Discussion Groups” they talked about what they always wanted to ask each other, but maybe never dared to. What is said in those groups remains confidential. Apart from different individual participants from all three religions, there were again two groups from Israel and Palestine: Haifa University sent a group of students, and a theater group of Palestinian Youth joined the conference.

Marie-Anne Halim, UEM Deputy Executive Secretary of the German Region and member of the JCM Board, describes the spirit of the conference: “We are all seekers. JCM provides the space where people of different ages, from different contexts, with different religions come together to learn from and with each other in sincere and open dialogue. Sometimes it is surprisingly difficult to overcome the barriers in our minds. This is only possible because all participants create an atmosphere of trust and peace. At JCM, people become companions and sometimes friendships for life are born.”