InterFaith

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IF

Type of group	Diversity, Networking, General Education
Selective	No
Membership	~10
Meeting time	TBD
Meeting place	Morley Circle
Office	Chaplains' Office, Second Floor of Paresky
Established	Fall of 2009 by Mustafa Saadi '12

InterFaith is a type of umbrella group that seeks to bring together and, hopefully, properly represent the religious groups on campus. As such, IF attempts to have a representative from every religious or religious/spirituality related group on its board each year. Together, this board hosts interfaith discussions open to the whole campus (often with food supplied), various events which brings in different speakers, and various service work around the Williamstown and North Adams areas. Likely to be a tradition, IF has also put on Interfaith Month, an entire month dedicated to speakers and events meant to educate the general campus about a certain aspect (such as the afterlife, etc.) of all the many faiths on campus.

History

InterFaith first came to others' attention in October of 2009 with an E-mail from Mustafa Saadi '12 and Jennifer Monge '12. Just half a year before this, during Winter Study, Williams Secular Community had been started and the Chaplains had been hosting interfaith discussions as well during the beginning of the Fall of 2009 as their usual Theology On Tap events. It's possible that these events may have spurred the feelings of need for an interfaith group on campus. Regardless, the below E-mail was sent to all known religious group affliates on campus:

Hi Everybody,

Hope you everyone is having a great start to the year.

I wanted to inform you all of a new group that will hopefully start and grow with the help of your respective organizations. We currently call ourselves IF. It stands for inter-faith. Get it? IF…inter-faith. If you don't and have a better idea we are open to changing the name.

Our mission is to bring various faith groups (This ranges from Hinduism, to Christianity, to Atheism) together based on beliefs and practices that bring us closer to each other. And within this zone of recognized similarities we can discover ways in which we are different from each other. Moreover, and more importantly we really hope that inter-faith collaboration will further intra-faith goals. I am going to purposely leave the meaning of this vague in order to give us space to define it ourselves.

To implement our mission we are trying to set up an Inter-Faith council where each organization will send a representative. The specific details of the council can be worked on together. But this council's would serve as a space for faith groups to come together and organize events that bring us together while at the same time further each group's respective agenda. For example, this group will be in charge of organizing an InterFaith week.

With that said, we plan on holding our first meeting this Thursday in Paresky room 222 from 7-8pm. I will send out I would really appreciate if each group would be able to send one representative. Please email if you can make it, if you cannot make it but are interesting in participating in the future, or if you just simply do not want to make it.

Also if you may think of some volunteering opportunities that we our groups can do together I would very much appreciate it so we can start IF running. We have some events in mind, but would really like it if we collaborated together in creating this event.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or need further information.

My name is Mustafa Saadi[…].

Hope to see some you this Thursday in Paresky,

Thank you and Best Regards,

Mustafa Saadi and Jennifer Monge

The groups eventually met and InterFaith was formed.

Past InterFaith Boards

2010-2011: Co-chairs Camille Chicklis and Jonathan Schmeling

          Secretary Rachel Hagler

2011-2012: Co-chairs Jonathan Schmeling and Andrew Best

          Secretary Chih McDermott

Groups Affiliated With InterFaith

While InterFaith seeks to involve all religious groups, not all groups sent representatives to join IF. Of the groups that did join:

The Muslim Student Union (MSU)

The Muslim Student Union is the Islamic group on campus. All are welcome and meetings are every Friday at 4 in the Muslim Prayer Room.

The group was founded with the purpose of bringing together students of Islamic heritage in friendship and brother/sisterhood while educating others about Islam.

The MSU has consistently held a Fast-a-thon during the month of Ramadan for various causes, as well as bringing different speakers to campus.

Williams Secular Community (WSC)

Williams Secular Community was created as a means to fill the gap among the many religious groups on campus for those of a non-religious flavor.

While open to anyone, WSC serves particularly as a support group for atheists, agnostics, and those questioning any sort of religious belief. The group also serves as a safe God-less place on campus for any type of secular thinker or adherer.

WSC also hopes to bring better education about different flavors of non-religiousity/spirituality (atheism (strong and soft), agnosticism, spirituality, and all other possible grays) as well as creating a safer enviroment for said people.

WSC meets every Tuesday for dinner at 6 P. M. and holds a discussion on various topics in Paresky on Thursdays at 10 P. M. The group also hosts speakers and puts on various events, like their Ask an Atheist event.

Williams Catholic

Williams Catholic is the Catholic group on campus. All are welcome. While no formal meetings, Mass is held every Sunday at 4:30 P. M. in Thompson Chapel.

Every month the group also hosts a dinner of various ethnic foods as well as in-the-week services and prayings of the rosary.

Williams College Jewish Association (WCJA)

Williams College Jewish Association is the Jewish group on campus. All are welcome. The group is the central planning organization for Jewish Religious observances, social events, and tzedek projects for the Williams College community.

Williams Christian Fellowship (WCF)

Williams Christian Fellowship is a fellowship that attempts to serve all Christians on campus. WCF desires to see people come to know the LOVE of God and make Jesus LORD over their whole lives, so that everything they say or do is lived out in WORSHIP, in response to who God is.

WCF hosts a variety of different meetings and is a sprawling organization which offers a multitude of different facets for most any Christian desire.

Past Activity

Muslim Chaplain

During the 2010-2011 school year, the MSU rightly raised the issue that there was no Muslim chaplain for Muslim students on campus. A multitude of student groups wrote letters of support to the administration voicing their support for such a hiring. InterFaith was amongst that group. Their letter is shown below:

In the recent weeks, we have become aware of a growing movement on campus to persuade the college to hire a Muslim Chaplin. Considering the experience that InterFaith [IF] has had involving interfaith activities, the group feels that it can speak strongly on the importance of having a chaplain available for all students who require one. One’s belief regarding spirituality (from polytheism to monotheism to atheism) goes beyond just highlighting a belief system; it often frames the cultural upbringing one has and, further, influences how one thinks.

Outside of our own group, the Chaplain’s office is constantly working towards greater understanding within faith and non-faith groups; however, this is not enough. While both IF and the Chaplain’s office allow for Muslim students to have a visible voice, this does not provide same aid that a Muslim chaplain would. For example, students should have the greatest access to religious knowledge and services possible, and a Muslim chaplain, not individual Muslim students, is the only one capable of providing this knowledge and services particular to the Islamic faith to the Williams community during all times of the school day.

But even further, InterFaith’s role as facilitators of dialogues between religious, spiritual, and non-religious students on campus has allowed us, as student leaders, to see the importance of the availability of spiritual leaders in our daily lives. For instance, in Theology on Tap, chaplains representing various faith groups on campus invite students to ask them any questions they might have about their religions. Unfortunately, within this event, Muslims do not have a voice, or, if they are represented, they are represented by students. This highlights two critical problems we would like to bring to your attention. First, when IF hosts any faith-oriented discussion, we stress that participants should not feel like they are the voice for their religion. However, since there is no Muslim Chaplain on campus, Muslim students become quite literally, especially in the particular case of Theology on Tap, the spokesperson. Moreover, and this leads to point number two, these students have not studied the religion, or its history in a manner one would expect a Muslim Chaplain to have done. Therefore, discussions regarding Islam are stifled, depriving Muslim and non-Muslim students from a potential growth opportunity and proper exposure to the Islamic faith. In our experiences, we have found that spiritual leaders like Reverend Rick Spalding, Cantor Bob Scherr, and Father Gary Caster provide a greater understanding of their faith not only to their own adherents, but to all members of the broader Williams community.

We often take the role of chaplains and religious leaders on campus for granted, but we feel they are an important source of strength and guidance within what are, for some students, the most basic principles of the formation of their selves. It is for all these reasons that we, as representatives of IF, petition for a Muslim chaplain.

Sincerely,

The interfaith community,

And InterFaith board members Camille Chicklis, Jonathan Schmeling, and Rachel Hagler