Original Article: https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/local/manatee/2016/09/26/breaking-bread-and-joining-faiths/25362244007/
MANATEE COUNTY — Imam Azhar Subedar told guests at an interfaith dinner held at Peace Presbyterian Church on Sunday that the only way to fight “confusion, bigotry, and hate” is for all people to stand up for the safety and well-being of others.
Sunday’s dinner at the rural church located at 12705 State Road 64 E. near Lakewood Ranch wasn’t to find common ground, Subedar said. It was to build relationships, dispel fears of the unknown, and for people of two different faiths to meet each other outside of their normal boundaries.
“That’s genuine relationship building as compared to me standing out in the street saying Islam is not violent,” Subedar said. “People won’t buy it.
“These types of sitting together, intimate gatherings — where you can have food with someone and get to know them at a personal level — that alone takes away all the fear and misconceptions. You see the human factor again.”
Churchgoers and Muslim guests from Tampa to Port Charlotte attended the dinner, which both faiths spent the week together preparing for.
Each table was given a sheet of simple questions to get some small talk going, like “Name, family makeup, and when you came to Florida?” or “Occupations and hobbies?” Most tables made it past their name before they broke into comfortable chatter.
MaLinda Luker, a teacher at Bell Creek Academy in Riverview, said she is teaching students about different cultures, and asked the two Muslim guests at her table common questions she gets from her students.
“The one thing most different is our view of seeing Jesus as the prophet,” she said. “As Christians we see him also as God in human form. They (Muslims) still consider Jesus one of the greatest prophets. There is that respect there. To me there are more similarities than differences.”
The Rev. Elizabeth Deibert said that while the Christian faith is different, that shouldn’t be a reason to avoid meaningful relationships.
“It brought me so much joy to see the congregation learn about Islam, dispelling the myths, and building friendships, and realizing that we are all just human beings on this earth together.
“We are seeking together to build a peaceful community.”
During a question and answer period, Subedar responded to a series of questions submitted by church members. Many of the questions he’d heard before.
“You see a trend, women’s rights, marriage, love, violence, jihad, it kind of hovers around the same,” Subedar said. “If you could put together a handbook you could come up with 101 questions that everyone would always ask. There are those similarities because for some odd reason they’ve been used as trigger points to show that either Muslims aren’t human or Muslims don’t fit into the values that (Christians) hold on to.”
Subedar said the key is acceptance.
“The day Christians stand up for the Muslims, there will be no phobia, the day Muslims stand up for the Jews there will be no more anti-Semitism, the day the white community stands up for the black community there will be no more racism,” he said. “We can’t allow people to stand up for their own cries of pain and anguish. Humanity is one body. The second your finger gets pricked, your mouth screams. Why? Because you are all connected.
“What this relationship is doing is allow us to look out for each other.”