BALTIMORE — When Heather Miller Rubens and Lora Hargrove met for the first time this year, they agreed they were doing so at a time of extraordinary dividedness, particularly for religious leaders.
Immigration, abortion and LGBTQ+ rights had long since split Americans into separate, often angry camps. Racial and economic inequality were well-established hot-button issues. Throw in the lingering negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on churches, mosques and synagogues, and clergy members have been feeling more pressure than usual.
That’s why Rubens, the executive director of the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies, or ICJS, in Towson, and Hargrove, the director of faith outreach for Maryland Gov. Wes Moore’s office of community initiatives, decided to start a program that would foster connection.
Their brainchild, Common Ground: Clergy | Conversation | Connection, which aims to bring clerics of all backgrounds together across denominations and geographical boundaries, is set to start next month.
Beginning with a Zoom meeting on Sept. 10, ministers, imams, rabbis and other faith leaders from across the state will have an opportunity to chat with colleagues as part of an effort to build community among those who work to advance the common good, whatever their background.
After the online launch, participants will meet in groups of three or four, organized by geography, to converse about everyday matters and, over a year, to move on to the more difficult issues.
“We’re living in a moment of division and polarization, and we hear a lot about those, and that can make people feel even more isolated,” said Rubens, a scholar of Catholicism now in her fifteenth year at ICJS, a nonprofit whose mission is to advance interreligious dialogue and understanding. “Trying to lift up opportunities for connection and support is vital. For clergy in particular, who are often working hard to support others, having spaces where they can be supported by their peers is crucially important.”
The ICJS, which was founded in 1987 to foster interreligious dialogue and understanding, has worked mainly with faith leaders and believers in Baltimore, Baltimore County and Howard County. The involvement of Hargrove, a former city schoolteacher, a scholar of theology and a minister of the African Methodist Episcopal church, gives the project an unusual statewide reach.
It also offers the administration of Moore and his lieutenant governor, Aruna Miller, a new framework for manifesting a belief about which the pair have often spoken: that faith communities serve as pillars of their broader communities, providing essential services, combating hate, and offering hope to those in need.
It was two years ago that the Moore-Miller administration launched the Governor’s Council on Interfaith Outreach, a panel of religious leaders that works to develop strategies the state can use to build respect across faiths, encourage dialogue, and collaborate on community service projects.
“We come from many different backgrounds, but all of our faiths teach us shared values to care for others, support our children, and love one another,” Moore, a lifelong churchgoer and self-described Christian, said at the time.
The administration’s outreach initiatives have connected faith-based organizations with state resources, including grants, food, and school supplies.
The goal, Hargove said, is to make sure Maryland helps to equip its faith communities to serve their congregations and their surrounding communities, and Common Ground is another platform for doing so.
“Faith leaders are among the most trusted members of their communities, and we see this project as coming under the governor’s priority of diminishing and dismantling hate in the state,” she said, adding that 43 clergy members had signed up as of Wednesday.
Alisha Wimbush, the program director for religious leaders at ICJS, is helping direct the initiative. She said signees include Christian, Muslim and Jewish faith leaders from ten counties so far, including Frederick and Cecil counties.
Wimbush said the goal for this first year is to attract between 50 and 75 participants, though there’s no upper limit. Religious leaders have until August 28 to apply.
Organizers will lay out the basics of the program at the Zoom launch next month, then divide participants into groups of between three and five who live near each other in Maryland. They’ll supply each small group with a list of simple conversational cues to use at the earliest of their quarterly face-to-face meetings.
Experience has taught each organizer that in fostering new relationships, it’s best to start in a low-key, low-pressure way. Once that is accomplished, there’s a better chance that participants will later feel comfortable addressing harder-edged issues that might arise, whether it be contrasting views on abortion or immigration, the war in Gaza, or the policies of President Donald Trump.
“It might start out with something as simple as ‘what is your favorite color?’ or ‘what do you like to do as a hobby?’” said Hargrove, who plans to be a participant in one of the groups. “Over the course of a year, as we continue meeting, we hope relationships can happen organically, authentically, for the gathered clergy.”
Simple as it sounds, Miller Rubens said, the strategy is as forward-looking as it is comfortable, since people who simply know each other will feel more secure taking up controversial matters should they arise, and they’ll be better prepared to work together, as they often must, in the event of larger-scale problems.
“Interfaith leaders come together in moments of crisis — say, in the event of a natural disaster or an attack on a house of worship,” she said. “At ICJS, we always think it’s better to have those relationships in place before a crisis hits. Just knowing each other improves the capacity of religious leaders to respond.”
Wimbush said she believes the emergence of what she calls a Christian nationalist mindset on the political landscape has helped produce a decreasing regard for marginalized Americans, and that even though ICJS has always promoted connections across religious divides, the need today is particularly urgent.
In her view and that of the organizers, borrowing from the best of each can contribute to the creation of the more peaceable world most of us are seeking.
“Our religious traditions each have something to say about how we treat other people with dignity and respect, and unfortunately, these voices are being drowned out, but we must continue to speak up,” she said. “We must cross those theological boundaries and lift up the teachings within our traditions that promote the flourishing of all people.”
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