The Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi brings together the “religions of the book” in the Middle East. Photo: Supplied.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi.
It’s a remarkable and very beautiful building housing a mosque, a Catholic church and a synagogue. Each has a distinctive modern design by distinguished British architect Sir David Adjaye. Clean lines predominate, and the spaces are meditative and calm.
Between the three houses of faith, there’s a museum and a forum for discussion and debate. Each space is well used: an Italian priest with a PhD in inter-religious dialogue says Mass each day in St Francis Church. While we visited, an Orthodox Jewish man with a kippah and a tallit came in to pray in the synagogue.
The late Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed El-Tayeb, dedicated the Abrahamic Family House. In 2019, they signed a declaration calling for peace among all people in the world and the creation of a culture of dialogue, mutual respect and collaboration between faiths.
They’re sentiments the late and much-loved Bishop Pat Power would have endorsed wholeheartedly. He didn’t much care whether you were of any faith or none – he simply saw human beings who deserved love, whether they lived in the Causeway or Red Hill.
We are in the midst of an epidemic of weaponised religion. And when I say “we”, I mean everyone. Religious radicalism, and with it a hatred for other people’s religious beliefs, has spread like wildfire.
When religion lines up with politics, it gets really ugly, whether it’s state-sponsored Islamic terror, anti-Semitism or white power bolstered with a bizarre mishmash of Rapture fever and Biblical redemption.
In the United States, a bargain has been struck between religious conservative voters and the Trump presidency. In return for limiting abortion rights, many voters with Christian values are content for the administration to eradicate others’ rights to live with dignity, rather than being carted off to immigration detention.
When American-born Pope Leo noted recently that the right to life was somewhat inconsistent with the death penalty, those same voters were up in arms.
Have we not learned our lessons about basing nation-states on religion? Nations can’t privilege one person’s beliefs above another’s because then we’re not equal citizens before the law. The nation becomes a theocracy, not a democracy.
I’m not sure why Christian churches haven’t tried harder to reinforce the message that Jesus was a working-class Jewish man who hung out with the downtrodden and turned over the tables in the temple.
He reached out to the Samaritans and other outcasts, describing those who valued their own religious image above their actions as “whitened sepulchres”—shiny and clean on the outside, dead and rotting within.
His clearly articulated message was that human beings are all equal in the sight of God. He valued women and uplifted those judged harshly by others. “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone” should be a sobering message for anyone with the insight to assess their own actions.
These are risky times for democracy, for people of faith and of no faith alike. Amidst the turmoil, a little respect and tolerance for others’ beliefs would go a long way.
Those who shout loudly about the threat to Christianity from other faiths might consider how inclusive and welcoming that message really was from the man himself. And anyone who uses their religion as a reason to hate others needs a good, hard look at themselves.
Genevieve Jacobs is the CEO of Hands Across Canberra, the ACT’s community foundation.
