When members of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Dublin began developing a list of expectations for their Sunday-school children, they added a requirement that the Rev. Stephen Smith isn’t sure he’d have seen five years ago.
Youngsters, the requirements say, must be taught what other religions believe and how to respect and work with people of other faiths.
The change, Smith said, comes in part from the congregation’s participation in a Muslim-Christian association formed in the Dublin and Hilliard areas three or four years ago. The Safe Alliance of Interfaith Leaders, or SAIL, was started after some clergy members realized that Christians were using negative language to talk about Muslims.
There was a sense, Smith said, “that we needed to sit down together and find out more about each other, find out what we had in common.”
“We seek to speak with a unified voice and act in a unified manner in those areas we share,” said Smith, rector at St. Patrick’s and president of SAIL.
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