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Dana Coffey is a Junior at DePaul University, pursuing a double major in Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies, and Theater Studies.

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A couple of days ago, my facebook newsfeed was filled with these status’:

“President Obama has decided that there will no longer be a “National day of prayer” held in May. He doesn’t   want to offend anybody. Where was his concern about offending Christians last January when he allowed   the Muslims to hold a day of prayer on the capitol grounds. As a Christian American “I am offended.” if you   agree copy and paste no matter what religion you are”

Whenever I see anything on facebook that is disrespectful, I start to get nervous. We all know the power of facebook. It can gather forces and start a revolution as we saw in January. When used correctly, it is one of the most powerful tools we have. As an artist that strives to reflect real, unedited public opinion in her work, I find facebook to be a great tool. While I get nervous when I see comments like this, I have hope that a conversation can filter from these comments and bring about some changes in consciousness. That didn’t happen that day. Conversations were had, but they didn’t go into the direction that I had hoped that they would.

I commented on a friend’s status and said that as a Christian American, I was offended by this status. My upbringing and faith tradition taught me that all prayer is sacred. No one’s prayer is more worthy than another’s. I also stated that in my faith tradition, the respect of all human beings, no matter what their religion, is essential. This friend then messaged me back which I respect greatly that they made the choice to have this conversation in private with me, and asked me to not smash his beliefs with my interfaith dreams. It was a hurtful conversation, but a lot of good points were raised. Every Thursday night at Interfaith Cafe’s, I do see my dreams of productive and respectful interfaith dialogue unfold. It embodies fellowship in every definition of the word, across all faith traditions. But then comes the gritty parts. Then comes the facebook status’ that I know are not respectful, but I feel powerless to address. I address them as respectfully as I can, but sometimes, they take flight and hurt a great deal of people despite my best intentions.

During Interfaith Cafe’s, we have this rule called “ouch and educate.” This rule states that if you are offended or hurt by something that is said, you say “ouch” and then educate the person on why that is hurtful to you. It is my favorite rule because I’ve seen what good comes from it. On facebook, ouch and educate doesn’t exist. Being aware of someone being hurt while online doesn’t really exist because we are separated from human reactions while online.

I have not spoken to that friend since our disagreement. It bothers me on more than one level. I dislike being in a disagreement with that friend on a friendship level, but beyond that, I am confused and slightly discouraged. Creating interfaith dialogue seems easy in person. At least at DePaul, we’ve developed a toolbox and know how to do that while in person. Online, I am not sure I have my toolbox yet. And I need it soon, because if we can’t figure out how to create productive dialogue (as a human race concerning many different issues, not simply, but still including, interfaith issues) online, we may lose this powerful tool.