At lunch a week ago, sitting with friends who share my religion, one of them brought up something I never noticed before. She said that the interfaith movement is growing-which is a great thing, we all agreed. She also said that one of her fears about it has partially come true. The movement was not just a movement anymore-it was a fad. We asked her to explain; she mentioned as an example the summer interns at a Chicago-based organization called the Interfaith Youth Core, which we were all actively involved with. These were students who spent one summer out of their college lives lightly dabbling into interfaith, she said, and then bragging about it to their friends that they had found some cool, underground cause.

The rest of us shook our heads at her. Surely we appreciated all involvement from all sorts of people with interfaith, whether or not they thought it was cool or “underground.” I walked away not the least bit diappointed, but rather proud of how far interfaith has developed to include so many kinds of people who bring so much to the table.

Later that week, another friend of mine, who does not share my religion, sent me an email with an article from The New York Sun newspaper. The headline stoutly said “Evangelism in Fashion.” It was about the store Forever 21 (which I have shopped at on more than one occasion), and how on the bottom of their bags there is printed in very miniscule type the words “John 3:16.” This was surprising enough, but the article included some quotes that shocked me. One of them states that “religion is hot-it’s in the air.” As the speaker goes on to explain, this is because of people like Madonna, bands like Justice, and even Tom Cruise, who have brought religion to the forefront of popular conversations.

Reading the article, I wondered if my friend was right about interfaith being some underground fad. When I realized she might be right, I felt a tinge of annoyance. Then, I stopped myself. Even if there are many people who had not been involved with interfaith since the beginning, and are not planning their lives around the interfaith youth movement, I could rest assured that there are just as many people who would dedicate their lives to this cause. With every movement comes the lighter following, and while many may not have as large of an impact on the movement as a whole, I have learned to appreciate every contribution.

-Hafsa Arain

Interfaith Scholar 2008-2009

Published in the Summer 2008 Issue of the Interfaith Review