Faith+Values: Tearing down barriers among faiths

'It's hard to hate someone when you know their story," said Paul Strickland.

That, in a nutshell, is the mission of the Center for Religious Inquiry, an interfaith resource facility that Strickland founded and runs almost single-handedly.

"We're teaching people about their neighbors," he said. "If I hear someone disparaging Muslims, I'll ask them, 'Have you ever talked to a Muslim?' Most of the time, the answer is no. When you meet each other, barriers come down."

The center, in St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on the edge of downtown Minneapolis, recently completed its first year of operation. In addition to serving as a resource center for religious study, it operates an ambitious community outreach program that includes everything from movies to lectures to trips to places of worship. Typically, these visits end up focusing more on similarities than differences.

"In many cases, people discover that the two faiths are dealing with some of the same issues," he said.

Research, not ministry

The center is not an official arm of St. Mark's. The cathedral provides an office and space for lectures and classes, but beyond that, it operates independently.

"We don't see ourselves as a ministry," Strickland said. "We're based in a church and, certainly, are grounded in Christianity. But we're not proselytizing. On the other hand, we've discovered that often when you educate people about other faiths, they become more informed about their own."

Despite its name, the Center for Religious Inquiry isn't a cavernous library. It consists of a single room with only two bookcases, one of which is largely devoted to knickknacks. Most of the research is done via computers.

"It's a virtual research center," Strickland said.

But don't be fooled by the modest space. It's part of a national consortium that includes similar centers at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York City, the Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles and the Interreligious Center on Public Life in Boston.

"I can call Yale and Harvard and talk to the people who are considered the foremost experts in their fields," he said. "Then, of course, we've got such amazing academic resources to draw on right here. We've had an excellent response from the academic community. That was one of the main things that we set out to accomplish."

Strickland's passion for bridging theological gaps sprang from a trip to Syria. While hiking one day, he encountered a sheepherder. They used sign language to form a bond.

"There I was in my traditional western dress, while he was in eastern dress, and we shook hands. It got me thinking: If two strangers from totally different cultures can meet in peace on a hillside in Syria and make a connection, why can't we do this in the U.S.?"

An alternative to priesthood

Strickland, 60, said he's always been interested in religion; he attended a Roman Catholic seminary before deciding that the priesthood wasn't his calling. After taking an early retirement from Marshall Field's, he was pondering what to do next when he decided to launch the center.

He turned to St. Mark's because he's a member there, the church has a long history of interfaith activity and the dean of the cathedral, the Rev. Spencer Simrill, owed him a favor. When Simrill moved to south Minneapolis from Georgia in the winter of 2002, Strickland, one of his neighbors, taught him snowblowing protocol.

"He was blowing the snow from his driveway into the alley," Strickland said. "The other neighbors weren't happy about that. They asked me to talk to him."

The fall lineup for the center includes an apartheid documentary, "Long Night's Journey Into Day," a seminar on violence and religion and a three-part course on the Qur'an. Admission varies depending, in part, on the number of sessions, and financial aid is available.

"I'm trying to cover my costs, but I don't want people held back from an educational experience because they don't have the money," Strickland said. "What we're trying to do is provide a service.'"

The events will be posted on the center's website, which has a link on the cathedral's web page (www.ourcathedral.org), and Strickland plans to have brochures distributed around the Twin Cities, but he isn't making any promises about when that's going to happen.

"I'm pretty much a one-man band," he said, doing everything from answering the phone to overseeing the fundraising and delivering the brochures to the printer. But he's not complaining.

"Sometimes when I think about all the things we could do [as programs], I feel like a kid in a candy store," he said. "I've got a chance to do some good."

Jeff Strickler • 612-673-7392 • jstrickler@startribune.com