Photo: (l to r) Rabbi Yosef Zylberberg, Imam Shamsuddin Wahid and Mennonite Pastor Paula Snyder Belousek speak during an interfaith panel on peace in Lima, Ohio. Photo provided. 

On January 28, at Trinity United Methodist Church in Lima, Ohio, three religious leaders from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in the area gathered to speak about peace.

Paula Snyder Belousek, pastor at Salem Mennonite Church, Elida, Ohio, (outside Lima), Imam Shamsuddin Wahid from Toledo Masjid Al-Islam, and Rabbi Yosef Zylberberg from Temple Beth Israel-Shaarez Zeder, Lima, were the three participants in the interfaith dialogue. Around 90 people attended the event, including the Chief of Police and the Mayor of Lima.

The event was timely for the Lima community. Months earlier, negative attitudes toward a mosque being built in Lima had become more public, with a flier circulating at one point that stated, “Help put a stop to Allentown Road Mosque.” The site of the mosque was purchased by Dr. Adel Shaheen, who has lived in the Lima area for over 20 years and wanted to make a place of worship more accessible for Muslims living in the area.

Pastor Snyder Belousek decided to reach out and greet her new Muslim neighbors to provide a message of welcome to the community. Around the same time, Lima Mayor David Berger also reached out to several area pastors, wanting to foster a sense of welcome across religious boundaries in the community. The result was a series of interfaith conversations, including the panel event in January.

Snyder Belousek mentioned the importance of continued dialogue with neighbors. She likened the growing conversations between Muslims, Christians and Jews in the community to Jesus’ calling to love your neighbor. She mentioned the value in taking time to learn about different traditions in the community, and “help our Muslim neighbor and our Jewish neighbor feel like this is their place, too.”

Organized by Reverend Doctor Mark Rich, pastor at Market St. Presbyterian Church in Lima, the three leaders sat down to discuss their religious views, specifically regarding understandings of peace and nonviolence in their own traditions.

Pastor Rich said that it was valuable for the community to see leaders from a variety of traditions sitting together and discussing their faith traditions. He mentioned that for some in the community, it was possibly the first time hearing directly from an imam or a rabbi. 

The panel event drew attendees not only from Lima, but surrounding area as well.

Imam Waheed is from Toledo and participates in a mosque there. He said that his involvement in the panel event was less about any current events in Lima and more about wanting to participate in open dialogue and a process of “learning how others view the question of violence within their religious tradition.” Waheed said that it is important to be informed and “correct falsehoods and misconceptions about traditions.” 

Pastor Rich invited Snyder Belousek to participate out of the Anabaptist-Mennonite Christian perspective. The commitment to nonviolence represented in the Anabaptist tradition was the foundation for Snyder Belousek’s contributions.

Snyder Belousek is aware that she comes from a minority Christian perspective in regards to pacifism, but she believes that sharing this commitment to peace is a crucial part of any religious dialogue. She also believes it is important to live out Jesus’ commitment to loving our neighbor and welcoming those who might otherwise feel unwelcome in our communities.

“I’m not changing who I am as a Christian minister by participating in an interfaith dialogue,” she says. “We stand in the tradition that we come from, and for me I get to bear witness to the way that Jesus teaches the gospel of peace.”

Imam Waheed echoed this, stating that he wants to correct misconceptions about Islam. “People today think Islam is all about killing people who don’t believe the same as us,” he says. “This is a total falsehood.”

Waheed instead wants to present the Islamic teachings on peace that emanate from the Qur’an and the tradition of the Prophete Muhammed, similar to Snyder Belousek’s call to speak of Jesus’ teachings.

While the panel event provided space for the religious leaders to learn from each other and included community members in that teaching as well, Waheed states that, “Perhaps more importantly, a number of new relationships and opportunities for continued communal discussions have opened up.”

Snyder Belousek echoes these sentiments, saying that it was encouraging to see community members showing support for things like interfaith dialogues. She is under no illusion that all negative attitudes are gone in the Lima area. In fact, letters to the editor opposing the opening of the mosque are still being published. But Snyder Belousek hopes that events like this panel will cultivate a spirit of welcome.

As a pastor, Snyder Belousek believes it is important to keep learning from different traditions while staying grounded in her own. She says, “I see [it as] part of my role to keep offering blessings and words of grace.”

Katie Hurst is a student at Goshen (Indiana) College and an intern with The Mennonite, Inc.