This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, April 8, 2011 - A dozen years ago when they were St. Louis professors, a Jewish rabbi and a Christian minister became great friends and fellow activists for social justice.
Today both are in New York and towering leaders in their faiths. Wednesday night they sang each other's -- and God's praises -- during a seminar about civility in religion sponsored by the year-old John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University and the Barbara and Michael Newmark Institute for Human Relations at the Jewish Community Relations Council.
The welcoming interfaith audience applauded the clerics often.
Rabbi Steve Gutow, who taught Jewish law at St. Louis University, now is president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The Rev. Michael Kinnamon, a Disciples of Christ minister who taught at Eden Theological Seminary in Webster Groves, is now secretary general, the top post at the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
The men share a passion for making the world better, particularly for the poor, the tortured, immigrants, and victims of hate crimes. Over the years, the men have worked together to oppose climate change, promote health-care reform and to reduce gun violence. Years ago, they found support for what to a wider world many seem an unusual friendship.
While not diminishing their own heartfelt religious beliefs or political chasm on issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gutow and Kinnamon remain supportive friends, they said.
"We listen to each other and support each other," Kinnamon said to applause.
Both the rabbi and the minister believe that promoting conversation -- not necessarily agreement -- can be one of the religious communities' most important moral achievement.
"He and I can talk about almost any problem and move toward solution," Gutow said. "What we have in common is that we are both created by God. Every neighbor is created by God."
A Friend in Need
A few years ago, Jewish Passover and the Christian Holy Week and Easter coincided. While often the dates, based on the same phase of the moon, are close, they rarely coincide. The Israeli government announced that it would close part of central Jerusalem to non-Jews during Passover, its long tradition.
Kinnamon knew the lamentations of Christians who had planned to make pilgrimages to the Christian holy sites for Christianity's three greatest feasts: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
He shared the grief with Gutow. Ever a supportive friend, the rabbi set up an appointment for both of them with the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. They went, Kinnamon talked and the ropes came down. Christian pilgrims were welcomed to visit their holy sites during their Holy Week.
The rabbi and the minister never expected to agree on the three-week Gaza War in the Gaza Strip and southern Israel over late December 2008 and early 2009.
Kinnamon who knows much about the Palestine refugees' hardships, especially those of the dwindling numbers of Palestinian Christians, was deeply concerned.
But during the bombing of Gaza, the two clerics sat down and wrote a prayer to God together for all the victims. It was read in synagogues and churches across the U.S., Gutow said.
"Civility is not dependent on agreement" Kinnamon said. "We have relationship as children of God; therefore we seek common ground. Scripture that is authoritative for both Christians and Jews contends that every neighbor is an infinitely valued child of this one creator, who, therefore, deserves to be treated with dignity -- just as we would wish to be treated ourselves. This principle alone should mitigate the vitriolic rhetoric of much political debate."
All Are Children of God
Both men see divisions, often uncivil, within their own and most faith groups. Following the theological point that all are children of God, "the visible fracturing of each faith's own communities -- Christian from Christian, Jew from Jew, Muslim from Muslim -- is nothing less than a counter-witness to the God we claim to follow," Kinnamon said. As head of the National Council of Churches, he much time urging Christians "to be what they are -- the one body of Christ."
Gutow and Kinnamon returned to St. Louis two years ago to speak of their interfaith friendship at Aquinas Institute in Grand Center. Word got around, and now the pair has become what Kinnamon calls "evangelical" speaking regularly to encourage civil dialogue.
They are never "weak-kneed" about their own beliefs. Issues of justice and peace for all children of God are worth arguing about but with civility, both said.
The minister used to tell his Eden Seminary students: "You may wish that God were a bit more discriminating, but there it is: These other jerks are also beloved children!"
Gutow encouraged his audience to "bend over backward" to see and support others journey to God. He suggested a simple beginning: "Go to lunch, learn how to speak to each other. Friendship matters."
Friendship begins with listening. Too many people don't listen, the rabbi said. Instead they have "drunk a Kool-aid of their own point of view" and don't hear, he said. People need to call for action for great causes, but even then, as they do that they should have "recognition of their own sinfulness and partiality, an awareness that they can be wrong and are always in need of modification," Kinnamon said. "This, too, is a check on intemperate speech."
Both men have become evangelical in sharing how their friendship works because they see such hate mongering, especially on 24/7 cable news and unedited blogs.
Americans have "a loss of confidence in political institutions, in the capacity of politics to address constructively the great issues of our day, in large part because contemporary political life is so evidently marked by partisan polarization rather than shared pursuit of the common good," Kinnamon said.
Religious communities getting most media attention tend to be those that contribute to political, cultural polarization, not those that heal it, the two said.
When the rabbi and the minister reach differences, they always have the humility of knowing that their "Creator's will is always greater than our grasp of it," Kinnamon said.
Patricia Rice, a freelance writer in St. Louis, has covered religion.