A bold journey across three faiths

I’ve often reflected on taking the road less travelled. Familiar paths offer comfort; pilgrimage asks us to venture beyond it. When I agreed to spend three weeks travelling and living with a Christian priest and an Indonesian imam before welcoming them into my Melbourne home, I wondered whether I was being impulsive. I did not feel particularly brave or noble. But I knew this was a road rarely travelled today.

Founded by former Indonesian diplomat Dr Dino Patti Djalal, the 1000 Abrahamic Circles is an initiative which aims to ease tensions among the three Abrahamic faiths. Each circle brings together an imam, a rabbi and a pastor to stay in one another’s homes, share meals prepared to meet their religious requirements and engage with local communities. My companions were a young imam, Niki Fauzi, from Yogyakarta, and Father Adrian Villaester, 40, from Iligan City in the Philippines. We spent a week in Yogyakarta, a week in Iligan and a final week in Melbourne.

After more than 30 years in interfaith dialogue, I found this experience unusually bold, intense and intimate. Unlike conferences or one-off encounters, shared daily life leaves little room for pretence. Meals, family routines and unfamiliar customs revealed the people behind the religious titles. They also fostered a deeper understanding of the heartbeat of other faiths. Our shared humanity, humour and playfulness drew us together. Like Benjamin Button, I sometimes felt exuberantly younger by the week!

The deepest encounters often occurred between official engagements: moments over breakfast, in a crowded street market or beside a river. We also met diplomats in Jakarta, university students and children studying the Qur’an in Jakarta and Yogyakarta, and interfaith groups in Iligan. Our conversations ranged from Hadith and Halachah to contemporary ethical questions, from transgender to experiences of transcendence. I gained a better understanding of charismatic Christianity through the passion of Father Adrian and his wife, Leah, and their musical productions of Passion plays about the death of Jesus. We did not need identical answers or common paths to recognise a shared love of the sacred.

Prayer became a particularly powerful connection. Niki’s early rising for Fajr and my attendance at Friday prayers at Carlton’s Albanian Mosque deepened my appreciation of Islamic devotion. We reminded one another when it was time to pray and sometimes prayed in the same room. One Friday in Yogyakarta, as I recited Kabbalat Shabbat, the muezzin’s call echoed through the air: a wondrous, timeless joining of prayer across our troubled planet.

In Iligan, I witnessed interfaith cooperation helping rebuild trust after the devastating 2017 conflict in nearby Marawi when Islamic State caused widespread destruction. Visiting a hospital with imams and Christian clergy, I watched them comfort patients and families across religious boundaries. Invited to offer a Hebrew prayer, I spontaneously found a tefillah which seemed to contribute something to that healing. Amid crushing poverty, I also encountered strong bonds of family and community, especially in the traditional Filipino Christian community. Here was interfaith action, not merely interfaith conversation – and an example worth considering in Australia. Religion can divide us but it can also unite us, a powerful message for our country in a time of crisis and crumbling social cohesion.

Indonesia offered another lesson. Niki introduced me to Muhammadiyah’s Tarjih and Tajdid Council, whose scholars address contemporary religious and social questions. The Muhammadiyah movement is the second largest Islamic organisation in Indonesia with some 60 million members.Their discussions about formulating fatwas felt reassuringly familiar, echoing Jewish legal reasoning or piskei din. I joked that I could become a “Yehudi Muhammadiyah”.

Visiting and learning about Aisyiyah, Muhammadiyah’s women’s organisation, and their advocacy for equal rights and opposition to domestic abuse also challenged assumptions I had encountered and the stereotypes of marginalised and mistreated Muslim women. These experiences deepened my appreciation of the richness and nuance of Islamic life and scholarship.

Our dialogue did not avoid difficult subjects. We discussed Israel and the portrayal of Zionism as something separate from Judaism. I explained that my Zionism is rooted in the promise to Abraham, Israel’s central place in Jewish prayer and theology, and its role as a refuge. It does not require endorsement of every Israeli government policy. On one occasion, I challenged a defence of Hamas which I suggested contradicted Islam’s noble legacy. What mattered was that we could disagree and debate calmly and respectfully without abandoning the conversation.

We recognised how social media silos can poison dialogue and respectful disagreement, something that Niki and his wife acknowledged as a lesson learnt from our engagement. We also acknowledged the suffering of people, especially children, in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. I returned convinced that a deeper understanding of one another’s trauma remains unresolved but essential. Friendship does not erase profound differences; it creates room to face them without reducing another person to an enemy.

For me, Abraham is a model for this journey. The Midrash pictures him standing on one side while the world stood on the other. Yet his otherness was joined to hospitality, justice and compassion. Taking an unfamiliar road is not inherently virtuous: extremists also claim courage. The test is where the road leads – towards hostility and domination, or towards a more generous recognition of our shared humanity.

Our statement on climate change at the end of our trip, which had included meeting religious environmentalists in our three cities, gave that recognition practical expression. We come from different traditions, worship differently and carry different histories. Yet we share one Earth and a common responsibility. We hold it in trust for those who come after us. That commitment offered another way to turn relationship into action without asking anyone to surrender their faith.

We met as strangers and departed as friends. I returned with renewed hope that faith can help heal Australia, and that conflict need not define the future. The road less travelled remains challenging. I intend to keep walking it.

Rabbi Ralph Genende OAM is AIJAC Interfaith and Community Liaison.