Critical Reflections on the Interfaith Movement: A Social Justice Perspective

There is a burgeoning interfaith movement in U.S. higher education, inspired, in large part, by global events, and aimed at promoting tolerance of religious diversity. While there are various supporting arguments and approaches to this type of student programming, social justice oriented approaches-that is, approaches specifically centered around addressing systemic oppression and uplifting marginalized perspectives-remain rare. This lack of critical social justice reflection in the interfaith movement puts institutions at risk of alienating and/or further marginalizing religious minorities, despite intentions to do otherwise. In this article, I describe the current trends in the interfaith movement, reflect on them from a critical social justice standpoint, and envision a future for the movement that is more inclusive of, and attentive to, religious minorities. Specific critiques from a social justice perspective include (a) the lack of overt examinations of power dynamics and Christian privilege, (b) the tendency to ignore the sociocultural nature of religious identity, and (c) the frequent exclusion of non-Abrahamic religious groups.