Exploring Interfaith Futures: insights from Cambridge Divinity students

In this episode of the Interfaith Futures conversation series, three undergraduate students from the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge—Tassy, Alice, and Tom—discuss their experiences attending the national launch event for Inter Faith Week in London.

Speaking with CIP Programme Manager Dr Iona Hine, they share their initial awareness of Inter Faith Week, the key takeaways from the event, and how interfaith dialogue intersects with their studies and future aspirations.

The conversation highlights the importance of interfaith engagement in academia, community building, and policy-making, and underscores the potential for young people to shape interfaith futures--from thinktanks to religious education.

00:00 Introduction to Interfaith Futures

00:16 Background and recent developments in interfaith initiatives

01:06 Meet the students: Tassy, Alice, and Tom

01:26 Student reflections on Inter Faith Week

04:11 Highlights from the Inter Faith Week launch event

09:12 Personal takeaways and future aspirations

14:38 Conclusion and final thoughts

Dr Iona Hine: Good morning and welcome to this addition to our

Interfaith Futures conversation series.

So a year ago in 2024, the Cambridge Interfaith Programme hosted a series

of 15 conversations all aimed at grappling with what the future

of interfaith might look like.

That conversation took place in the context of the closure of the UK's

Inter Faith network earlier that year.

And really a group of committed folk coming together to ensure the

Inter Faith Week would keep going.

Since then, there was a national consultation on Inter Faith Week

funded by the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government that

took place, January through March in 2025 and reported back in May.

One of the recommendations from that was that there should be

something more prominent and done to get Inter Faith Week going.

That recommendation has been taken up and we were able to send along

a few students to suss out what kind of difference that makes.

So here today with me are Tassy, Alice and Tom, students from the

Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, who made their way to

London last week for the national launch event for Inter Faith Week.

And we are going to be chatting about what that was like and also for them

what interfaith might mean and what they think of interfaith futures.

So I'm gonna hand over first to Tassy and the question, well, I'd like you to

introduce yourself a little bit, but also I'm really curious, was Inter Faith Week

something that you were already aware of?

And if it was, what did you associate with it?

What do you associate with it?

Hi, I'm Tassy.

I'm a first year undergraduate in the Faculty of Divinity.

On Inter Faith Week, I was not initially aware of the specific

project of national Inter Faith Week.

I was aware of the wider interfaith project, but not this one specifically

and not the specific aims of these.

So for me it was really interesting and exciting to see a whole new branch of what

was going on, sort of in my area of study.

Dr Iona Hine: Thanks.

Crossing over then to Alice.

Hi, I'm Alice.

I'm a third year undergraduate.

I actually wasn't aware of Inter Faith Week, like Tassy.

I only really had looked interfaith dialogue through my studies.

And what do I associate with Inter Faith Week after going to the event?

I think the focus on community was what I really liked about it.

And the different sections of society coming together, these different

faith groups all in one room was really nice to watch and be a part of.

Dr Iona Hine: Thanks Alice.

And Tom.

So I'm Tom.

I'm a first year undergrad in Divinity here , at Jesus College.

And I had heard a few things about interfaith.

My former religious studies philosophy teacher, at my Sixth Form spoke quite

passionately about the importance of interfaith and he had mentioned that

Cambridge was a place where there was lots of opportunities to get involved in

various interfaith things, but especially from the academic point of view.

So things like Scriptural Reasoning, was something that

I'd looked into a little bit.

But actually this side of the Inter Faith Week wasn't really

something I knew much about.

And generally what I seem to associate with it now is something that is less

academic and more pragmatic and social and kind of implementing a lot of the

academic side that Cambridge does very well, and the kind of more, you know,

sitting down, for example, representatives of each Abrahamic faith and discussing.

But it's not just discussing, we're now trying to move it towards policy.

And obviously that, January through March period of consultation that has resulted

in money being given for the cause of interfaith was clearly a good result of

that movement from academic to pragmatic.

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you.

So this year, as has been alluded to, there was a theme

chosen for Inter Faith Week.

That theme is community- Community: Together we serve.

Clearly a bit of that was evident in what happened last Thursday.

So I want to ask you what you think that that launch event suggested

about the future of interfaith.

To flesh out that conversation for the many people who might be listening to this

who weren't there, let's try and anchor that in something specific that happened.

Or maybe we could take turns to reflect on a specific element, talk about what you

recall that actually happened, as we go.

So, coming to you first, Tom.

Sure.

Yeah.

The main thing that sticks in my mind is this social interaction of

talking to lots of different people who had very important roles in

communities, thinktanks, organizations.

Notably, I remember speaking to a guy who was head of an APPG an

All Party Parliamentary Group.

I think he was the chair of this group that is all about interfaith and

essentially tries to breed successfully integrated communities, in which

they kind of alleviate any tensions that could be caused from religion.

So what sticks in my head really was those kind of interactions with people who know

lots and have connections to parliament and various organizations that are

important with interfaith, but also talks from two lords, Lord Rook and Lord Khan,

I thought were very insightful people who have obviously been within Westminster

and are trying to navigate, change from the inside, giving their insights

from quite, quite illustrious careers.

So they were my two most notable takeaways I think.

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you.

Coming to Alice then, what stood out for you?

What's still resonating?

I think, yeah, to echo Tom, I found the speeches quite inspiring, especially

the former Minister of Faiths and Community, Lord Khan, talking about the

need for interdepartmental communication about faith in government and I think

the focus on the next generation as well was a big part of the event, focus on

the youth and education, especially in the context of post October 7th as well.

There was a big focus on the desperate need for interfaith dialogue when

tensions are rising quite high between different faith communities.

And we see a rise of Islamophobia and antisemitism.

There was also, I liked the focus on the role of faith communities.

It's something I hadn't fully taken on board that the different faith communities

can reach places where government can't.

So that was really interesting to hear about as well on the day.

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you.

Alice.

Tassy, what stood out for you?

The thing that really struck me, was actually the

range of ages of people there.

And this was actually made a lot of, at the event itself.

They were very keen to encourage young people to get involved

with the interfaith project.

And it was really nice to see that there was a huge mix of age ranges.

We actually had quite a lot of young people there, Getting involved, either

from a current academic perspective or who were already beginning

to work in the interfaith space.

We even had a group of school children from the local area come to watch one of

the performances that was put on, which I thought was absolutely lovely... not

only to see young people coming into this interfaith space, but also to see that

the local community was getting involved.

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you.

So this event took place at St. Martin-in-the-Fields,

in the centre of London.

In the introduction, so we had the Right Honourable Miatta Fahnbulleh

who is now the person holding the brief, the Minister of Faith.

And she spoke back to an event that had taken place there about 18 months

previously, in the run up to the General Election where there had been a hustings

that was run on an interfaith basis, so an interfaith conversation about what

was wanted from the next government.

And at that hustings there was an open letter being launched that was addressed

to the government, saying : There should be more space for faith communities

to be involved with policy because, in situations , often in crisis situations.

So in Grenfell, um, during the pandemic, it was very evident that faith

communities had a capacity to step up and step in where government itself,

would otherwise have fallen short.

And so then a demand in that, that letter to say "Look, recognise us as partners,

recognise us as people that can work with government, and can think with

government, to address some of the kind of challenges that come up in society."

And, Alice, as you've alluded to, there certainly are challenges facing

society that are very obviously faith-related, or at least seem to be

faith related even though they have their, their political dimensions.

So that's a really long way round getting to say, I'm really curious for you guys

as students, divinity students, someone studying theology and religion at the

University of Cambridge, do events like this seem relevant to your studies?

On the one hand, and I know Tom, you've already alluded to, like that kind of

thing of, you know, sometimes we spend time thinking as academics and other times

we're bringing other parts of ourselves and engaging, possibly as people of

faith, as members of society, as citizens.

So do events like this seem relevant to your studies and

what you might hope to do next?

Whether that's professionally or more broadly.

Obviously asking first year students to think that far ahead.

I know could be challenging, but I'm just really curious, why was this something you

wanted to go along to and how do you see your future alongside interfaith futures?

Alice, I'm gonna come to you first.

I think interfaith dialogue is very important in general, because

we live in a majority religious world and we all are either, you

know, people of faith ourselves or interact with people of faith.

And I think that side of it's very important.

I also, I mean I'm now third year, I'm thinking about doing a Masters as well.

And talking to people at the event, it was very inspiring 'cause I saw what kind

of, you know, jobs you can be involved with or organizations you can work for,

that involve community work and working with people of faith, to promote tolerance

and just to make society a better place.

So I thought that was really inspiring.

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you.

Tom?

Yeah.

I would definitely say that I have had a keen interest in politics and

obviously religion and how those two interact with one another for a while.

So that was largely my motivation for going.

I think also it's potentially a thing that if there were to be some sort of role in

the future that came up, that what I'd really be interested in working for...

I came across a thinktank called Theos the other day that is almost exclusively

dedicated to unpacking issues like these from an academic point of view.

And, there's one called EARS, the European Association for a religious

society or something, and that was just everywhere in Europe, lots of different

academics from European universities come together and also ask these questions.

And it was through that one actually that I started researching a lot about

France and France's interaction, with religion as quite a thoroughgoing,

secular society, in which there is a lot of tension, a lot of, as Alice

mentioned, antisemitism and Islamophobia.

And religious education and why that's important, and why.

In France how they have a lack of religious education in state schools,

you basically have to pay to go to private school I found out in order

to get a religious education, and if you did that and you might have

paid to go to a Catholic school, I would only receive catechism classes.

So I'm only gonna be educated about my own religion if I even

have enough money to go that far.

So what does this, what could this lead to in society?

Well, France has an incredibly high amount of religious hate crimes.

There is a lack of understanding.

And then overall there kind of levels of, even things like religiously motivated

terrorism are a lot higher, but people don't tend to correlate that with

France's policy for religious education.

They correlate that with, you know, a spike in people from certain religions.

Right.

So, flipping that narrative, from France has been something that I've been looking

into a little bit, and that was another reason I thought this would be a good way

of going to, of navigating that interest.

So yeah, I'd hopefully like to see my future align with the interfaith

future, but perhaps in a way that adopts a different approach that France has

taken and champions that kind of more.

"Let's hear from everyone" instead of "let's hear from no one".

Dr Iona Hine: Thank you Tom.

Handing then to Tassy.

Yeah, so a lot like Tom, I'm very interested in politics and

policy, especially around faith.

And I found it incredibly interesting to, you know, listen to everybody

who's working as a politician, either in the Lords or in the Commons,

and in the civil service, to hear about the work that they were doing.

But I think as a student in the Faculty of Divinity to try and

study any faith in the modern world in isolation is utterly futile.

Because we live in a multi-faith society.

Then there will be interactions between people of various different faiths and

they will take place every single day.

So to just ignore the issue of interfaith work entirely in your academic studies,

I feel like misses an entire key part of what religion means today.

So I think as students within the Faculty of Divinity, it's incredibly important

that we examine how interfaith projects just like this are changing the way that

we see religion in the modern world today.

Dr Iona Hine: Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much, all three of you for taking the time, first

of all, to go to that event, to go and explore something, a new space.

And then for sharing this time with me to kind of reflect on that, and distill back.

because this was a new level of engagement for each of you with

interfaith, I hope that you feel like you've been part of bursting

the bubble, which was, the underlying finding of the consultation : we need

to get more people in involved in this.

It's not reaching far enough.

So thank you so much for joining me today.

And we've heard about the importance of understanding religion in

politics, why religious literacy can be important in different spaces.

And I'm sure there will be people cheering at the kind of championship for religious

education that you put forward as well.

Great talking with you all.

Thank you so much.