Susie Triffitt, a PhD student in Theology and Anthropology, introduces her friend the Reverend Nathanael Poole, who shares his experiences and insights on interfaith work in Bradford, a city so religiously diverse it matches Pew research projections for the world in 2050. Nathanael discusses interactions with Muslim and Hindu communities, highlighting the importance of honest dialogue and shared spaces, like Park Run, for fostering interfaith connection. Challenges such as self-censorship and community segregation are addressed, alongside his thoughts on religious education and sensitive storytelling in schools. Nathanael reflects on changing faith dynamics, the decline of aggressive atheism, and a renewed interest in spiritual and theistic faiths among young people. The conversation emphasizes the ongoing importance and potential of interfaith engagement for future community harmony.

00:00 Introduction to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme

00:50 Meet Reverend Nathanael Poole

02:20 Challenges in Interfaith Dialogue

04:59 Interfaith in Non-Religious Spaces

07:20 Policy and Education in Interfaith Contexts

12:30 Interfaith Experiences with Hindu and Sikh Communities

15:02 Reflections on Faith and Interfaith Futures

16:48 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

So hello, everyone. Welcome to the Cambridge Interfaith Programme series on interfaith futures.

My name is Susie. I'm a third year PhD student in Theology and Anthropology at the Divinity Faculty at the University of Cambridge. My research looks at revival and hope amongst Christians in the very religiously diverse Bradford in West Yorkshire.

I'm a Christian. I'm a big believer in interfaith and I'm a postgraduate member of CIP.

I'm incredibly pleased to introduce my guest and friend today, Reverend Nathanael Poole, who is the associate leader of Fountains Church in Bradford and vicar of St Margaret's Frizinghall.

We used to work together in Bradford. So welcome Nathanael.

Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.

Nathanael, I'm gonna pass over to you now. So can you just tell everyone a little bit about yourself and the work you're doing and why I asked you to do this ?

Yeah I've lived and worked in Bradford for the past eight years both in Bradford City Center and the inner city. And I suppose why I'm here today looking at interfaith futures is I've had quite a lot of contact with those of the Muslim faith in Bradford, particularly young men, both informally and more formally within a voluntary capacity at the university as chaplain. And I also have had quite significant interactions with those in the Hindu community, particularly part of the Sai Baba sect of Hinduism.

And so I suppose it's reflecting about interfaith work as an Anglican minister in the city of Bradford.

Thank you so much Nathanael. I think something that we're really appreciating in these interviews is having someone who's actually on the ground doing this on a daily basis. So thank you for that.

I think from that angle one of the questions I wanted to ask you was in this moment in time, thinking about this idea of interfaith futures, what are the most obvious things that stick out to you? Like maybe a concern that you see and how does your work address that?

I think one of my concerns is self censorship, so not being able to speak freely what you really want to ask or to express to someone of another faith. I think you hear particularly around Islam not because it's felt that I'm being coerced by a government not to be able to speak freely.

And yet I think we have seen a cooling effect on speech, which particularly around things that might pertain to Islamophobia. Yeah.

For instance, I was doing some research for my master's, of which I had some anecdotal conversations around the origins of the Quran, which is quite a sensitive topic.

And it did feel like I was flying close to the sun a little bit in these conversations, particularly when they were... and these aren't formal interviews, this is just conversations with me, with people on the streets, or people I've come into contact with at the university or at church.

And so I think one of the beautiful things about interfaith interactions, particularly between proselytizing faiths like Islam and Christianity is almost to have an honest conversation. You need to get the most honest thing out of the way, which is I would love you to become a follower of Jesus. And equally, if I've been told that the person I'm speaking to would love for me to become a Muslim.

And I think it's really important to be able to that really honest dialogue. But when there's a fear that of offense, and then what could happen because of that offense it sometimes means the conversation becomes less honest. And I think what I said earlier, the government, I don't feel that there is, there's not a clear legal line... there certainly is a cooling effect around speech when it comes to exploring some of the perhaps more sensitive things about Islam, which include the makeup of the Quran.

Thank you so much, Nathanael. I think I'm just going to refer very briefly to the previous interview I did earlier today where I said to Michael, one of the places I saw in Bradford where interfaith worked quite well was Park Run.

Yeah?

We were doing something not religious. And, CIP, Nathanael is a big Park Run evangelist.

So I just wanted to ask him do you think sometimes interfaith works best in non religious spaces?

Ah, yeah, of course. I think there's some great examples of that with, within football teams. There's I think so Bradford City, for instance, the fans predominantly are white British.

And yet there is some affiliated kind of groups within that. They're called the Bengali Bantams or something like that, and they have their own flags and sit in the football stadium. And I think that seems a really positive thing.

Yeah, absolutely. But it's where are these third spaces? And I suppose highlighting Park Run, that's a third space and a really good one to highlight and Lister Park, I think, is the most, I think the most diverse Park Run which is an exciting title to have. But I suppose, I, yeah, I completely agree.

I suppose my concern is there's not a lot of these shared spaces and Bradford remains fairly segregated in terms of you may... People use the language of parallel living, parallel communities. Some areas are exclusively white British, some areas exclusively South Asian, and then some more mixed. And the areas that are mixed, this like parallel living, I think does resonate with me. It is, it's a phrase that has been used to denigrate Bradford. When I hear it from outside as an accusation towards, I think, no there's lots of things where there's lots of integration in Bradford. But when I'm honestly reflecting, the way we live life is, seems to be very different between those who are of a white British background or just a British background and those who are from a South Asian British background.

Thank you Nathanael for that. I think everyone at this Park Run needs to look out for Nathanael in his dog collar on Christmas Day.

To quote back to Nathanael, I think when we were talking about it, you used to talk about separate economies and what that looks like in Bradford.

If you had a sort of policymaker and you're sitting talking to them what do you think you'd want them to know? From your experience in Bradford and your work?

I think religious education is so important within schools. So emphasizing that. And I've been very heartened by my own children who go to a church school, have by the time that they're in year three have visited a church, a synagogue and a mosque and are able to talk about the origins of the Eid festival.

I suppose the thing that I'm concerned about is we compare the best of us with the worst of them. And, I'm using that word, that horrible word, them, intentionally in terms of we present the loveliest things of perhaps the Christian faith with all of the perhaps more tricky things.

And that's just not fair. It's not fair to compare the best with the more tricky. And so I think religious education is so important to present what is the mainline faith of the majority of the adherents to that religion. And I think that's particularly true in the faith of Islam and in the UK.

So religious education.

Would I think anything more around policymaking? Are you maybe aware of the situation that happened in Batley a few years ago? Where a schoolteacher in an education setting showed depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson, and then subsequently had to go into hiding. And is still in hiding and wasn't backed by their school, neither were they really backed by the government.

Now, I would say that is very poor pedagogy. In terms of knowing the sensitivities of a community and yet that this person is still in hiding, I think, reveals a very serious issue at the heart and the way that it was responded to by the school, by the police, and by the government. I think that's a very important issue. It's a tricky one, like what is, in terms of policy, what is hate speech?

Because it wouldn't be offensive to other religions to show a depiction of their prophe t. Or it might be offensive. It might be offensive, but there's not the same vociferous reaction. I suppose I don't really have clear answers, but I would say strongly that the way as a polity, we responded to that issue seemed that there was a lot wanting, and I hope that we might respond differently now, but I'm not sure we would actually.

I think maybe the situation might be a bit worse now than it was then.

I was just thinking as you're speaking Nathanael about how to engage between faiths well. And actually when I saw it done well in your church last Christmas when, very aware that the local schools often are made up of more Islamic students than Christian students, had a Christmas experience at St Margaret's which went through parts of the Christmas story, but in a very sensitive way. I just wondered if you could tell us a little bit more about that and why that worked because it was very sensitively done and we were very deliberate about not trying to force one faith onto another. And yeah, how did you go about doing that?

Yeah, I mean we got dressed up and we decorated different stations of the church. I think we had eight or ten stations where we told different parts of the Christmas story. And essentially it's just storytelling. It's a fascinating story. I'd love to go to an Eid experience, or to a Hajj experience where you were telling the story about that journey.

Or even something which talked about the pilgrimage from Mecca to Medina. I would find that very interesting. And it's new for the children, they've not grown up with these stories in assemblies or at home and so it is... you know when people talk about Christmas being magical, it did feel quite, it feels quite magical, the Christmas experience at church.

So we're involved with Frizinghall School, which is probably about 95 percent South Asian, with the majority of the Muslim faith. And yeah, Christmas was much better than when we did Easter. Easter's a bit more problematic in terms of interfaith conversations, even with young children, when you're thinking about issues of atonement and sin and sacrifice and Jesus and the nature of the divinity of Jesus.

But Christmas, I suppose it's almost a shared story as well. It's one of those places where the faiths come quite close and we realize that we are we're a family relation to each other in terms of the way that we're related as faiths, Islam and Christianity.

I definitely enjoyed dressing up as a sheep and talking about peace across Islam, Judaism and Christianity.

I think it's important, I think in this interfaith conversation, not just to focus on Abrahamic faiths. And I know you've had interaction with the Sikh and Hindu community in Bradford. How has that been different?

It's been very different. So I made friends with someone who was of the Hindu faith in my curacy, so it's like when you're an apprentice or a trainee vicar. And they invited me along to come and speak to their gathering, congregation, worship group.

And I thought this was going to be a great evangelistic opportunity. And I suppose I found myself very surprised to have the same sense of God-with-us as I worshipped with them as I do when I worship at church. And I suppose that's, I wasn't drawing many great theological conclusions from that.

Just anecdotally that I sensed that God was present as we worshipped. And as they talked — everything that I said about Jesus, it was, Yeah, we know, isn't it wonderful? And I think that is something particular about the Sai Baba sect within Hinduism. But yeah, how has it been different?

I suppose Hinduism and Sikhism aren't proselytizing faiths in the same way that Christianity and Islam are, or have been in their history. And particularly with my Hindu friends, it's almost that if they hear a good idea, they're like, yeah we'll have that too.

So my friend who I made, this friend from Hindu background. I would tell him a lot about Jesus and about my faith and he would just agree with me, and I would get quite frustrated and until I lived around him for over a year and I thought this guy is in terms of, if being a Christian, part of the definition of being a Christian is how one lives, he lives in a more Jesus shaped way than I do.

And then he invited my family and I around for a meal and there were shrines to other gods, quite small shrines, but the biggest shrine in the corner of his house was to Jesus Christ which I found quite surprising, quite, but that really opened my mind, really.

Living in Bradford has made me realize that in terms of interfaith, I have had, when I arrived eight years ago, quite a closed mind and it has really opened my mind.

So Nathanael, I'm hoping you're evangelizing people to come to Bradford so they can get a better understanding of interfaith now.

I think as we come to close just love to know what excites you about the faith future that we're entering at the moment and how that relates to interfaith.

I think something that is quite exciting for anyone who has faith, particularly theistic faith, is the kind of great experiment of the new atheists. Which was quite aggressive. You would get that in conversation sometimes. People quoting The God Delusion, or Christopher Hitchens.

That seems to have died, dare I say. Maybe there'll be a revival of it, I don't know. But it's almost like those who espoused that project have said, “It hasn't worked, and even where it has worked, it has produced quite the opposite fruits as we intended.” And so I think there is this renewed sense of the spiritual, and that not being just around a new age, vague spirituality, actually being found in theistic faiths.

I see that within Christianity. Quite a few conversations with young people who are actively exploring faith, interestingly, through social media, through just watching reels on Instagram that have then put them down a path through watching lots of Christian content.

But I've also had conversations with lots of young Muslims, particularly young Muslim men, that may be just, that's who it's easier for me to have conversations with. That because of world events, particularly what's happening in the Middle East them choosing to take their faith much more seriously and praying more devoutly.

Yeah, I think it is quite an exciting time to be a person of faith.

And on that note, thank you so much, Nathanael. You've been a star.

Thank you for your time.

Thanks very much.