Who is my neighbor?
Faith Traditions
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."
(Luke 10:27)
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Christianity | 32 |
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Islam | 19 |
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Hinduism | 13 |
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Shamanism, Animism, or other folk religions | 12 |
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Buddhism | 6 |
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Global religions such as Baha'i, Confucianism, Jainism, Shintoism, Sikhism | 2 |
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Judaism | 1 |
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No religion | 15 |
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| Source: David J. Smith, If the World Were a Village: A Book about the World's People. Tonawanda, New York: Kids Can Press, Ltd., 2002, p. 14. | ||
In the Christian scripture, the Gospel of Luke tells of a lawyer asking Jesus, "Who is my neighbor?"
Jesus replies by telling a story about a man who was beaten, stripped, robbed, and left for dead. Two people, traveling along the same road at different times, ignore the man's cries for help and pass by on the other side without stopping to help.
A third person, one whom the hearers of the original story considered an outcast, stopped, bandaged the wounded man, took him to an inn, asked the innkeeper to care for him, and promised to pay all costs incurred.
"Which one of these persons was a neighbor?" Jesus asked his listeners.
If we truly want to love our neighbors as Jesus suggested, we need to begin thinking of all people throughout the world as our neighbors. Then we need to begin treating them as neighbors.
This is what it means to create an interfaith community.
The first step in this process is to talk with people of different faiths, listen to their stories, respect them, and find ways of working together with them in order to create a world of peace and justice.
This section of the web site provides a brief overview and introduction to the stories, beliefs, and practices of people of different faiths.
Islam
The Arabic word "Islam" means the submission or surrender of one's will to the one true God worthy of worship.
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