That “conversation inside my head and my heart” continued this fall semester when Myers became 91����Ƶ’s first practitioner-in-residence for six weeks. He brought good humor, a willingness to subject himself to endless questions and cups of coffee, and a wealth of life experience from which to share.

During days filled with classroom observations, talks and more formal lectures, strategic plannings, and informal interactions with faculty, staff and students, not to mention still keeping in touch with his D.C. staff — Myers was a man on the move.

The result was a kind of Mennonite-inspired Chatauqua — a time both personally restorative and intellectually challenging, “as I’d hoped it would be,” Myers said. “91����Ƶ’s academic programs at the , the and the offered a kind of intersection with my professional life that I thought would be an interesting mix of learning, conversation and feedback … this has really been one of the wonderful experiences of my life.”

Service and leadership

The Practitioner-In-Residence program was developed by the Provost’s Office.

“We want to provide space and time for experienced practitioners and recognized leaders to reflect on their own work and learn new skills by interacting with our own skilled academics and professionals, but we also want our campus community to engage and benefit from the opportunity to learn from a variety of people in diverse settings,” said Provost Fred Kniss.

Myers was a natural selection for the pilot program: his professional life has been spent at the confluence of faith, service and leadership in a variety of positions, including church ministry and nonprofit leadership. He pastored four Mennonite congregations, worked as a conference youth minister, and served two years in Mennonite voluntary service. He also was a founding board member of a state-wide fatherhood initiative, co-founder of an HIV/AIDS social service organization, and director of three homeless organizations.

Appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009, Myers heads one of 13 centers that liaison between the faith-based and neighborhood organizations and their particular “home” agency: other similar centers reside, for example, with the departments of health and human services, education, labor and justice, among others.

Myers says much of his work is with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he and his staff work to improve partnerships between the Department of Homeland Security and faith-based and voluntary organizations, which are often the “first responders” in emergencies.

In a series of exploratory meetings with programs at 91����Ƶ, Myers was especially interested in the work of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, with a special focus on the (STAR) program.

Because his appointment will end with the conclusion of the Obama Administration, Myers says that some of the ideas he came away with may never come to fruition.

“But I am strongly committed to the idea of trauma-informed congregations,” says this former pastor, “whether that takes the shape of a webinar or a training” created and implemented by his office.

Prompted to reflection and discovery

Myers’ interactions on campus ranged from classroom observation (he particularly enjoyed Professor ’s “Biblical Theology of Peace and Justice” class and wanted to stay longer in Professor ’ course on war-to-peace transitions) to a day-long visit to Eastern Mennonite School.

Opportunities for what he calls “mutual exchange” often nudged him towards personal reflection and insight.

To Professor ’s “Leadership for the Common Good” graduate course, Myers brought moral dilemnas from his own career. With undergraduates in a social work practice, he talked about the role of the executive director and board relations, which turned into a conversation on strategic planning and goal setting.

“People are really curious about the government, so I always try to explain a little bit so that it is not quite so much of a mystery and a little less intimidating,” he told the audience during one of two formal lectures. (The titles of these lectures give a glimpse of his sense of humor and the kind of cultural challenges he has encountered in the past several years: “As Out of Place as a Mennonite (Ordained, No Less) in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security” and “Blowing Down Fences, Making Good Neighbors: Interfaith and Intercultural Collaboration in Disasters.”)

By the end of the six weeks, Myers shared his gratitude for the experience and for the opportunity to share and reflect upon not only his profession, but the Mennonite values that have helped to guide him through the challenges of trying to do good work in a political world. “I’ve learned that I will always have a Mennonite way of being in the world, and I’ll take that assuredly and self-consciously into whatever I do next.”

Myers, director of the at the Department of Homeland Security, spoke recently to several 91����Ƶ groups about navigating the tricky divide between church and state in this country.

“There hasn’t been a day in almost five years that I haven’t at least in some way had to negotiate the separation of church and state,” he said. President Obama appointed Myers to his position in 2009.

During the prior 25 years, Myers served faith-based and neighborhood organizations as an executive director and minister, primarily in Chicago. These included Teen Living Programs, Center for Public Ministry and three Mennonite congregations.

In his talk at a seminary chapel (“not a sermon, but a report of an ongoing conversation inside my head and my heart”), Myers told several stories, asking his audience to discern “What belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God?”

Myers began with the seminal Anabaptist story of Conrad Grebel baptizing George Blaurock on a wintery Zurich day in 1525. The two men considered it “an act of faithful discipleship. But to the state and the official church it was an act of heresy and treason. On that day the chains that had bound together church and state for 1300 years were broken.”

Myers makes a “poetic connection” between that story and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that anyone can practice their religion without the intrusion of the state. “That great beautiful river that separates church and state in this country – that river could be understood as beginning on that cold January morning in Zurich in 1525.”

“It is worth thinking about the separation of church and state,” says Myers, “because in a country where so many cultural and religious traditions are observed openly and freely, we, with only a few exceptions, have not had a large scale sectarian war among ourselves.

“Why is it possible to have here, at 91����Ƶ, an inheritor of the church-state separation tradition, such a robust interfaith conversation?” Myers asks.

Church-state partnerships’ role in disaster relief

In an afternoon talk entitled “Disasters blow down fences and make good neighbors,” Myers said that “the real story after a disaster is the long-term story of linkages and continuing cooperation between organizations who come together in the crucible of rebuilding and recovery.”

Myers contends that in times of disaster, hard-hit communities need the resources of government plus the human presence of voluntary organizations. He called it a “whole community” approach to rebuilding lives as well as houses.

One of Myers’ roles is to put the convening power of a White House official to use in the hours and days following a disaster. “We’re able to bring a wide range of people and organizations into one room, to coordinate efforts, to make connections and get people talking together, sometimes for the first time.”

As communities rally and help descends, Myers notes a window of days or short weeks when fissures are smoothed over. “Unfortunately, those moments often do not last. Social fissures get wider and more pronounced in the long aftermath of disaster.”

Myers appreciates the wide range of faith-based organizations that “pivot toward the disaster. In 2011, after tornadoes left a swath of destruction through Alabama, an Islamic relief group with chainsaws helped clear tangled trees around a trailer home. The elderly woman’s response: ‘I don’t care who is here. I’m just glad that you are.’”

, the , the and the sponsored Myers’ full day of speaking engagements on campus.

That’s what is happening at 91����Ƶ.

“Interacting with people of other faiths builds friendship and understanding – something we sorely need in this world,” says , PhD, director of , “and interfaith dialogue strengthens our own faith.”

This semester a Muslim professor from Iran is teaching “Islamic Spirituality” and a Jewish rabbi from New York City is teaching “Spiritual Writers and Spiritual Writings.” Both of them join an instructor from to lead a class on “Comparative Monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity and Islam.”

Focusing on the three Abrahamic religions

91����Ƶ is focusing on the three world religions that worship one God – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Over the centuries Christians, Muslims and Jews have fought each other savagely. Millions have died in the name of their God. But the three religions share a common birthplace − the Middle East − and a common ancestor, Abraham. And they have enjoyed periods of peaceful co-existence.

CIE’s logo features Abraham’s tent, which the center ‘s website describes as “open to the four winds, a safe place of hospitality towards strangers and engagement with them.”

“In today’s world and in a pluralistic society like ours, it is important that our students learn to know people of other faiths,” says Martin. “Our students will be going to places − both in the United States and abroad − where they will encounter people of other faiths.”

Martin says the historic differences between the three religions are exacerbated today by the Israel-Palestine conflict, the rise of Muslim extremism, and the United States’ counter-attacks after the terrorist attack on New York City in 2001. He decries the prevalence of “Islamophobia” in the United States.

Course co-taught by Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars

CIE, which is funded entirely by foundation grants and private donations, offers several courses each semester by visiting scholars. The team-taught “Comparative Monotheisms” course this semester draws two dozen undergraduates, graduate students, seminarians and members of the community.

“Students ask all sorts of questions, from theology to history, ancient or contemporary,” says the Muslim scholar, Amir Akrami, PhD. “However, the focus of our work is on prayer, scripture, reasoning, politics and action.”

Akrami, who has taught at 91����Ƶ since September 2012, is from the in Tehran. He was a regular participant in the internationally respected Building Bridges Seminars around the world.

Akrami’s wife, Sheida Shakouri Rad, PhD, joined him at 91����Ƶ a year ago. She is teaching Farsi, the language of Iran, this semester. Last semester she taught “Women in Islam.” She is on leave from the University of Tehran, where she has been a professor for 15 years.

The two other professors for the comparative-monotheism course are Niles Goldstein, an award-winning author and ordained Reform Jewish rabbi, and Reuben Shank, an 91����Ƶ adjunct faculty member who is Mennonite and studying for a doctorate in religion at the University of Virginia.

Films, interfaith peace camp, lessons from disaster work

The fifth CIE course this semester is “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Film,” taught by Bob Bersson, PhD, a retired professor of art and art history at James Madison University in Harrisonburg and founder of the local .

In addition to bringing scholars to campus, CIE offers an each summer, which includes trips to the local mosque and synagogue. Other events have been a Wednesday film series and Thursday forums.

CIE’s director likes the way that interfaith engagement sometimes emerges from work on the ground at disaster sites, both at home and abroad. “People of different faiths find themselves working together,” says Martin, “and they get to know each other.”

One result of Martin’s interest is an upcoming speech at 91����Ƶ on how “disasters blow down fences and make good neighbors” by a federal government official, who is a former Mennonite pastor. He is David Myers, and he will speak on March 20. He is a senior advisor at the in Washington D.C. and works in faith-based and neighborhood partnerships for both the White House and the .

Martin experienced the connection between disaster relief and interfaith engagement first hand when a major earthquake hit Iran in 1990, killing more than 35,000 people. He worked at the time as program director for central and southern Asia for , a North American relief, development, and peacebuilding agency that works in about 60 countries.

MCC exchange welcomed in Iran

MCC wanted to respond to a country considered a U.S. enemy, “to demonstrate that we would respond to human need wherever it occurred, irrespective of the religion and politics of the country,” Martin says. But the United States and Iran had no diplomatic relations (and still don’t), making travel to Iran difficult, and MCC wondered whether the hardline Muslim government would welcome an overtly Christian aid agency.

“It turned out, however, that Iran was more comfortable with an explicitly Christian organization than with secular agencies,” says Martin. “They understand the motivation that comes from religious faith.” So MCC was able to establish a long-term relationship with the Iranian Red Crescent Society on disaster relief and reconstruction as well as assistance to refugees.

The post-earthquake work then led to interfaith dialogue in the form of student exchanges and Muslim-Christian conferences every two to three years. The sixth conference will be held this May in Qom, an Iranian city known for being a center of Islamic scholarship. Martin will attend, along with some 91����Ƶ students.

Under the direction of Dr. Ed Martin

Martin was a program director with MCC from 1989 to 2007, based at its headquarters in Akron, Pa. After that he went to the , an international Quaker organization, in Philadelphia. He helped build connections between Iranian institutions and the United States and advocated for better relations between the two countries.

He started his career as an MCC volunteer in Nepal, where he met his future wife, Kathy Yoder. Later he worked at the in Sri Lanka. A graduate of Stanford University, Martin earned graduate degrees at Cornell University – a master’s in public administration and a doctorate in agricultural economics.

The vision for interfaith engagement at 91����Ƶ grew out of conversations among faculty, resulting in a formal proposal to the Board of Trustees, which it approved in 2009. The center opened later that year in the seminary building, with seminary professor Gerald Shenk, PhD, as part-time director. Martin was appointed director in 2010, serving part time and commuting from Pennsylvania.

Near and far support

CIE’s largest donor to date is the of New York City, which has given $355,000 over three years.

A major local supporter is John Fairfield, PhD, co-founder of the Rosetta Stone language-software company and professor emeritus of computer science at James Madison University. “I enjoy getting inside the head of someone who thinks very differently than I do,” he says. “It’s like travel to a foreign country − makes you notice things in your own country you’d taken for granted.”

He adds: “CIE is where we Mennonites meet other kinds of Christians, Muslims, Jews, atheists, liberals, conservatives and all kinds of people who challenge our understanding, because we value their critique and insights. And of course we think we’ve got something to offer, and we challenge them pretty deeply too. They seem to appreciate it. We need each other.”

And that’s why 91����Ƶ goes out of its way to bring people of different faiths together.