Lessons from an Interfaith Street Fair

by Jeff Wilson

On a warm and sunny Saturday, May 24, I participated in the Interfaith Pride Street Fair sponsored by Eastminster United Church in Toronto. It was a good way to spend an afternoon, and several lessons came out of it that we might apply to interfaith work here in the Grand River watershed. I’ll describe the event and then explain some of the takeaways that Interfaith Grand River members might ponder for ourselves.

At our table, we had three volunteers, of whom I was the only clergy. We put up our temple banner to identify ourselves, had some giveaways such as pamphlets and pins, and made a fun little activity for kids that involved rolling oversized dice. Beside us on to the left was the table of one of the Toronto Unitarian Universalist congregations; on our other side was the table of a Toronto Mennonite church. Other tables were represented by Baptist, United, and Jewish groups. Thus we had representatives from Anabaptist and Protestant Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, and Unitarian Universalist traditions.

Throughout the afternoon we chatted with our neighbours and with people who walked by on busy Danforth Avenue. Some people stopped to marvel at our tables: a common reaction was double astonishment over religious groups cooperating together and religious groups supporting LGBTQ+ people. This reminded me of a recent study by Galen Watts, one of my colleagues at the University of Waterloo (“Symbolic Pollution and Religious Change: The Religious Imaginary of Anglo-Canadian Spiritual but Not Religious Millennials,” Sociology of Religion, June 2024). His survey found that young Canadians overwhelmingly associate religion with hypocrisy, hate, backwardness, oppression, inflexibility, and other negative traits, to the extent that is seen as simple common wisdom that religion is opposed to modernity and should be avoided as an obstacle to social development. As Dr. Watts and his co-author Sam Reimer explained, religion’s “brand” is deeply poisoned. Thus Torontonians were surprised and pleased to find that some of their stereotypes of religious groups and people were not universally correct.

What might be learned from this experience? First, the event was an opportunity to display religion’s presence and relevancy in a public but not pushy manner. We used the sidewalk in front of a church on an active commercial block. This provided a place where there was lots of natural foot traffic and thus many people available to potentially stop and take a pamphlet or engage in conversation. We weren’t advocating for any public policy changes, just making a public witness of our various denominations’ caring and inclusive attitudes. Thus people who were alienated from religion yet felt the loss of spirituality could approach us if they wished, while passersby who weren’t interested in our message could keep on toward their destinations without friction. Rather than being confined to the inside of a church or temple, we brought religion (unobtrusively) to where people shop, play, and live. Many people responded enthusiastically to our polite, affirmative presence.

Second, the presence of multiple religious groups made the event greater than the sum of its parts. We continually explained that the Eastminster United Church was hosting us but that we were our own temple located elsewhere, which meant that Eastminster came off as a positive, cooperative contributor to the local neighbourhood, while people less inclined to engage with the United Church learned about other opportunities for spiritual involvement and community. Indeed, if someone engaged with us for a moment at our Buddhist table but mentioned they were Christian or Jewish, for example, we pointed out the Baptist, Mennonite, United, or Jewish tables. Other groups did likewise, directing folks to the Unitarian Universalist, Buddhist, or other groups according to their apparent interests. Because we were talking with and learning about the other groups, when a passerby told us that she was a refugee from Jamaica because of anti-gay violence there, we were able to respond by describing the LGBTQ+ refugee work of the Jewish group. She wasn’t likely to join a shul herself, but you could plainly see on her face how this recontextualized how she related to Jews in a way that produced a heightened feeling of relationship and appreciation.

A third aspect of the event to consider is how interfaith work is going on beyond our region. In the tri-cities we haven’t been involved much in networking with people beyond Cambridge, Kitchener, and Waterloo. But there are interfaith groups bringing people together all across Canada. Reaching out to them helps us find out about their work, look at models to develop our own activities, learn from their challenges and successes, and develop partnerships and friendships with people across the beautiful diversity of spiritual practice in Canada. At a time when our society is ever more polarized and atomized, looking beyond ourselves to cooperate with out-of-region interfaith organizations and events can bring many benefits.