Interfaith Ideals in Action: A Habitat for Humanity Pilot Venture

By: Katherine Marshall Christopher Riley

August 20, 2013

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Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) has a remarkable track record in translating ideals into action. Millions of people have come to understand and value service to their community through the lived experience of volunteering on Habitat builds. In the United States, over a million volunteers a year come to Habitat, which is an essential community development organization all over the country (as well as in the world).

Now, with close to forty years of experience, HFHI is reflecting on what a 2013 vision might be: what does the “theology of the hammer” mean today? How can the direct experience of helping to construct a house for a needy family translate to policy and advocacy? One critical part of the reflection has been a pilot program to test how interfaith work might be developed in six American cities: Atlanta, Denver, Grand Rapids, Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle. And, building on a seven-year relationship with the Berkley Center and the World Faiths Development Dialogue (WFDD), our team followed, reported on, and helped to evaluate the experience and its broader implications.

Faith-inspired development organizations face difficult questions when their mission to provide aid meets the varied beliefs of the populations they draw members from and serve. Today’s societies are more and more pluralistic (in many senses) than in the past. Thus HFHI’s hope is that by implementing an explicit program of interfaith dialogue combined with classic Habitat action, positive and creative synergies will develop.

Indeed, the May 2013 draft WFDD report on the year-long pilot describes the emerging model of putting faith into action for society’s benefit. HFHI’s history and core ethos are Christian (though not denominational) but there is a real prospect that by including other religious traditions, a new and bolder model can emerge that promises to be a surprisingly potent paradigm for interfaith cooperation in the development sphere.

The nature of Habitat’s organizational structure, with many local affiliates operating around unique needs, backgrounds, and constituencies, provided a robust sample for a pilot program testing the toolkit. Six affiliates were chosen by application to represent very different geographical, demographic, and socioeconomic contexts. The faith composition of each affiliate region is majority Christian, but Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu communities are growing rapidly, mostly as a result of immigration and the influx of refugees from such countries as Bosnia, Somalia, and Iraq. Each of the affiliates had interfaith experience, but some had interacted formally with Judaism alone as part of established “Abrahamic builds” of interfaith initiatives.

One major question that the pilot program brought to the conversation around interfaith work by religiously inspired organizations concerns the best way to address the often strong religious beliefs of aid workers themselves. Some members of the affiliates with little experience working with non-Abrahamic traditions were concerned that they not lose sight of their Christian beliefs, and not “water down” the strong tradition they shared with HFHI’s founders. Some faith groups were rather reluctant (at first) to work closely with other faith communities, for a wide array of reasons. A takeaway from the pilot program is that affiliates reported that these concerns did not translate into tension between HFHI and its partner organizations. To understand this perhaps surprising result, one must consider the nature of Habitat’s work and its philosophy of service.

A preliminary requirement for entry into the pilot program was successful implementation of a “Faith in Action” module. Emphasizing the sharing of one’s faith as an expression of one’s work, it represents a guiding principle of Habitat’s leaders. Instead of active efforts to persuade others to adhere to one’s faith, “Faith in Action” reconsiders faith-inspired service, making the service itself an expression of faith. This “theology of the hammer”—the belief that works can instantiate faith at the same time as they benefit society (and an obvious metaphor considering Habitat’s program of building houses for the poor)—is a powerful way of dealing with the thornier aspects of proselytization as it relates to development organizations.

The verdict is in on the active faith model: it’s working. From the initial fundraising through to finding workers to build houses, HFHI’s affiliates have been able to attract partners from diverse faith communities, eager to “do their own talking” through the vital service Habitat performs. One major thrust of the pilot program involved hosting a series of events for the interfaith community to talk about the opportunity to get involved with home construction. At Habitat’s Greater Los Angeles affiliate, for example, this meant inviting groups from different faiths to an event at the Baha’i Community Center, where presentations focused not on theological tenets, but on how helping the poor find housing directly supports the service work most organized religions are already involved in.

In its report, WFDD made recommendations for interfaith initiatives that want to see rapid success. Of course, the emphasis on work is paramount—it helps alleviate concerns of inappropriate proselytizing that many share about faith engagement. At a more structural level, previous experience working across cultural and racial lines can increase the effectiveness of fledgling interfaith programs. Even without this experience, however, organizations can achieve goals rapidly if they pay careful attention to local context: building upon existing structures and relationships is a proven policy for success. Finally, in large, decentralized organizations like Habitat for Humanity, it is vital to create a platform for sharing of ideas and experiences at the upper levels of the organizational structure, allowing for the interchange and development of best practices across regions and groups.

The issue of effective scaling is paramount to any pilot program. What works at a grassroots level may experience growing pains when the time comes for broader implementation and outreach. However, the Interfaith Toolkit has an answer for this problem: a built-in advocacy component. Instead of merely bringing other faith groups into the fold of Habitat’s preexisting work, the toolkit is designed to work with them to effect change at the policy level. Perhaps Habitat’s New York affiliate can serve as an example. They have established an advocacy department, which seeks to establish shared goals with other faith-inspired organizations and prepares an annual “covenant” that outlines their agenda for policymakers.

Going forward, the Habitat pilot program has excellent promise as a model for faith-inspired organizations who may be struggling in the interfaith domain, or who have simply never considered the benefits of reaching out through interfaith channels. When possible, faith leaders from diverse traditions must get involved on their own terms, in an environment of mutual understanding and shared values. One especially promising avenue for future work in the interfaith domain is the possibility of international linkages; improved relationships with faith-inspired actors from diverse traditions afford an incredible chance to expand the fight for needed housing abroad.

With great humility and a tenacious hold on their mission to help the poor, HFHI has taken an important step toward a compelling ideal of interfaith cooperation. The process of implementing interfaith dialogue more broadly into the work of aid organizations must be carefully attuned to individual backgrounds and methods—the onus is on NGOs around the world to accept this challenge.

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