Permanent link for Staff Spotlight: Liz English on March 14, 2023

In October of 2008, McGill University in Montreal hosted a conference called “Scriptural Authority and Status in World Religions.” Representatives from each of ‘the big six’ religious traditions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Sikhism) took turns speaking about the role of the written word in their respective traditions. Recitations from their sacred books accompanied histories of the creation and protection of those texts, stories of the complex traditions of interpretation surrounding them, and personal testimonies of complicated and rewarding relationships with the words. Six speakers somehow wove together a singular message on humanity’s written relationship to the divine, and it echoed in the rafters.

There I was in the crowd, 19 years old, in my sophomore year at McGill, and completely entranced.

I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, raised in the Presbyterian Church, with amazingly few interactions with other religious perspectives under my belt by the time I ventured off to college. I remember attending a bar mitzvah or two in my early teens, though the memories that remain are predominantly of awkward teenage dancing and not of any substantive dialogue. Sadly, I remember being introduced to a skewed image of Islam in the aftermath of 9/11. What I would later learn was a beautiful tradition was then obscured by fear, confusion, and misinformation. My family did travel quite a bit as I was growing up, but visits to Notre Dame and the Sagrada Familia, while intensely meaningful, didn’t do much to widen my gaze beyond Christianity.

I left Memphis with my Christian upbringing and my Southern accent in tow. Any awareness I had of other worldviews was at best peripheral and at worst dangerously incorrect. 

Thankfully, even a short time in Montreal, a truly multicultural city, did wonders to educate me to the diversity of the world. But while the city opened my eyes, the conference shined the light. I remember winding down at the post-conference reception thinking, “Everyone is saying the same thing!”– a sentiment which I can recognize now as more than a little naïve and overly simplistic, but my 19-year-old self saw only the similarities. I felt enlightened and inspired and hungry for more. Within a week, I had changed my schedule for the upcoming semester and enrolled in a major in World Religions.

In the years following this experience, through my time at McGill, the University of Edinburgh, and the University of Denver, I leaned into the academic study of religious and spiritual traditions of the world, basking in not only their moments of similarity but also their profound and illuminating differences. While my personal spirituality waxed and waned, my curiosity never faded.

What began as ethereal enlightenment grew to include down-to-earth questions. After years of studying the beliefs, the rituals, the communities themselves, I turned to the process. Why do we study religions the way we do? Where did this comparative practice come from, and what purpose does it serve? Conversely, what harm does it cause? Whose voices have been elevated in these conversations, and whose have been silenced? I committed myself to the hard and necessary work of naming and deconstructing Religious Studies’ damaging colonial history and its effects in the hopes of creating a more equitable discipline going forward.

By joining the Kaufman Interfaith Institute team, I’ve come out from behind my stacks of books and taken a much-needed step into the lived experiences of my community. From worldviews on a page to worldviews as they are lived - complex, personal, and dynamic. Stepping into this work, I have my religious literacy and my questions in tow, but above all, I carry with me my unrelenting curiosity. I am here to listen and to learn. 

It is my hope that, together, we can continue the work of the Kaufman Institute of fostering mutual respect and understanding while also pushing the boundaries, asking hard questions about the spaces we create, the voices we elevate, and the comparisons we draw. 

Liz English

Posted on Permanent link for Staff Spotlight: Liz English on March 14, 2023.