Letter from Shannon, Bridging Divides

This week’s letter comes from our Associate Dean, Rev. Dr. Shannon Daley-Harris, who will tell us a little about those leaders we are sending into the future. She reflects on how Auburn identifies and equips a new generation of healing-centered leaders to build community and bridge divides.

Dear Friends of Auburn,

How does our culture typically respond to differences and divides? Shouting from entrenched positions; silence that seeks to ignore; safe distance that maintains silos; shallow consensus that dismisses the reality of difference; self-reinforcing echo chambers that affirm one’s position and rightness.

There is another way. In partnership with the Rose Castle Foundation, Auburn Theological Seminary piloted two Emerging Leader cohorts to engage and equip participants in bridging divides and transforming conflict this past March and May. The richly diverse cohorts of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders included college chaplains and nonprofit leaders, undergraduates, seminarians, rabbinical students, pastors, and rabbis.

Over the course of the program, participants forged community that didn’t require leaving any part of one’s identity at the door. They engaged in deep-to-deep conversations from the particularity of their faith, experience, and identity. They dared to have difficult conversations across some of the most divisive and challenging religious and political divides today. With respect, curiosity, and hospitality, they explored their own and each other’s sacred texts.

The cohorts were selected for the rich variety of experiences they would bring to the program, and their clear desire and vision for how they would take the insights and approaches from the program back into their contexts, whether congregation, classroom, or community.

In the inaugural cohort’s first zoom after the program, members shared their personal joys, concerns, and news from the past three months. They then delved into one participant’s “case study” of a challenge transforming conflict and bridging divides.

These cohorts are not a discrete experience or destination, but rather a stop on a journey to find others on the way, replenish spirits and commitment, pick up new approaches and insights, and then continue on the way.

For Auburn, these leaders represent the best of the letters being sent into the future. They are ready and committed to engaging across differences in a time when the world is becoming even more polarized. To witness them finding community and developing the skills to do the bridge-building work that is necessary for a healed future gives all of us at Auburn hope.

This letter is one filled with hope and love in a time the world needs it most.

Rev. Dr. Shannon Daley-Harris

Associate Dean