On Being a Religious Minority, in Suburban Richmond, Virginia

My job with the Virginia Synod Candidacy Committee is to be chaplain to the candidates -- those who are at various stages in the process of being granted initial seminary entrance approval through final approval for ordination. The committee meets three times a year. I provide hospitality (an ancient Christian practice) and a pastoral presence, sitting with the candidates before they go in to talk with the committee, then after the interview, while candidates wait for the committee to decide what their verdicts are, and then after they hear the committee's decision.

When I do this work, I always wear a black shirt with a clerical collar. That's for identification in the generic Comfort Suites lobby. New candidates will come in who I haven't yet met, and the collar helps them inow who I am, as they walk into the lobby, and to gravitate to my corner where I set up my "hospitality area" of a couch and chairs.

Yesterday, though, I felt self-conscious wearing the collar. That's because, as I sat there, men began coming in, singly, in twos or threes, a total of 50 or 60, heading down a hall to a meeting room right next to where the committee was meeting. As they assembled, I noticed a growing number of shoes, left in the hall outside. It was a congregation of Muslims, assembling for their Friday afternoon prayer.

My sef-consciousness came from the fact that many Muslims (as well as many Jews) have been treated badly by Christians. To those who have been treated badly, a man wearing a black shirt with a clerical collar is not a welcome sight.

So I took the initiative. "Are you here to pray?" I asked one of the men. Yes. He explained that they rented space in the motel for their weekly prayer. In conversation, I learned that they actually own land nearby. Recently, though, Henrico County authorities had denied the congregation permission to build a mosque. I rememberd the story about that decision, in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. There had been an unusual number of negative comments in the public forums before the decision. The inevitable question is the role religious discrimination might have played in the decision.

Be that as it may, the first part of yesterday's Candidacy Committee meeting featured this auditory experience: committee members interviewing a candidate for the Lutheran ministry, while the sounds of the Friday prayers of Islam penetrated through the adjoining wall.

In suburban Richmond, Virginia.