At this point we may have become disillusioned with hearing the narrative produced and reproduced by NYU Abu Dhabi, from Candidate Weekend to the speeches made by university top brass at the beginning of each year, persisting until graduation. We are continuously being bombarded with the idea of cosmopolitanism and told how it should color our interactions. The majority of the time, we do eventually open up and compare formally and informally our identities, deconstructing and reconstructing the narratives around them. Faith is an area that, for a variety of reasons, complicates these discussions. More so than something like national identity, faith can be trickier because to some, it is irrelevant and to others, it is vital, having been handed down from a higher power directly and perfectly.

When these conversations become difficult to navigate, when we feel beliefs that we observe as sacred are challenged or examined differently, it is easy to find ways to avoid having conversations. Sometimes this manifests itself as apologism: cleaning up or manipulating our beliefs or texts to make them feel mainstream or acceptable to whatever dominant ideology we are in conversation with. Other times we look for similarities or create them with sweeping generalizations if we cannot find them, causing discussion to simply become agreement instead of forcing us to examine and revel in inherent difference.

We can also avoid these tough conversations by turning interfaith opportunities into moments of passive learning; we demand another faith explain itself, something done with religions like Islam that are accused of being entirely different from accepted Eurocentric norms, and we thereby forget that an exchange must occur. This special issue sometimes engages with these methods of interfaith dialogue, and as a community, we have to be open to different methods that will work in particular situations. This issue will hopefully function as a jumping-off point for a larger, deeper conversation about faith on campus and how we navigate the different conceptions of it within our community.

Whatever methods we choose for our conversations, two things are true. We exist in an environment that will not make conversations on faith easier if we maintain our sometimes-shallow interactions. The often-restrictively secular world of Eurocentric academia may run up against faith traditions practiced on campus. Conversations about atheism and non-religious faith traditions have the possibility of being in conflict with the dominant narratives of our host region. It is easy to fall back on a certain type of interfaith dialogue that centers on an act like attending another religion’s worship, prayer or service while smiling, but internally maintaining the supremacy of one’s own belief. Smiles don’t always have to be absent, but the grasp on supremacy has to end, and we must approach conversations with interest, as equals and without the pressure to sanitize our beliefs or check our traditions at the door.