Eisteddfod Interfaith Experience
The International Musical Eisteddfod is an annual event held in the North Wales town of Llangollen and performers come from around the world. The organisers invited the North Wales Interfaith group to present an “Interfaith Experience” on 3 July at this year’s event.
I serve on the Chester England Stake High Council and have been involved with the interfaith group for several years. We have representatives from many organisations, including various Christian groups, Hindus, Muslims, Pagans, Quakers, Jews, Sikhs, Baha’i, Humanists, and others. We were excited to get the invitation and collaborated to create and refine a programme, which was held in the main auditorium and strictly limited to 30 minutes.
We were presented on stage in groups, with a musical background and then performed a “coming together” exercise demonstrating unity. This was followed by a series of 1-minute talks by ten participants, including myself and Kate McColgan, the Chair of the Interfaith Council for Wales and also a church member. Topics included the importance of interfaith relations, unity, the need for peace, and things that inspire us individually.
I spoke about the need to avoid prejudice of any kind against God’s children and quoted some of President Nelson’s comments from his social post in 2020, including the statement: “The Creator of us all calls on each of us to abandon attitudes of prejudice against any group of God’s children. Any of us who has prejudice toward another race needs to repent!”
There followed a “meditation” experience to the sound of gongs, followed by a series of peace quotes on-screen. We then as a group lifted a banner saying, “We Have More in Common”, as a quote was displayed on screen from Jo Cox, the Humanist MP who died tragically in 2016: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us.”
It was an exciting experience and we were able to have the full name of the church mentioned several times. The presentation was well received by the audience and we hope to have more opportunities in the future.