{"id":3653,"date":"2020-04-01T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T17:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/?p=3653"},"modified":"2020-04-01T14:29:35","modified_gmt":"2020-04-01T19:29:35","slug":"religious-inclusivity-at-grace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/religious-inclusivity-at-grace\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious Inclusivity at Grace"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grace Church School\u00a0<\/span>students regularly attend bi-weekly chapel meetings where biblical texts are read and celebrated. Students have shared their affiliation with a God or religion in chapel meetings before, yet the vast majority of students and faculty are Christians and focus solely on that belief system, so akin to Grace’s Episcopalian values. Recently, students who identify with religions other than Christianity have expressed concern that Grace is somewhat exclusive in regard to other religions. According to the school\u2019s website, \u201c<\/span>We are an intentionally inclusive community where reverence for the dignity of each individual informs all aspects of school life. The Episcopal school tradition recognizes the unique, intrinsic worth of every human being, bestowed upon each by a loving God. In this spirit, we welcome, openly and with warmth, families of all faiths and no faith at all.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0Rania Challita \u201822\u00a0 affirmed that chapel can feel overwhelming for a non-Christian student: \u201cGrace says we are nondenominational, however, at chapel, we seem to only read from the Bible and it would be nice if we could also read from other religious texts too.\u201d Rania\u2019s family are Lebanese Catholics, but she does not follow Catholicism closely. She claims she doesn’t mind the Christian rituals that occur in chapel, however, a student who practices an alternate religion reacted differently.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked about her experience as a Jewish student at Grace Church, Charlotte Merrin \u201822 feels that, \u201cJudaism is not talked about as much as I would like at Grace.\u201d Despite the fact that there is quite a large Jewish population at Grace, many students agreed that the current anti-semetic behavior around the world isn\u2019t talked about enough within the student body.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mariema Tall shared her experience of being a Muslim at Grace: \u201cThere is definitely less representation for Muslims in the student body. I know there is a Jewish affinity group and the school is an Episcopalian organization, yet we don\u2019t talk about things that are happening in the Muslim community.\u201d In addition, Mariema suggested a way to make chapel more inclusive of other religions: \u201cI would appreciate it if we read from the Qu\u2019ran more often, or potentially talked about Muslim holidays in addition to Christian and Jewish holidays.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Reverend Hummel plays the essential role of religious and spiritual leader at Grace. Rev\u00a0 believes that the school \u201ccasts a wide net in the curriculum of philosophy and religion, and we try our best to make sure everyone is represented.\u201d Grace strives to maintain an Episcopalian identity, therefore chapel is necessary because it is an opportunity for everyone to come together as a community. Reverend Hummell believes that over the past 125 years at Grace, chapel has been the best way to foster this sense of community. In the future, it is unclear if reformation will indeed come to Grace in order to assure the inclusion of all students, Christian or otherwise. <\/span><\/p>\n

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Grace Church School\u00a0students regularly attend bi-weekly chapel meetings where biblical texts are read and celebrated. Students have shared their affiliation with a God or religion in chapel meetings before, yet… Continue reading “Religious Inclusivity at Grace”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":3657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,7],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-3653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions","category-school"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-WV","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Grace_Church_NYC_HDR-1200x565.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3658,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3653\/revisions\/3658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3653"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=3653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}