“All Humans Are Strangers—Almost Everywhere”: Reflections on Human Belonging 

Abstract

This chapter is an attempt to approach interfaith consciousness from the vantage point of personal lived experience. To this end, I give an autoethnographic account of living across cultures, countries and communities comprising diverse faith orientations. These lived experiences have formed and informed my interfaith awareness, which was nurtured over a lifetime of what I call ‘longing for belonging’. I complement this autoethnographic account with biblical reflections on home and homelessness and conclude that my own sense of ‘strangeness’ can lead to a deferential appraisal and appreciation of the perceived ‘foreignness’ of others. This implies extending intellectual hospitality to adherents and proponents of other faiths as a conduit for nurturing and propagating interfaith awareness and practice. The reason is simply this: on the face of it, everybody alive today is a stranger in this world—almost everywhere.

I don’t feel that I belong anywhere.

(Samīr Naqqāsh, 1938–2004, Arab–Jewish writer; cited in Snir, 2019, p. xii)

Introduction

This chapter is dedicated to the homeless, the drifter, the lonely, the awkward, the displaced, the uprooted, and the migrant. It is penned in the hope that the lessons drawn from the lived experiences I share and synthesize may in some small way facilitate and invigorate human collaboration on the big issues of our time, such as war/peace, un/sustainability, in/equity, in/sufficiency, in/equality, lack/excess, poverty/opulence, and climate chaos, among others. Herein, interfaith engagement can play a constructive role (Chia, 2016; Cornille, 2013). Collaborations across religious divides stand a better chance of being effective and sustainable if fellow humans are not threatened by other faiths but can rather recognize and esteem in each other “the irreducible, glorious dignity of difference” (Sacks, 2009, p. 42). To this end, the chapter may be most appropriately understood as a kind of manifesto for interfaith consciousness that grapples with the big issues of our era (Küng, 2009; Luetz & Nunn, 2023; Sacks, 2020; Singer, 2018). To advance its argument, the chapter draws on a talk that I gave some years ago to a group of listeners at the Crown Hotel in Lutwyche/Brisbane as part of a series of invited monthly talks convened by Theology on Tap¹ (Alexander & Ringma, 2021). The talk was announced to the public as follows:

Welcome to my colorful and confused world. We are five, between us we speak five languages. My wife was raised between Bolivia and Italy and spent extended periods of time in Mexico and Germany. I was raised in Sierra Leone, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia, plus extended periods of time in Singapore, United States of America (USA), Costa Rica, South Africa, Estonia, Bolivia, among others. Our most dreaded question: “Where are you from?” When we got married, we had to choose a ‘family name’ and opted for the Bolivian naming convention.² It seemed to make sense—or so we thought. In hindsight, I often wonder … we now have three different last names for the categories father, mother, and children. In synthesis, we are a blend of five, multiple backgrounds, multiple cultures, multiple languages, multiple last names. Are we confused enough? Come and find out. Hear a talk where the speaker tries to explain all this to himself. His talk includes biographical and biblical reflections on longing and belonging, home and homelessness. He also draws on findings from his Ph.D. research, which was about (you guessed it)—international migration.

This talk, which is reproduced below as delivered in 2018, forms the autoethnographic ‘data’ and center piece of this chapter (Section “The Talk (November 4, 2018): Autoethnographic Reflections on Longing and Belonging”) and is subsequently analyzed in light of its relevance for interfaith consciousness (Section “Discussion: Autoethnography and Interfaith Consciousness”). All social research is naturally subject to limitations (Bryman, 2016; Punch, 2014), and autoethnographic research is no exception (Adams et al., 2015, 2022). For this reason, Section “Limitations and Opportunities for Future Research” critically appraises the limitations of this autoethnographic discourse and sketches opportunities for future research. Finally, the chapter closes with a succinct concluding synthesis that takes stock of the study’s contribution to this nascent field of interfaith consciousness (Section “Conclusion”). To set the scene, the chapter opens with a discussion of autoethnographic research as a method.

Autoethnography as a Method for Interfaith Research

Expressed in simple language, autoethnography comprises three essential elements: ‘auto’ (self), ‘ethno’ (culture), and ‘graphy’ (writing). Simply put, research may be described as autoethnographic if it engages all three areas jointly (Ellis et al., 2011). According to Adams et al. (2022, p. 3), the focus on ‘auto’ “foregrounds the author’s personal experience and reflections” and may entail “intimate and vulnerable experiences that sometimes bring forth shame or sorrow.” The focus on ‘ethno’ “brings together the personal and the cultural” (p. 3) and may rely on “fieldwork in ‘natural settings’ [to] offer insights about issues and contexts that other research methods are unable to access” (p. 3). The focus on ‘graphy’ reflects writing and representation that may include “techniques of ‘showing’ and ‘telling’ to select, frame, organize, and represent experience” (p. 3) so that it may reveal a “vibrant story that revels in rich description” (p. 4).

In terms of its evolution, autoethnography may be most appropriately comprehended as a research method that evolved in the 1980s in response to the ontological, epistemological, and axiological limitations inherent in other research methods (Ellis & Bochner, 2000). More specifically, social researchers progressively recognized that “perception is reference dependent” (Kahneman, 2003, p. 1454). Just as every place of arrival is reached from some other place of departure (or stopover), every understanding is similarly attained and held in reference to other understandings. It is therefore by inference “impossible to arrive anywhere from nowhere” (Luetz & Nunn, 2020, pp. 295–296). This state of affairs in social research underscores the significance of context, lived experience, and storytelling for meaning-making.

As social scientists became progressively uncomfortable with the epistemology of positivism (as espoused by the natural/physical sciences), which is based on the premise that objective ‘truth’ exists independently in the world, waiting to be deductively ‘verified’ by impartial and detached scientists through hypothesis-testing, they reformed and reconceived new objectives and forms of social science inquiry (Luetz et al., 2020). This paradigmatic shift increasingly privileged the epistemology of constructivism, which is based on the premise that ‘truth’ about social matters is subjectively ‘constructed’ by people and must therefore be described qualitatively by locally immersed and socially conscious researchers through a process of inductive theory-generation (Bryman, 2016; Luetz et al., 2020; Punch, 2014). In short, truth and knowledge are “contingent on describing activities of human beings” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 747). Social researchers do not find this state of play unusual or troubling (Bryman, 2016; Punch, 2014). Viewed from a pragmatist philosophical vantage point, epistemological differences between the physical/hard sciences and the social/soft sciences are not issues or problems to be resolved but simply paradigmatic and disciplinary dissimilarities to be lived with (Chen & Luetz, 2020).

Although sometimes circumscribed by different terms (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, pp. 739–743), autoethnography has become over recent years an increasingly popular methodological framework for in-depth qualitative social research (Adams et al., 2015, 2022). There are several reasons for this rise in popularity:

• (1) Autoethnography expressly welcomes “stories and storytelling as ways of knowing” (Adams et al., 2015, p. 10);

• (2) it conjoins and balances “intellectual and methodological rigor, emotion, and creativity” (Adams et al., 2015, p. 2);

• (3) it invites perspectives that “deepen our capacity to empathize with people who are different from us” (Ellis et al., 2011, para. 3);

• (4) it “bridges the scientific with the affective” (Morsi, 2022, p. 507); and

• (5) it is suited to overcome the limitations inherent in canonical research in respect of studying race, gender, sexuality, age, ability, class, education, and/or religion (Clifton, 2014; Ellis et al., 2011; Morsi, 2022).

As such, autoethnography is abundantly suited for interfaith research (Dreistadt, 2022) and typically reflects the following characteristics: The writing is in the first person, resembles a story, is personal, privileges depth over breadth, and is evocative (Jenks, 2021, p. 151). While canonical research beholds “from the outside”, autoethnography contemplates “from the inside” (Bochner, 2017, p. 69). Therefore, “fieldwork necessarily includes the observer” (Bochner, 2017, pp. 69–70) and assumes “that the knower is implicated in every knowledge claim.” Stories thereby become the central autoethnographic ‘data’ for meaning-making:

The usefulness of these stories is their capacity to inspire conversation from the point of view of the readers, who … enter empathetically into worlds of experience different from their own, and actively engage in dialogue regarding the social and moral implications of the different perspectives and standpoints encountered. Invited to take the story in and use it for themselves, readers become coperformers, examining themselves through the evocative power of the narrative text. (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 748)

In short, autoethnography employs storytelling for the purpose of meaning-making (Adams et al., 2015). In the process, it uses “photographs, journals, and recordings” (Ellis et al., 2011; Herrmann, 2005) and “turns life into language” (Bochner, 2017, p. 73). Importantly, aiming to propagate participant or protagonist perspectives that are both “socially-just and socially-conscious” (Ellis et al., 2011, para. 1), autoethnography is cognisant of deferential representation and relational ethics of care (Ellis, 2007, 2017; Luetz, 2019a). True to the maxim “nothing about us, without us” (Charlton, 2000, p. 1), autoethnography is intentional about being inclusive, about “consulting the unconsulted” (Luetz et al., 2019, p. 120), and about giving voice and visualization to hidden, voiceless, and/or marginalized individuals or communities (Adams & Holman Jones, 2008; Clifton, 2014).

With these traits and propensities, autoethnography is suited to frame my narrative as a self-confessed “misfit”. My story is heard next. It intersects with the stories of selected contemporaries who have informed my narrative as fellow migrants and willing research participants. These stories are told in the hope that they may inspire interfaith mindfulness and offer the reader a kind of human companionship. Ellis (2007, p. 26) has characterized this as follows: “Writing difficult stories is a gift to self, a reflexive attempt to construct meaning in our lives and heal or grow from our pain … our stories potentially offer readers companionship when they desperately need it.”

The perspectives presented in this chapter were derived from years of detailed journaling, field notation, and the systematic collection of data that were analyzed as part of university-sponsored field research (Luetz, 2013). This chapter reports selected research approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Advisory Panel B for the Arts, Humanities and Law (Ref. No. 10 121). Research participants gave their consent to being quoted by name and having their photos depicted.

The Talk (November 4, 2018): Autoethnographic Reflections on Longing and Belonging

Good afternoon! Abraham Lincoln famously said: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt” (Shapiro, 2006/1931, p. 466). It is a tempting prospect indeed to remain silent, close my talk here, sit down, and be thought a fool. This may indeed be preferable to continuing my speech and removing all doubt. Even so, while I contemplate this enticing option, I wish to acknowledge my lovely family, who are here with me today, and who are at least partially to blame—and to thank—for the wonderful potpourri of color and confusion that will be laid bare over the coming thirty minutes—my wife Wendy, and my children Noah, Daniel, and Aurora.

This talk has three parts. Part 1 will present some biographical reflections on my search for belonging and my perceived sense of rootlessness and homelessness in this world. Part 2 will present some examples from my Ph.D. research about displaced people in parts of the world. Part 3 will present selected biblical passages and reflections on home and homelessness, longing and belonging.

Part 1: Biographical Reflections: Growing Up Among Worlds

Welcome to Part 1, where all will be laid bare about my wonderfully or woefully colorful and confused world—well, maybe not quite all. Between us in our family of five, we speak five languages, English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swiss. If you think Swiss isn’t a language, just wait until this talk has progressed enough to address my challenges of adjusting to life in Switzerland. Well, and then there is now also a sixth language spoken in my family, the delightful ‘baby-babble’ of my lovely one-year-old daughter—perhaps some of you have also come across this language?

My wife was raised between Bolivia and Italy and spent extended periods of time in Mexico and Germany. I was raised in Sierra Leone, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia, and then spent extended periods of time in USA, Costa Rica, Estonia, South Africa, Singapore, Bolivia, and Israel. Our most dreaded question is: “Where are you from?” I am now [harrumph] years old. During this lifetime, I have lived on six continents. The one continent where I haven’t lived is Antarctica, and I don’t intend to. Moreover, I have also travelled to sixty-nine countries, and I have lived in twelve. Incidentally, this number may go up from twelve to thirteen if we were to count the West Bank in Palestine as a separate country from Israel—but now it gets political and protracted—and Part 1 of my talk is not about Israel and Palestine but about my own biography, which has caused me to feel profoundly lost and homeless in this world.

Recently I attempted counting the number of times I have had to move house. This was a difficult exercise. I counted around fifty addresses where I have lived over the short period of my [harrumph] years. Over the course of my life, I have met few people with such a level of rootlessness. Except perhaps my wife, who has also lived on four continents, has travelled to twenty-six countries, and has had to move a total of forty-one times. I think it is true to say that while both of us feel profoundly homeless, we have been blessed to have found a home in each other. As so-called “Third-Culture Kids” (TCKs) (What is a TCK?, 2022), we have had similar experiences. According to Pollock et al. (2017), the concept ‘third culture’ can be understood as a new kind of interstitial space between the home culture or passport culture (‘first culture’) of the parents, and the host culture (‘second culture’), into which the family has moved. Accordingly, the term ‘third culture’ then refers to a new kind of neither/nor cultural world: “a way of life that is neither like the lives of those living back in the home culture nor like the lives of those in the local community, but is a lifestyle with many common experiences shared by others living in a similar way” (Pollock et al., 2017, p. 17). This acculturation is acquired during childhood, which is why the conceptualization was initially coined to apply to children—TCKs—although this acquired identity endures into adulthood. According to Pollock et al. (2017):

A Third Culture Kid (TCK) is a person who has spent a significant part of his or her developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The TCK frequently builds relationships to all of the cultures, while not having full ownership in any. Although elements from each culture may be assimilated into the TCK’s life experience, the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar background (pp. 15–16).

In short, you know you’re a TCK when the question “where are you from?” has multiple reasonable answers. Do they mean my passport country? Or where I live now? Or where I was born? Or where I lived the most years? Or where I feel most at home?

You know you’re a TCK when you flew before you could walk. In my case, I was born in Berlin, Germany, and I was five weeks old when my parents packed up and moved to West Africa to live and work as missionaries ‘in the bush’ (no electricity or running water) in the beautiful country of Sierra Leone.

You know you’re a TCK when you feel odd being part of an ethnic majority. In my case, I was nearly seven years old when my parents moved from Sierra Leone to Switzerland, where for the first time in my life I no longer stood out as having a different skin color, and yet for the first years, I felt completely strange and out of step with everything around me. Even though we ‘blended in’ with respect to looks and skin color, as German and Krio speakers we couldn’t understand a word of Swiss—until eventually we became fluent and could fool even the Swiss as being ‘one of them’.

You know you’re a TCK when you feel like a stranger in your ‘home’ country. In my case, I was fourteen when my parents told us children that we were moving again from Switzerland and were now going ‘home’ to Germany, a country where I had never lived. Now I felt even more out of step, because although I had never lived in Germany, presumably I was now ‘home’. Being ‘German’ by passport, looks, and language, of course people expected me to play the part and frowned, sighed, laughed, or gasped when I couldn’t.

Finally, you know you’re a TCK when your life story uses the phrase, “Then we moved to …” three, four or five times. I was seventeen when I moved yet again from Germany, this time to live in Australia for one year as an exchange student with friends and church members of well-known social justice advocates Rev. Tim and Merridie Costello. The year in Australia was life-changing in that it kindled my faith in God. At the same time, it also sealed my fate as someone who had lost any sense of belonging to one place. Years of travelling the world with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) later on, did not make matters any easier.

If you’re not feeling exhausted yet listening to all this, I am! Even so, there may perhaps be a redeeming element to so much movement, as Mark Twain famously quipped: “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it solely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men [women] and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” (Twain, 1869, Conclusion, para. 3).

Who would be able to put up with so much culture, color, complexity, changeability, and confusion? Who would comprehend all of this, if not someone with a similar life background? And so, it is true in my lived experience that TCKs only ever feel truly at ‘home’ when they find themselves in the company of other people with a similar ‘cultural’ background, that is, people who understand that there are multiple valid perspectives or ways of doing things.

When we got married, Wendy and I had to choose a family name and opted for the Bolivian naming convention. It seemed to make sense—or so we thought. In hindsight, I often wonder. We now have three different last names for the categories father, mother, and children. I cannot tell you how often a confused doctor gasps, “wow”, when we present our Medicare card depicting our three different last names! Or imagine booking a flight and travelling together as a family and stressing to the travel agent to be “aware of the names!” In synthesis, we are a blend of five, multiple backgrounds, multiple cultures, multiple languages, and multiple last names.

In mentioning our three different family names, I am not even counting the variant spellings of my German surname ‘Lütz’. When I first opened a bank account in the United States, the clerk replaced ‘ü’ with ‘u’, thus evolving my surname to ‘Lutz’. This easily solved his problem that day as he did not have the key ‘ü’ anywhere on his computer keyboard. One can easily guess how this minor innovation of my name caused me trickle-down trouble whenever I needed to verify my identity in subsequent visits to the bank (“Sorry bro, your name there is different from the account holder”). Years later, living in Australia, my surname ‘Lütz’ was alternatively changed to ‘Luetz’ in official documents (“Sorry mate, we don’t do Umlauts Down Under”). All those interested to discover more about German Umlaut usage may revel in the research literature (e.g., Chapman, 1994; Wiese, 1996). All others may agree with Mark Twain, who is well-known for his beef with the German language, once jibing that it must surely be the language spoken in heaven as it takes no less than an eternity to learn. In one of his notebook entries (July 29, 1878), he remarked: “Never knew before what Eternity was made for. It is to give some of us a chance to learn German.” (Twain 1878/1975, p. 121). Elsewhere, he observed:

My philological studies have satisfied me that a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing), in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years. It seems manifest, then, that the latter tongue ought to be trimmed down and repaired. If it is to remain as it is, it ought to be gently and reverently set aside among the dead languages, for only the dead have time to learn it. (Twain, 1880, p. 618)

On another occasion, Twain commented on his stay in Berlin in 1891–1892: “Berlin is a wonderful city … They teach everything here. I don’t believe there is anything in the whole earth that you can’t learn in Berlin except the German language.” (Twain, 1935, p. 219). If it is true, as Twain asserts, that German is exceedingly difficult to learn, then Wendy can be forgiven for not acquiring perfect mastery of it while she lived—and we met—in Berlin.

The peculiar thing is that Wendy and I don’t even share a robust proficiency in any one language that we use in common. My strong languages are German and English. Her strong languages are Spanish and Italian. Her German? So-so. I will probably give her a “satisfactory!” My Spanish? So-so. She will probably give me a “satisfactory!” And sometimes the inability to speak the same languages well has been frustrating, even exasperating. Even so, at the heart level, there is a depth of understanding that transcends language.

Of course, we’ve practiced each other’s languages. What could be worse than studying each other’s languages and yet not understanding them perfectly? I can tell you what’s worse than studying each other’s languages and still not understanding each other perfectly. Not studying these languages, and perfectly misunderstanding each other! Or think of couples you know where a profound lack of comprehension may arise occasionally despite being able to speak the same language fluently.

So, then, there we have it: A German who speaks German, English, Swiss—and has a working knowledge of Spanish and French—and who has previously lived as a child in Sierra Leone, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Germany, plus extended periods of time as an adult in USA, Costa Rica, Estonia, South Africa, Singapore, Bolivia, and Israel, and now finds himself living in Australia … and … a lovely Latina from Bolivia who speaks Spanish and Italian—and has a working knowledge of German and English—and who has previously lived in Bolivia, Italy, Mexico, and Germany, and now finds herself living in Australia … and … our three lovely kids, who have visited their grandparents twice in Germany and twice in Bolivia, and are now being raised in Australia as trilingual children in the beautifully sui generis “fair dinkum bonza mate” Aussie lifestyle!

So then, are we confused enough? Rather probably so, some of you may be thinking. And is this a recipe for a perfect family or for a perfect storm? Before you reach your verdict, please allow me to progress to Part 2 of my talk, where I tell you a few stories from my Ph.D. field research, which I conducted in Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Bangladesh, India, Maldives and the Philippines.

Part 2: Perspectives from Ph.D. Research: Migration as Adaptation to Change

My research was covered a few years ago by ABC Radio National, the Science Show (ABC, 2013). For the purposes of this talk, may it suffice that my Ph.D. focused on people made homeless by the adverse impacts of climate change; people who find themselves looking for a new home and belonging; people who more often than not find themselves in very difficult situations and insecure places.

In Bolivia, we went to the Chaco, a region ravaged by years of terrible drought. Scientists claim that climate change is increasingly implicated in droughts, intensifying evaporation and evapotranspiration as rising temperatures suck up more and more moisture from the drying ground, rendering agricultural practices more and more challenging (Díaz et al., 2010; Vicente‐Serrano et al., 2015). As a result, thousands of smallholder farmers are migrating to cities, looking for work and a new lease on life. More often than not, they are overwhelmed by the difficulties they encounter there as they search for a new sense of belonging (Luetz, 2013, pp. 89–166).

Let me share about Doña Candida, who I met in her small rural village of El Cruze (Fig. 16.1). She shared with me the difficulties that the drought had presented in her village, and how she had to leave her children in the village in the care of relatives while she went looking for work in the city of Santa Cruz, only to return again eight months later when she could no longer bear the pain of separation from her children. She said:

We left in March or April and returned in December. We left the children in the care of an uncle. My husband worked in the sugarcane harvest, I worked as a domestic worker. The work was hard. We were unable to save anything because we used up the earnings. We would prefer to stay here in El Cruce – if there were rains. But here there is nothing … right now we have nothing, no maize, nothing to sow … And the rains don’t come like in the past. Dwindling agricultural yields is the number one reason why people migrate. Separating … from the community was very difficult … I came back twice to see my children … if I could have seen my children more often, like every two weeks, it would have been easier. This experience taught me it is better to stay … I really don’t want to go anymore, no matter what! (Doña Cándida, cited in Luetz, 2013, pp. 153–154; cf. Luetz & Barrón Pinto, 2012, p. 52).

Fig. 16.1

At the home of Doña Cándida (pictured in Luetz, 2013, p. 154) in the Bolivian village El Cruce (photo by author)

I heard dozens of very similar accounts that were underpinned by many abandoned village houses (Fig. 16.2). A background video documentary on aspects of the Bolivia field research was published by the University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) on June 13, 2011 and elaborates pertinent issues (UNSW-TV, 2011).

Fig. 16.2

Abandoned houses in out-migration affected Guaraní communities visited during field research in Bolivia’s Gran Chaco region (photos by author; Luetz, 2013, p. 98)

There is more that can and should be said about my time with these precious informants, but time constrains me to move on from Bolivia to Bangladesh, to tell you of other encounters.

In Bangladesh, we went to Bhola, the country’s biggest island. Thousands of islanders are progressively uprooted from their land as erosion eats away the very land underneath their feet. A background video documentary on aspects of my Bangladesh field research was published by UNSW Sydney on February 18, 2015 and is publicly available (UNSW-TV, 2015).

Scientists say that climate change is implicated in the cyclones and erosion problems afflicting coastal communities in Bangladesh (Agarwal et al., 2023; Luetz, 2018; Luetz & Sultana, 2019; Sultana & Luetz, 2022). Many of the communities I visited in 2011 no longer exist, having disappeared on account of erosion and land loss. One field research site was geotagged in 2011 and shows that the place where interviews took place in 2011 has since disappeared due to coastal erosion.³ As a result of land loss, thousands migrate to the cities, including Bangladesh’s megacities, Dhaka and Chittagong (Figs. 16.3, 16.4, 16.5 and 16.6). Most migrants end up in informal settlements, where they crowd together with millions of other urban poor who share a similar fate. According to a World Bank study, between 1,000 and 2,000 new migrants arrive each day. Although they are very capable survivors, migrants are often forced to put up with appalling and subhuman conditions, chiefly because they have no alternative options (Muriel, 2012; World Bank, 2007, pp. xi, xiii; cf. Luetz, 2018). Having grown by more than 700,000 people in 2022, Dhaka’s 2023 population is estimated at more than 23 million (UN World Urbanization Prospects, n.d.).

Fig. 16.3

Bangladesh on the move; rickshaws in Dhaka. Many migrants arrive in Dhaka and Chittagong, Bangladesh’s largest cities (photo by author)

Fig. 16.4

With more than 23,000 people per km² (UN World Urbanization Prospects, n.d.), Dhaka is one of the most densely settled conglomerates in the world (photo by author)

Fig. 16.5

Urban sprawl; Dhaka and Chittagong abound with both formal and informal human settlements (photo by author)

Fig. 16.6

Informal settlement in Dhaka. Dozens of migrants warmly welcomed me into their new neighborhoods and homes, expressing heartfelt hospitality (photo by author)

In one of these slums, I met Khaleda Begum with her baby (pictured in Luetz, 2013, p. 191). She described to me the hardships of living in a Chittagong slum and explained why she had migrated. She said:

Everybody in this slum is a migrant, many from Barisal, most are here because of floods or cyclones. Rent in the slum is expensive. One room is 2,200 Taka,⁴ two rooms are 4,000 Taka. I migrated from Bhola where multiple villages disappeared due to erosion. The main reason I migrated is erosion. (Khaleda Begum, cited in Luetz, 2013, p. 190; cf. Luetz, 2018, p. 78)

In the same slum, I also met Hanufa Sheik with her family (pictured in Luetz, 2013, p. 192). She described livelihood loss following Cyclone Sidr in 2007 as the tipping point that triggered her migration. She said:

Three years ago, I came here with my husband and family. Cyclone Sidr destroyed all household and other properties. At that time, we had no income opportunity there and so we moved here. After Cyclone Sidr, we stayed on for one more year. It was a struggle period. Then we moved. We moved when there was nothing to earn, when we felt completely helpless. This was the tipping point. (Hanufa Sheik, cited in Luetz, 2013, p. 191; cf. Luetz, 2018, p. 79)

What do these stories have in common? Three things: First, climate change adds to the heavy burdens many people are already carrying. Second, the migrants are very capable survivors and have a profound sense of agency. Third, the protagonists are all characterized by a strong longing for belonging. And yet, there is a huge difference in “capability”; this is a well-known concept in development studies (Luetz et al., 2019; Sen, 1999). For example, “an affluent person who fasts may have the same functioning achievement in terms of eating … as a destitute person who is forced to starve, but the first person does have a different ‘capability set’ than the second (the first can choose to eat well and be nourished in a way the second cannot)” (Morrison, 2009, p. 242; attributed to Sen, 1999). Expressed in simple language, not all migrants have the same capabilities. As colorful and confused as my own family background may be, we have had more choice about where and how to live than millions of poor migrants whose only option is to eke out a living in a slum.

In one Chittagong slum, I received a tap on the shoulder by a man who said that the garment factory where he was working produced the brand of jeans I was wearing that day. This was most interesting to me. I had bought the blue jeans at a well-known Australian department store. You would all know it. And the brand was a popular label. Despite having been on sale at the time of purchase in Sydney, with the price reduced by about fifty percent, my pair of blue jeans had still not been cheap to buy. When I questioned him, the man revealed that he was earning the equivalent of two to three dollars per day. He was essentially living and working in slave-like conditions.⁵ In short, not all migrants have the same capabilities, options, and choices.

Before closing my talk with biblical reflections, let me recap. Part 1 seemed to conclude that my family is feeling rather homeless in this world, longing for a home, which we have found, in part, in each other. Part 2 seemed to suggest that there are millions of other migrants in the world who similarly yearn for a ‘home’, but most of them do not have the capability to choose how and where to settle. And chances are, that there are also people in this room today who may still be longing and looking to find their true home.

Part 3: Biblical Reflections on Longing and Belonging, Home and Homelessness

Let’s listen to the Bible. It is replete with examples of people on the move. People who felt out of step. People who lived as strangers, even though they were seemingly in the centre of God’s will. Let’s note some examples. For instance, there is Abraham, of whom it is said that he lived like a stranger:

By faith Abraham made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God (Heb. 11:9–10).

Note that Abraham lived “like a stranger in a foreign country”, even though he was in fact “in the promised land” itself. Two verses later the passage talks about Abraham and “countless” others who were all living as aliens and strangers on earth. It says,

All these people … admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them (Heb. 11:13–16).

Moving to the New Testament, let’s remember that Jesus’ own mother Mary, “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). This is how Christ’s life on earth began: as one who was de facto without permanent abode from birth. At the end of his life, hours before his death, Christ reiterated his earthly “homelessness” status before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, saying: “My kingdom is not from this world” (John 18:36). In other words: “My home is somewhere else.”

In short, from the time of his birth, through to the time of his death, Christ reportedly lived as a stranger on earth, variously affirming that he was de facto anchorless on earth. One time he said it like this, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). It seems, Christ was acutely aware that his true home was elsewhere. Philippians 3:20 is even more explicit, emphatically stressing that our citizenship is not here on earth. It says, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20).

The Book of Revelation expands on this heavenly citizenship, as the Apostle John recounts his heavenly vision: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (Rev. 7:9; emphasis added). Here the Bible paints a picture wherein heaven is apparently full of all sorts of homeless earthlings, people who come from every nation, tribe, people group, and language, whose earthly longing will give way to heavenly belonging, whose homelessness will be exchanged with an eternal home of glory in the presence of the Creator of the universe. Importantly, in this context, the word ‘nation’ does not signify political nation, but rather ethne, or ‘ethnic’ people group, which includes groups of so-called ‘First Nations’ and First Peoples’. Hence, Australians will not be present chiefly as people from the one political nation of this Great Southland of Australia, but rather from “hundreds of groups that have their own distinct set of languages, histories and cultural traditions” (AIHW, 2023, para. 1; Horton, 1996). Heaven is inclusive—migrants are welcome, refugees are wanted, Indigenous Peoples are esteemed.

So then, where does this leave us? We live on earth, but our home is in heaven? How can we make sense of it? I think we need to take care that we maintain balance, lest we become so heavenly minded as to be of no earthly good. Just like riding a horse, we can fall off to the left or to the right. So, we need to take care that we are sufficiently balanced to be ‘salt and light’ on earth, and yet at the same time sufficiently heavenly minded to remember that we are all temporary residents here, earthly sojourners, merely passing through, en route to a different and final eternal dwelling place.

Six weeks ago, a For Sale sign was erected outside our rental property. Having only lived in the house for less than a year, the looming prospect of being forced out and moving—yet again—has driven us to tears and to prayer. For all those of us, who find themselves longing for belonging, who yearn for a home in place of homelessness, may you—may we—find hope in the words of Jesus, who comforted his disciples with the following words: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?” (John 14:1–2).

Discussion: Autoethnography and Interfaith Consciousness

Considering the above autoethnographic account with its gesture towards theological meaning-making, this section now seeks to offer some critical synthesis. Part 1 presented my self-perceived homelessness, along with the longing for belonging, which I found, in part, in my family. Part 2 presented the perspectives of selected migrants in countries of the developing world who expressed similar sentiments of yearning for a home, albeit many admitted feeling constrained in their capability to choose how and where to settle. Part 3 assembled selected biblical scriptures to remind the reader that the experience of human homelessness is in some way the normal and normative human experience—it is the central theme of some of the greatest literary and religious writings, including, for example, the Old Testament, Homer’s Odyssey (eighth century BCE), St Augustine’s City of God (c. 413–426), Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1320), John Milton’s Paradise Lost (c. 1658–1663), and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (c. 1678), among others (Mangalwadi, 2012). In short, the autoethnographic talk may be synthesized as reflecting the timeless human yearning for a home as experienced by myself (Part 1), other migrants (Part 2), and other humans since time immemorial (Part 3).

Set against this background, this section will develop three arguments for interfaith disposition. These arguments are drawn from the storytelling above and will be elucidated below. Thereafter, the discussion will note some limitations in respect of autoethnographic research, whereafter the chapter will close with a succinct concluding synthesis that recapitulates its contribution to the nascent field of interfaith consciousness.

The first argument for interfaith disposition is simply that based on current global demographic trends it makes a lot of sense to engage in this area. There are a lot of people on the move (Khanna, 2021). Today there are more people living outside their countries of origin (and frequently among people of faith orientations that are different from their own) than ever before in human history (Olusoga et al., 2022). According to the World Migration Report 2022 of the International Organization for Migration (IOM, 2021), global human mobility has risen from 153 million migrants in 1990, to 281 million in 2020. Even adjusting for population growth and the onset of COVID-19, which the report acknowledges as “a truly seismic event” (IOM, 2021, p. 2), global human mobility remains on an unbroken upward trajectory. Approximately one in thirty humans alive today are international migrants (281 million in 2020). This is in addition to the eighty-nine million refugees, asylum seekers, and IDPs⁶ who were living in displacement in 2020 (IOM, 2021). More recently, UNHCR (2022) has estimated the number of forcibly displaced people around the world to have increased to “more than 100 million” (para. 2). In short: “Never before has there been so much human movement” (Mehta, 2019, p. 6).

Aside from the staggering scale of individual human suffering and yearning for a home that is masked by such dispassionate statistics, there are additional millions of people who are not even captured by such reporting, such as the forced migrants whose stories are told in Section “The Talk (November 4, 2018): Autoethnographic Reflections on Longing and Belonging” above. Looking to the future, there is now also the looming prospect of growing environment-related and climate-linked forced human migration, which can be hard to fathom, both conceptually and in terms of likely scale (Luetz & Merson, 2019). Forecasts of future ‘climate refugees’ stretch to 1 billion people at the upper end (Luetz, 2019a, 2019b). In synthesis, there is an argument that based on current global demographic and mobility trends it makes a lot of sense to promote initiatives that foster interfaith understanding among a global and globalising populace that is progressively migrating and dispersed (Duderija & Rane, 2019; Khanna, 2021; Mehta, 2019; Olusoga et al., 2022).

The second argument for interfaith disposition is related to the first and is underpinned by current global environmental and climatic trends. In short, planetary-scale problems make interfaith disposition an increasingly inescapable imperative—at least if viewed from the premise that multiple billions of humans will continue living together on planet Earth in the context of a fast-depleting non-renewable resource base (Dalai Lama, 2020; Kates & DeSteno, 2021). As planetary boundaries are overstepped and human-induced global warming continues unchecked, so do increases in extreme weather events, droughts, floods, heat stress, bushfire risk, human health problems, and rises in the impacts of disasters, among others (Luetz & Leo, 2021; Richardson et al., 2023). If past gains in biodiversity are to be comprehended as ‘creation’—as held by religions all over the world (Leeming, 1995) —then correspondingly current biodiversity losses may be understood as “decreation”, a term used by McKibben (2005, p. 8) to denote the undoing of “the natural order we found on this earth.”

In 2019 the United Nations warned (IPBES, 2019) that “Humans are driving one million species to extinction” (Tollefson, 2019, p. 171) in what is known among scientists as the sixth and most devastating extinction event in the Earth’s history (Kolbert, 2014). In this context, it seems self-evident that the gargantuan challenges facing humanity today can be overcome only if humans from diverse religious backgrounds and faith traditions can meaningfully collaborate in support of human rights, reconciliation, sustainability, justice, and peace (Kärkkäinen, 2013; Luetz & Nunn, 2023). Rabbi David Rosen, who is known for his efforts to promote reconciliation between the three Abrahamic faiths, posited, “whether it’s environmental issues, global warming, or whether it’s terrorism and violence … we are so linked today that we either manage to live together, or we basically have no tomorrow, and no future for our children and grandchildren” (cited in Kirkwood, 2007, p. 105). In synthesis, the second argument for interfaith disposition is nurtured by the building scale and urgency of the global crises of our era. If humans wish to continue populating this planet by the billions, they have no choice but to collaborate across religious and ideological divides. In this sense, human survival is predicated on interfaith consciousness, widely shared.

The third argument for interfaith disposition is based on the premise that the experience of human homelessness is, in some way, the normal and normative human experience. All humans are in some way strangers on earth who yearn for a home. Their joint ‘strangeness’ unifies them and holds important implications for their capacity to welcome other strangers and offer them hospitality, both practically and intellectually. This idea will now be briefly presented.

There are at least two ways in which all humans can be said to be strangers who do not fully belong. First, all humans are strangers in the sense that their belonging is spatially delimited. This means that even individuals who express that they fully belong in situ are by inference strangers ex situ, namely everywhere else. Stated differently, on the face of it, all humans are strangers in this world—almost everywhere. The simple act of traveling can remind humans that in most places they are strangers, not natives. Thus, traveling can be profoundly formative (Nelson & Luetz, 2021) because “much of who we are is where we have been” (Langewiesche, 2011, p. 60). Travel promotes broadmindedness and may function as a quintessential antidote to human ignorance—when humans are and remain unaware of their unawareness (“I don’t know that I don’t know”). Second, all humans are strangers in the sense that their belonging is temporally delimited. This means that even humans who express that they fully belong in situ will admit—if they are honest—that they are strangers in light of their temporality and transience. Stated differently, human mortality limits any sense of belonging in situ to a temporary state, wherefore all humans may be conceived as temporary residents rather than true permanent belongers.

Cultivating an awareness of the universality of human ‘strangeness’ has important implications for interfaith consciousness. Self-aware strangers tend to be inquisitive and teachable. Self-aware strangers tend to recognize that they have much to learn and are ready to listen. Self-aware strangers are more often than not students of life rather than lecturers of it. They tend to listen, learn, and add to their learning. In short, embracing the dispositions of a stranger can be conducive to cultivating inquiry, curiosity, learning, and ultimately, humility. Relatedly, strangers are typically needy and thus more readily prepared to offer and receive hospitality, both practically and intellectually; this informs their capacity to act as intellectual hosts and guests and holds important ramifications for interfaith interactions. Cornille (2013, p. 20) has referred to this human capability as “epistemological humility” and “hospitality towards the truth of the other.” Conceptualizing the idea of “intellectual hospitality”, Stephens (2021) has cast hospitality as a scripture-shaped⁷ appeal to love and welcome the stranger: “The application of hospitality to the domain of thinking involves conceiving of other minds as strangers to whom we can offer welcome as guests. Their membership at the table is not predicated on their ideas, but on their common unity with us” (p. 39) as fellow strangers. Hence, hospitality is not based on agreement but rather on relationship and genuine intellectual generosity; “intellectual hospitality deliberately seeks to think with those whom we disagree, just as we might eat with those whom we do not know” (p. 40). It conceives of listening not as an act of agreement or endorsement but as an essential element of loving and welcoming the stranger, wherein genuine “welcome” goes well beyond mere tolerance or agreeing to disagree agreeably:

one cannot critique a position one does not understand, … the best kind of understanding is to first articulate my guest’s perspective in their own dialect and to their satisfaction. A theological ethic of intellectual hospitality posits that if one cannot discern the logic of an alternative position, indeed if one cannot appreciate and articulate why an idea is persuasive and compelling to our guest, then we have not truly welcomed them to the intellectual table. (Stephens, 2021, p. 40)

Duderija (2017) has singled out intellectual hospitality as “the most critical or sole sufficient condition for constructive [interfaith] dialogue” (p. 313). In synthesis, the third argument for interfaith disposition is based on the premise that all humans are in some way joint strangers who find themselves assembled around a kind of buffet table, both offering and savoring dishes of diverse religious nourishment. Their common “strangeness” enables them to assume both the roles of intellectual hosts and guests (givers and receivers) with ease, while their intellectual hospitality moderates dogmatic “critique, refutation, and dispute” (Gallagher, 2007, p. 137). In this panorama, all humans are inherently strangers in time and space and, therefore, inherently capable of welcoming—and being welcomed by—other fellow strangers and sojourning companions (Cornille, 2013; Siddiqui, 2015). Crucially, to be able to offer true intellectual hospitality to others, human strangers must also be self-aware of their own ‘stranger’ status as conceptualized above.

Further to this universal sense of human homelessness, wherein all people can be conceived as ‘strangers’ who do not fully belong spatially or temporally, anthropologic consciousness of transience may also point to the possibility of transcendence and otherworldly belonging. The Jewish people were dispersed for millennia, but it only made their sense of identity stronger (Gilbert, 2010; Greenspoon, 2019; Hodes, 2019). Their experience of exile was a constant reminder of a transcendent yearning for a true home beyond the border of history and geography (Berg, 1996; Elimelekh, 2013; Snir, 2019). This is affirmed by countless returning Jewish exiles who upon coming ‘home’ to the earthly state of Israel affirmed an overwhelming sense of lingering strangeness and homelessness (Berg, 1996; Greenspoon, 2019). The Arab–Jewish writer Samīr Naqqāsh (1938–2004) made no secret of his feeling profoundly estranged in his new ‘homeland’ Israel following his emigration from Iraq: “I don’t consider myself as belonging to any one place or society ever since circumstances uprooted me from Iraq and these same circumstances refused to replant these roots in Israel” (cited in Elimelekh, 2013, p. 69). Snir (2019, p. xii) quotes him as having bluntly lamented, “I don’t feel that I belong anywhere.” Sentiments of non-belonging are widely reported in the literature by many returning exiles (Berg, 1996). For example, Jewish returnees from India were reportedly so disillusioned by what they found in Israel that they returned to India, only to find that they did not really belong there anymore either, thus resulting in a kind of circular migration from India to Israel, back again to India, and back once more to Israel (Hodes, 2019). Concordantly, Wuthnow (2000) conceptualizes spiritual belonging not as ‘a place’ but rather ‘a journey’ where faith and migration go hand-in-hand.

Human yearning for transcendent belonging is also reflected in the traditional Jewish way of saying goodbye: “Next year in Jerusalem”. Although L’Shana Haba’ah B’Yerushalayim (Hebrew: לשנה הבאה בירושלים), literally “Next year in Jerusalem,” evokes memories of living in exile, it also expresses the timeless hope of eventual homecoming (Berg, 1996, p. 11)—but it is always the same, always ‘next year’, because the true Jerusalem is ideational, spiritual, and eschatological (Greenspoon, 2019). This understanding of ‘home’ embodying transcendental or even eternal qualities resonates with biblical wisdom literature that affirms God “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecc. 3:11). The British academic and lay theologian C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) expressed it like this:

Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others to do the same. (Lewis, 1952/1996, pp. 120–121)

In other words, if there exists in humans a widespread longing for belonging and yearning for a home, as experienced by myself (Part 1), other migrants (Part 2), and all humans (Part 3), then according to Lewis’ logic, there will also be a corresponding home to satisfy this longing. The seeds of this possibility of otherworldly human belonging are lodged in the Latin etymology of the word ‘stranger’ (lat. extraneus), which literally means, ‘of external/outside belonging’.

Limitations and Opportunities for Future Research

It is appropriate to critically acknowledge some limitations in respect of autoethnographic research. As noted above (Section “Autoethnography as a Method for Interfaith Research”), autoethnography emerged around the 1980s in response to the perceived limitations inherent in canonical research (Bochner, 2017; Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Rather than considering the researcher as an impartial ‘outsider looking in’, autoethnography perceives the investigator as a personally invested and immersed ‘insider looking around’. Through reporting personal experiences of culture/s from within and over time “the researcher becomes the research subject” (Pinner, 2018, p. 97). This unique author positionality also distinguishes autoethnography from autobiography (Ellis et al., 2011). Furthermore, it ascribes social research in general, and autoethnography in particular, a well-known subjective coloration (Chen & Luetz, 2020). This can open it up to criticisms of being “too artful and not scientific, or too scientific and not sufficiently artful” (Ellis et al., 2011, para. 36) or make it vulnerable to being dismissed as “nonanalytic, self-indulgent, irreverent, sentimental, and romantic” (Denzin, 2014, p. 69).

Notwithstanding, social research is by nature “reference dependent” (Kahneman, 2003, p. 1454), cannot arise from “nowhere” or in isolation of context (Luetz & Nunn, 2020, p. 296), and is “contingent on the describing activities of human beings” (Ellis & Bochner, 2000, p. 747). According to Kenneson (1995, p. 159), truth and knowledge “are inseparably bound up with human language.” Accordingly, even if truth exists ‘out there’ as an objective entity waiting to be discovered, the very act of human description will render it a construct of human perception. Kenneson (1995, pp. 155–170) adds, “There’s no such thing as objective truth, and it’s a good thing too.” Dressed in human language, truth and knowledge must invariably be perceived and described ‘from somewhere’ rather than ‘from nowhere’. Hence author positionality may be considered both an advantage and inherent limitation of autoethnographic writing. Viewing ‘from somewhere’ invariably implies not viewing ‘from elsewhere’. Furthermore, as noted by Bruner (1993),

there is no such thing as a ‘life as lived’ … a life is created or constructed by the act of autobiography. It is a way of construing experience—and of reconstruing and reconstruing it until our breath or our pen fails us. Construal and reconstrual are interpretative … Obviously, then, there is no such thing as a ‘uniquely’ true, correct or even faithful autobiography (pp. 38–39).

Relatedly, it is obvious that an autoethnographer “retroactively and selectively writes about past experiences. Usually, the author does not live through these experiences solely to make them part of a published document; rather, these experiences are assembled using hindsight” (Ellis et al., 2011, para. 5). Hence autoethnography is limited in scope to those stories and people an author has selected to construct the text. “Telling stories as research” (Morsi, 2022, p. 507) naturally assumes the agency of the author’s subjectivity and selectivity. Correspondingly, this autoethnographic writing is limited in scope to those family members and migrants who are mentioned explicitly. Of course, this limitation does not negate my sincere sense of gratitude towards the numberless ‘silent’ informants who are gratefully albeit namelessly recognized in the acknowledgments below.

The inter-religious theologian Knitter (1985) affirmed the interrelationship between biography and theology stating, “All theology, we are told, is rooted in biography” (p. xiii, cf. Kirkwood, 2007, p. 42). It may therefore be acknowledged as a further limitation that the biblical scriptures in this text were assembled not by a theologian but rather by a self-perceived sojourning “misfit” in an attempt to construct inter-religious common ground. This autoethnography is therefore best not held up to conventional standards of theological exposition but may be viewed more appropriately and modestly as a kind of experience-informed mini-manifesto for interfaith disposition.

One additional caveat must also be mentioned. The experiences of people who migrate in search of a new home can vary significantly. The experiences of some people (who thrive) are juxtaposed with the experiences of others (who suffer). Some people who find themselves caught in a ‘strange’ place may not feel inquisitive, teachable, and/or hospitable but rather frightened, overwhelmed, and/or resistant to the differences around them. As Moltmann et al. (1998, p. 17) pointed out, “We are always inclined to perceive God, the Absolute, only in whatever is like ourselves. What is like us confirms us in our identity, what is alien to us makes us uncertain. That is why we love what is like ourselves, and are afraid of what is strange.”

While I cast the story of grieving my own rootlessness as an exercise in meaning-making, my experiences should not be misunderstood as being universally normative. There is a huge disparity in different people’s capacity to respond to grief and suffering, just as there are varied examples of autoethnographic researchers who similarly use “writing as a form of grief therapy” (Clifton, 2014, p. 1828). While the experiences of migration, loss, grief, and suffering can totally crush one person, they may strangely elevate another. Hence there is an opportunity to conduct “further qualitative study” (Clifton, 2014, p. 1828) into the linkages between human resilience and the formation of human ‘belonging’, including ‘dual’ and ‘multiple’ belongings (Berry & Hou, 2019; Klingenberg et al., 2021).

Moreover, while autoethnographic accounts may present the raw human experience of grieving as something meaningful, faith may provide a framework that opens viewpoints outward toward transcendence. In this sense, faith can play an important role in giving ‘strangers’ a sense of identity and ‘home’, even in strange environments. At the same time, Siddiqui (2015) reminds us to also expect the ‘stranger’ in familiar and nearby places:

The polyvalent meanings of stranger in urban spaces today also demand that we think carefully how the stranger today is no longer the wayfarer of ancient scripture. Whereas the wayfarer or traveller was one with whom we would have a chance encounter, the one who might ask for food, water or shelter, the stranger today is often one who lives quite near us, with whom we share physical space in our more cosmopolitan societies (p. 15).

Finally, some closing comments are in order about generalisability. Ellis et al. (2011, para. 34) promote the idea that in autoethnography, matters of reliability and validity are best captured in the concept of “verisimilitude”—readers develop a sense that “the experience described is lifelike, believable, and possible, a feeling that what has been represented could be true.” For this to occur, it is necessary that “the story enables the reader to enter the subjective world of the teller—to see the world from her or his point of view” (Plummer, 2001, p. 401). To illustrate the idea of readers entering the story of a storyteller, Morsi (2022) tells the following tale, paraphrased below.

Legend has it that a Muslim Sultan used an art competition to settle a dispute between Greek and Chinese artists about which group should be considered the more skilful artisans. Ordering the creation of art to reflect the grandeur of God’s creation, the Sultan left both sides to work on opposing walls in his palace, separated by a curtain. As the days passed, it emerged that the Greek artists used only bright dazzling paint, whereas the Chinese artists used only light-shimmering water. When a servant blew the trumpet, the Sultan inspected the respective creations, starting on the Greek side. The Sultan was awe-struck with wonder as he beheld the intricate beauty of rich and colorful handiwork, akin in ornate artistry to the Sistine chapel. The painting reflected gems and precious stones that glistened as stars, stretching history’s canopy from the early days of creation to our current era. Melted gold and silver bestowed richness, grandeur, and majesty. Following his inspection of the Greek side, the Sultan drew back the curtain to behold the Chinese wall. At once, he stood shocked to gaze at himself. A luminous water-washed wall reflected his appearance like a giant mirror. His bodily reflection integrated into the Greek artwork behind him—the Sultan had entered the artistic scene as a protagonist. In Morsi’s account, the Sultan had become “part of the storytelling” (p. 508).

In like manner, it is hoped that the stories told above have enabled the reader to enter the subjective life world of the storyteller as he has sought to make sense of human yearning for a home—his own (Part 1), that of other migrants (Part 2), and of humans since time immemorial (Part 3). Accordingly, the reader is entreated to overlook the limitations of this chapter and rather leverage them as opportunities for future interfaith research and practice. In this sense, the chapter ends with an invitation for humans to join together as active participants and protagonists in the timeless quest to create a world wherein inter-religious respect, dialogue and collaboration become more normative and formative (Atabongwoung et al., 2023; Chia, 2016).

Conclusion

This account has been penned from the positionality of a self-professing ‘stranger’ who examines his ‘longing for belonging’ through the lens of lived experience. My autoethnographic account includes selected autobiographical details, selected migrant accounts, and selected biblical scriptures. By bringing these sources into conversation with inter-religious perspectives and possibilities, this mini-manifesto for interfaith disposition advocates its central thesis: all humans are essentially strangers in a spatial and temporal sense (‘all humans are strangers—almost everywhere’). Notwithstanding this state of affairs, human ‘strangeness’ may also be viewed as an ideational resource to inspire interfaith fellowship. Self-aware strangers tend to be inquisitive, teachable, generous, and hospitable. By recognizing their own temporary resident- and joint stranger status, humans are endowed with the capacity to adopt a posture of loving and welcoming other strangers, both practically and intellectually. In this sense, cultivating a consciousness of the universality of human ‘strangeness’ holds auspicious possibilities for interfaith interactions. If all humans are inherently strangers in time and space, then they are also inherently capable of welcoming—and being welcomed by—other fellow strangers. This understanding allows fellow strangers the liberty to offer and accept practical and intellectual hospitality as both guests and hosts with similar ease. It also implies that fellow humans need not be threatened by other faiths but may be free to esteem in others “the irreducible, glorious dignity of difference” (Sacks, 2009, p. 42). In today’s age of planetary-scale problems, increasing human movement implies increasing human interdependence; and increasing human interdependence points to the progressively inescapable imperative to collaborate together beyond religious and ideological divides. In this sense, human perpetuity is predicated on interfaith consciousness, widely shared.

Fig. 16.7

Theology on Tap presentation on November 4, 2018 (photo by Wendy Barrón de Lütz, used with permission)