Higher Love | Jessica Jackley & Reza Aslan | TEDxStanford

[Music] [Applause] [Music] Reza and I fell in love before we even met in person that's true we were introduced to each other by a mutual friend Claire Hoffman she's this brilliant clearly intuitive journalist who introduced us by email she actually sent us each an email introducing us to each other the first one that she sent me said meet Jessica quote the best person in the world and the email to me said that Reza is and I quote generally snappy in a fun good time totally here ah not to brag so I well I did what everybody would do in this situation I googled her and what I discovered was yes indeed she is actually the best person in the world slightly exaggerated those of you who may not be familiar Jessica of course is the co-founder of kiva.org the world's first peer-to-peer microlending platform absolutely so essentially what she does is she spent her entire career going around the world helping entrepreneurs and helping people lift themselves up at a poverty I'm not crying at my own credentials here I just have an eyelash and I googled Reza too and I don't know if you have any idea about this guy but he's super goo global and it's really fun so within a few clicks I found these amazing images of this guy who would become my husband I found angry Reza thoughtful Reza did you actually just say that Reza and perhaps my my personal favorite oh I'm about to take you down Reza and in all seriousness as I continued to read not just look at pictures of this guy I learned that he was allegedly Muslim so seriously I thought that could be a problem I grew up as a Protestant evangelical Christian this is me with my college youth group one of them and I'm there on the front I had shaved my head it was kind of a spiritual thing I thought this might be something that Jesus would do it's another conversation and all of my relationships up to the point when that wonderful email came across my inbox had been with other Christians because it was a big part of my life it was a huge deal and still is a huge part of my identity and my purpose how I find meaning and direction in my life and so I figured well the person that I'm with should share that should share Christianity with me by the time I met Reza that was about to meet him I had realized that you know none of those relationships had actually worked out and in fact after going through a divorce in my 20s after going divorce is not funny but after going through a divorce divorce in my 20s it is to me know um I realized okay maybe being a Christian isn't the most important or even a necessary thing as I hopefully don't want my life partner I should say that I totally saw where she was coming from I mean even though I grew up Muslim I actually converted to evangelical Christianity when I was in high school that's me with my youth group the photos in black and white because it was taken in the 1940s um I'm the I'm the guy right in the corner over here you - that's that's me Yeah right I've grown my hair up because I thought that's what Jesus would do yes and Reza sounds flippant he likes to joke about many things but he was hardcore he was serious he was probably more zealous than I even was and I was I was super into it um he even this is not his album cover but it's so funny he even had a Christian rock band no kidding he's no that's not true we were Christians in Iraq they had songs about God Oh to God it could be about God that could be about girls that could be about they have oh wait the point is is that I got where she was coming from I understood what she was meaning and how hard it is for someone in this community to marry outside of it I mean even though I had by the time I got to college left Christianity and gone back to Islam and even though through my studies I had garnered a a much more expansive idea of religion and faith and the intersection of those two I knew from my days as an evangelical Christian that it ain't so hard to marry outside of that community or it is so hard and it's so easy it ain't so easy that's what I meant to say we corrected mm-hmm and so by the time we actually did meet and we soon found out that we actually shared quite a lot in terms of our values our beliefs or practices and just how we wanted to live our lives and we decided that the differences that did exist did not need to be a conversation ender they didn't need to have a stop in our tracks they were the beginning of a conversation and so we got married kept talking we got married we had these guys monkeys we had this guy he's a little chunkier and and here we are today I know that's why we keep having them I mean we're so thankful for our family and and even though our love story is our favorite and we're going to tell you more about it we know that ours is not the only one of two people from different faith backgrounds coming together right interfaith marriage is the new thing we are the new normal if you look at marriages from 1950 onward the whole set of marriages from that time period until today about 12% only 12% are interfaith if you look at marriages from 2000 onward 45% are interfaith very soon the majority of marriages in the United States will be interfaith that's right and there's a lot of reasons for this by the way first of all you know people are just getting married later in life and studies show that if you get married later in life you are far more likely to marry someone outside of your own community be it your racial community or your faith community and by the way it also shows that those relationships are the ones that last the longest as it was so old when we got married I wasn't fit did you uh the second I acknowledged this completely the second reason is that people are just much more mobile nowadays the average American moves nearly 12 times in his or her lifetime that means that you're more likely to be exposed to diverse communities different faith communities different ethnicities as you move around the country the third reason for this is that people are switching their religions more often than not 44% of Americans are in a religion that they did not grow up in or that they weren't born into so this notion of changing your religion going from no religion - religion or religion to no religion is something that's unique about the American religious landscape something else that's unique about the American landscape is the rise of what we like to call the nons or the non-affiliated this is a group of Americans who refuse to identify with any particular religion but who are still spiritual they're what we would call spiritual but not religious you know what I mean according to the most recent Pew polls nearly a quarter of Americans described themselves as No affiliated and actually among Millennials that number is nearly two-thirds and to throw one more stat at you of married Americans who do not claim any religious affiliation almost sixty percent of them are married to somebody or is it seventy at sixty almost sixty percent of them are married to somebody who does so you can come at interfaith marriage from a variety of different standpoints there are myriad ways to form an interfaith union right and despite the fact that this is on the rise despite the fact that it's the new normal and will be the majority of marriages quite soon a lot of people are still uncomfortable with it they have questions and fears about how it works how it what it's supposed to mean and what you do in an interfaith marriage one of the questions that comes up a lot for people it's more a sentiment of Cashville isn't it so hard to understand each other how do you do that when you come from such different places such different systems of belief it just so happens that interfaith couples are masters of communication studies actually show that interfaith couples interfaith marriages had are better at communicating then same faith couples it's this thing this term that marriage experts call dyadic consensus and it's basically the skill the ability to communicate well to understand each other and to come to an agreement on difficult issues perhaps because we could you know we saw it coming before we even met from the googling and stuff maybe because interfaith couples know from the get-go hey there are differences between us they figure it out they figure out how to communicate in other words it's now scientifically proven that interfaith relationships are better Reza gets paid to have strong opinions so just let that one yeah yes we are yes interface another thing that comes up sometimes is this well gosh won't weaken your beliefs to be in a marriage with somebody who has a different faith background than you unless you're trying to convert each other this doesn't have to be the case it turns out that well let me put it this way if you're in a room with people who all always agree with you or even just with one person with a partner who's always nodding his head at ways say keep doing that is good it's actually easy to kind of lapse into sloppy thinking if you have to explain stuff to somebody and tell not just the what but the why of all the stuff that you believe at least in my experience it's been a forcing function to really clarify my thinking and galvanize what I believe another question that people ask often is okay fine but what if like you're in a religion that dictates something that is contrary to your partner's religion or that like opposes your partner's religion and this is a good question I'm not saying it's not a good question it's just that it's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between doctrine and belief these are not the same thing belief is personal it's individual it's often wildly contradictory doctrine is what the church says doctrine is the church's idea of right and wrong and what you do and what you do not do and it might come as somewhat of a surprise to learn that these two things are often very much in conflict with each other let me give you a perfect example of this so most of you probably know that the Catholic Church is adamantly against birth control and yet 82 percent of Catholics in America disagree with the church and its views on birth control 69 percent of Catholics disagree with the church when it comes to issues of divorce and remarriage and I didn't know these things growing up but if you look at my own faith tradition it turns out 2/3 of evangelicals disagree with the Church's teaching on abortion almost half feel the same about the Church's teachings on homosexuality so I had these opinions that I just thought I was kind of alone in them but I'm not absolutely not and okay it's like this element this is really 21% of atheists believe in God let that one just so that one thinking for a little bit yeah 12% of atheists believe in heaven actually 10% of atheists pray at least once a week according to Pew right right right so basically what we're trying to say is just because someone calls themselves a believer doesn't mean you know what exactly those beliefs are until you get to know that until you get to know them another question and again skort had a more of a sense isn't it just easier to be the same like gosh that seems like a lot of work to communicate so much and stuff I mean look not necessarily um even in same faith marriages there are differences a friend actually somebody in this room I will not name a few weeks ago was saying gosh I feel like I'm in an interfaith marriage I mean technically my husband I are both Catholic but I go to yoga on Sundays and he goes to Mass to pray for my soul and although it probably doesn't need to be said the fact of the matter is is just because you said share the same religion doesn't mean you when you share the same way of interpreting that religion every single person in this photograph calls himself a Christian and yet Christianity means something vastly different to all of them so if sameness is the goal finding somebody with the same religious label as you may not be that a strategy and we would like to propose that sameness just shouldn't be the goal and perhaps even can't be the goal and here's the crux of the conversation some relationships are interface like ours all relationships are inter belief it's not like interfaith marriage has the corner market and bringing two different people together like ask anybody who is married and to get really vulnerable for a minute while we do come from different backgrounds Reza and I also come from very different cultures of dishwasher loading strategies true it's really intense mine is right mine is actually right no mine's right yours is wrong Bodi you've agreed on that okay so what are we saying here are we saying that it's all easy and hunky-dory and everything's fine and we've answered all the questions and and all that no of course not I mean look this there's a lot of you know remaining issues that are involved in interfaith marriages and some of them are pretty hard to deal with for instance the in-laws right now Jessica and I were very lucky we mean our our families are the best yeah our families are great I mean despite the fact that Jessica's family had never met a Muslim before they met me and now that I think about it I probably shouldn't have had you wear a burka the first time we were with that did not happen just kidding just kidding no really this is true the the only Muslims that they knew were the Muslims that they saw on TV and you know we don't always have the best roles on TV um and despite all that despite all that you know very soon after meeting me all of that went away they absolutely welcomed me into their home into their heart they loved me like their own son these they kind of loved one more than me at this point like we all go better like yay the grandkids and Rosa and I'm like I'm here two guys and Reza's family they actually could have cared less what religion I was they just wanted me to have many babies in rocket succession which I totally did so so they're all good in their hockey they're fine they just wanted a B's but there are things that are within the control of an interfaith couple and we feel like there's one sort of quality that can be the death knell that is kind of a deal breaker and that's when religion becomes Dogma because when somebody's dogmatic when there's a dogmatic partner in a relationship it's often the case that that person is not too so good at listening not doesn't have much of a desire to really understand and get the other person in their experience and on the heels of this often somebody who's dogmatic is really bad at admitting that maybe sometimes possibly there's a non zero percent chance that they could be wrong and let's be clear this is not a religious problem this is not a religious problem this is a personality disorder and it's rooted in a lack of respect for somebody else's experiences and an over glorification of one's own yeah look if you're in an interfaith relationship with someone that's dogmatic like this religion is the least of your problems and you know more for deeper problems yes we hear you Melania we hear you yeah the point being is that this is a personality issue not a religion issue yeah okay so how did how we made it work what if what have we done to make this one I had on that picture uh so first and foremost when Jessica and I met each other what we recognized pretty early on was that despite the fact that we came from different religious traditions that we more or less shared the same values I mean yeah we express those values in a different spiritual language mine was Islam jessica's was Christianity but the fact of the matter is is that we just learned each other's language and understood it very quickly how much we shared in common I mean imagine like if you're in a restaurant and you're sitting next to a table with a couple and one of them is speaking French and the other one is speaking German and yet they seem to be understanding each other you would simply assume that the French person learned German and the German person learned French and so they made it work and that's pretty much what we did I was of course already fluent in Jessica's language of Christianity but it didn't take long for her to become fluent in my language and once we were there we recognized instinctively that the values that we were born with that we that came from our religious traditions were practically the same and maybe more importantly definitely more importantly I watched how Reza lived out those values in his life and that was compelling and inspiring and made me want to do life with him it wasn't just all talk yeah now you probably notice that there's one thing that we haven't mentioned yet is uh what about the kids right what do you do about the kids now I will mention that usually when people ask us this question they don't mean you know how are you going to raise the children which faith are you going to emphasize a which tradition are you going to rear them and usually this is a question about indoctrination which we have no interest in either way even we were of the same faith it's not something that we would want to do we want to give our kids two main things we want to give them depth and breadth and a quick way to think about this the way we think about it depth for us means having a strong foundation of knowing having an identity and knowing what we believe as a family and as individuals within that family at all thinking exactly the same but we have an identity and we say this is how we are this is what we believe in our family in terms of those values breath is religious literacy we want our kids to be good citizens of the world and to understand how other people think what they believe and have an idea of the other languages that exist out there our philosophy is based on something that the Buddha once said he said that if you want to draw water you don't dig six one foot wells you dig one six foot well what he went my what he meant by that is that if you want to have a deep spiritual experience it's important to pick a path pick a well but he also understood that no matter what well you choose the water that you're drawing from is the water that everybody is drawing from and that's what we believe and it's also what we want to teach our children we want them to choose their own well but we also want them to drink from every other well around them we do this thing on Sundays that we like to call home Church so we get together with our family we pray a little bit we sing a little bit we share a little bit and then we will usually have some kind of lesson from some religion of the world so we've read like a little bit of the Ramayana we've heard the whole thing many times actually okay we read all of the Ramayana which is kind of impressive one of our sons is like super into it it's true I mean it's about a blue god with a magic bow and arrow like who wouldn't love that Dawson um we've read stories from the gospel and shared parables we've gone out and done things we've gone out with our Jewish friends and we built Sukkot sweepit it's like basically building a fort so other son is like I want to do this exactly did you enjoy forts we've gone to religious services in our community and religious services all around the world yeah and it's true right now we are focusing on breaths a little bit more than depth and there's a reason for this we think it's the most appropriate way to approach things right now sort of the overview first and then as they become more and more mature we are in current we're excited and we'll be encouraging of them to choose authentically their own path so we want them to see the options the languages that are out there and then what we are doing we hope through home church is having them learn the skills that will allow them to dig those deep wells one day over time we're coming together on a weekly basis to pray to meditate to talk about the things that are important to have fellowship we think that those practices will allow them eventually to dig deep and these values we really also believe that these values no matter what language they eventually choose be the things that they hold dear and carry with them these values that we're raising them with no matter what religion they choose and we believe that this is true because so many of the world's religions do share so many of the same values and so we want them to go around the world and to experience all these different religions but most importantly we want them not just to learn these values but we want them to put these values into play in the world I mean after all what's the point of having beliefs if you're not willing to act them out in the world so because we believe in compassion as a family they made those guys themselves because we believe this slide because we believe in compassion we serve together because we believe in generosity we give together because we believe in being truthful we don't hide things from each other because we believe in justice and competin we believe in justice we fight for that together and most of all above everything else because we believe in love we decide to see each other and hear each other to respect each other to stand and to choose together Ness every day differences in all thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 143,955

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Life, Children, Christianity, Communication, Empathy, Exploration, Failure, Faith, Fear, God, Identity, Islam, Love, Morality, Parenting, Purpose, Religion, Self, Social Entrepreneurship, Society, Spirituality, Value

Id: LdgIciM6-Bk

Length: 21min 40sec (1300 seconds)

Published: Fri May 19 2017