What I Learned by Converting from Christianity to Islam | Zan Christ | TEDxHamlineUniversity

[Music] [Applause] if you imagine a blond-haired blue-eyed girl from a mostly white community in Minnesota you probably wouldn't guess that one day she would be wearing hijab the Muslim head covering and devoting her professional life to interfaith work and yet here I am I want to share my usual and ongoing journey with you because I have learned some important lessons about religion in multi-faith America today I grew up the daughter of a pastor in a come from a lineage of religious leaders from Norway and Germany on both sides of my family so doing religious work is in my Gina's growing up I was highly involved in the Christian community I served as a Sunday school teacher went on mission trips and used to sing solos in church but as I grew older I started questioning my faith there were concepts in Christianity but didn't make sense to me so over time and after much that I realized I'd left my hometown to attend college and ended up becoming a world religions major I took an Islam class to learn about a new part of the world to me learning about Islam or any world religion was simply an academic endeavor but on a personal level at that point in my life I decided maybe it used was the best choice for me yet as I tried to be atheist I was missing meaning in community in my life so I [Music] continuing in my educational career I went to graduate school to study higher education well in my first year in grad school I was looking to make new friends and at that university they had a large international student population and I became friends with Somali and Pakistani students which are lawful majority populated countries I had never felt that level of hospitality in my life before and they had this inner peace and happiness that had me curious so I decided I should look into this long as I wanted inner peace and happiness too it changed my whole academic paper I was working on in grad schools that I could look into this flop over time as I learned about Islam and its core beliefs I know that Islam was right for me but I didn't know when the right time would be to officially hear that at this time I was in summer school which is stressful especially in grad school and I was going through many struggles one night matters were especially bad they decided I needed a break so I went out on a walk and I talked to God for the first time eight years that's what I knew my heart that was meant to be it was wonderful to have God back in my life as a resource that I could turn to this was one of the happiest times in my life after converting to Islam I spent my second year of grad school navigating my new identity as a Muslim woman when I graduated I've looked for my dream job but wasn't sure what I was looking for instead it focused my efforts on the goal of finding a job with paying off my student loans calculate fortunately at the workplace where I landed it was able to pioneer some diversity initiatives as a Muslim I had to pray several times a day and at my new workplace they didn't have a place for me to pray which surprised me as they had them in so many places I've worked in the past so I decided and you needed to spearhead building one before tackling such a big project I determined it would be best to organize some diversity trainings so people could learn basic information about Islam and Muslim culture doing these trainings are crucial because there's so much misinformation about Islam that needs to be corrected especially since this LOM is the second largest religion in the world it is the fastest growing religion in the world and in the United States as well it's important for people to know about such a large population of people on your planet so that they can be a good neighbor to them doing these trainings started to ignite my passion for motivated work which leads me into how I built the quiet space at my workplace when I first realized there was no place for me to pray I started talking to my friends then my supervisor next our VP of HR and finally our CEO and president about it everyone I talked to agreed to be a positive ally and supported building this space as I could benefit so many people there from the beginning developing the space I intentionally chose a secular name friend I used to be a theist and at that point in my life I did not want to practice any religion at all so I wanted to honor and respect people don't want religion in their life I wanted a safe place for atheists to use the room to reflect or just have a quiet place to escape but I also wanted to peel the religious people myself included we needed it to pray and meditate so I called it quiet space there was one hurdle and that was figuring out where the space would be located it did take some time to research finding a space that is ideal for Muslims to pray which includes being clean private and quiet eventually I found a space that fit all those criteria it took me two years to build but now there is a designated place for people to pray meditate and reflect having created the space in so much to me because it's an enlarged to my ancestors who are religious leaders one of my descendants from Norway established eleven congregations in North Dakota I am continuing a legacy by building the secular quiet space in a way I built a mustard which is a place of worship for Muslims but I built a secular mush did that all come after happily paying off my student loans I was finally able to land my dream job what I do is multi faith work on a college campus which is a combination of the two degrees that I earned some of the student groups that I work with our multi-faith literacy Buddhist and secular meditation interfaith action will slowly in Jewish student life outside of my day job I enjoy giving speeches about Islam and Muslim culture in the community one big opportunity was that I gave a speech at the first women's only Masjid in the United States leading up to the talk I dove into academic research on women's empowerment within Islam for seven months I studied specific examples on how Islam and Mohammed champion women this process of learning was a reward in itself but sharing that knowledge with the women there is the best experience of my life unfortunately culture is used to limit leadership opportunities for women this is true in secular as well as in religious contexts but through my research I found that Islam actually encourages women to be leaders Mohammed celebrated many strong women during his time including Khadija Ayesha and over wanna go through my conversion to Islam generations of pastors in my family the world religions major I found my life's calling of doing multi-faith work with my unique background I to help people understand the de-spawn is a positive religion and that Muslims are normal people one person not only that but that the religion of Islam is actually empowered to women with my complex identity of being a European American convert to Islam I am a bridge between the two different communities that I'm a part of in my role as a multi-faith leader by building a secular multi faith space and doing diversity trainings at my own workplace doing my daily job of multi-faith work on a college campus and uplifting Muslim women through Slavic literacy I am contributing to a more just world can you think of a way that you could be an active ally to both the non-religious and the religiously diverse for example you could visit a Sikh Gurdwara a Muslim lush did a Hindu temple or a Jewish synagogue to learn about a world religion or you could attend a vigil to stand against the continued hatred and violence that many religious communities I believe in your leadership to support those with no faith or those in diversities in your local and global together we can work toward religious equity in this ever-changing secular [Applause] [Music] [Applause] you [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 1,091,508

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Humanities, Community, Faith, Feminism, Islam, Personal growth, Religion, Spirituality

Id: X1yKKGchRcc

Length: 11min 54sec (714 seconds)

Published: Wed May 08 2019