Breaking bread and boundaries

The four couples were just settling into small talk over appetizers when Kenneth Holloman cleared his throat.

“Would the group permit me to ask an impertinent question?” he said. “How many here believe there’s a hell?”

It was not your typical icebreaker.

But then, this was not your typical dinner party.

The couples, strangers to one another, had been brought together by Common Tables, a nonprofit that aims to nurture interfaith friendships. Holloman is an atheist; his wife, a Methodist. Their group included a Jewish couple; a Baptist minister and his wife; and a couple who left the Mormon Church and now belong to a New Age movement called Religious Science.

Common Tables puts together group rosters and asks members to meet for dinner at least four times. Participants can talk about theology or the weather. They can share prayers or photos of their children. Nothing’s required. And nothing is off-limits, except proselytizing. The point is simply to reach out, to shake hands with a Buddhist, enjoy a glass of wine with a Wiccan, share laughs with a Sikh or an agnostic or a Jain.

“We’re not trying to solve academic or theological problems,” said Randy Harris, who co-founded Common Tables last spring in Denver’s suburbs.

“We just want to help people realize they can honor and respect each other. They can get along.”

Traditionally, interfaith work has been left mostly to religious leaders, who gathered a few times a year for a unity breakfast or panel discussion. Where grass-roots groups existed, they often focused on drawing together diverse congregations for service projects, such as cleaning up a neighborhood park.

Since Sept. 11, however, veteran interfaith activists have noticed a hunger among Americans for more personal, one-on-one connections across religious lines. For many, it began with a desire to meet Muslims, to work past the fear and anger raised by the terrorist attacks. Since then, the movement has broadened. In some cities, parents are even organizing interfaith Sunday schools to teach their children Bahai, Zoroastrian or Greek Orthodox values.

“People know they have to develop the capacity to get out of their comfort zone,” said Jill Carroll, executive director of Rice University’s Boniuk Center for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance.

Harris and his co-founders believe in the concept so passionately, they all quit their jobs to devote themselves to Common Tables. They hope to build a national movement; for now, they’re working on calling every house of worship in the greater Denver phone book. So far, they’ve signed up more than 300 participants and set 20 groups in motion.

A few days before his first dinner, retired pediatrician Jordan Klein, 59, scanned the roster with anticipation. He was most intrigued by the Baptist couple, the Rev. Gordon Kieft and his wife, Beth; he wondered if they might feel compelled to pray for his salvation. “I may be wrong to assume, but from what I understand, [Baptists] are the most rigid” of Christian denominations, he said. “Will he be able to become more accepting?”

When the couples gathered in the elegant home of Wayne Gardner and Gloria Stephens, in this suburb south of Denver, Kieft seemed to anticipate that very question.

“You’re probably wondering what a Baptist is doing here,” he said. “We’re American Baptist, as opposed to Southern Baptist. We’re 180 degrees different.”

Cathy Klein looked uncertain. “You’re more on the liberal side?” she ventured.

“More progressive,” Kieft said. “Theologically and in other ways.”

The relief in the room was clear. “I had no idea!” Stephens said.

And with that, they were off.

The conversation bounced from the war in Iraq to presidential politics, from grandkids to stamp collecting to spiritual tourism in Peru. Kieft confided that his son does not believe in God. Gardner told of his disappointment that his daughter remains a Mormon.

Similar gatherings take place regularly across the nation -- some of them inspired by the recent memoir “The Faith Club: A Christian, a Muslim, a Jew -- Three Women Search for Understanding,” about women from diverse backgrounds coming to accept and cherish one another.

This summer, more than 120 people are expected to gather for a retreat, heavy on conversation and meditation, sponsored by the Southern California Interfaith Network. In New York, an interfaith women’s group hosts a book club and cooking classes. Interfaith activists in Washington, D.C., just trained 40 mediators to launch community discussion. And the Boniuk Center has drawn hundreds of Texas couples into its interfaith Dinner Dialogs .

For all their promise, these efforts share one obvious limitation: Most everyone who signs up is fairly accepting to the idea of other religions, even before the first meeting. Some believe that their own religion is the one true path, but they would not dream of trying to convert outsiders. Others take the view (heretical in less- liberal circles) that all faiths are equally valid and valuable.

“We call that the preaching-to-the-choir syndrome,” said Suzie Armstrong, vice president of the Interfaith Alliance, which has 47 chapters nationwide.

Outside the choir, suspicion of interfaith dialogue remains high.

Prominent evangelical pastors such as Rick Warren and Robert H. Schuller have been labeled “sellouts” by their peers for engaging in an interfaith exchange about the “core common ground” between Christianity and Islam. In the Senate last year, a Hindu chaplain was shouted down by protesters who suggested the government should permit only Christians to lead official benedictions.

At the dinner party in Castle Rock, everyone opened by professing distaste for such attitudes. “When we get into ‘My God is better than your God,’ ain’t nothing good going to happen,” said Cathy Klein, 56, a lawyer.

Yet once they realized that they all shared liberal views, the couples didn’t hesitate to unload on more conservative traditions.

When Gardner, a wholesale furniture representative, talked about his past as a Mormon, Holloman asked sharply: “How did you feel about a religion that debases the value of women?”

At another point, Holloman declared: “The premise of the Catholic Church is, Keep them ignorant.”

“Pregnant and ignorant,” said Klein, who grew up Catholic but converted to Judaism. Her remark drew laughter.

As apple pie was served, Holloman tried to explain his conviction that God is a sham.

“Who is the God of children with abusive parents?” he asked. “Who is the God of children born with chromosomal abnormalities?”

Klein broke in with a gentle rebuke: “You’re coming from the theory that God is just.”

“If he’s not, who wants him?” asked Holloman, 75.

“There’s a controversy in theology today,” Kieft responded. “Is God all-powerful and in control of everything? Maybe that’s not the case.”

Holloman fell silent, pondering. Later, he said the exchange “blew me away”; he’d never expected a preacher to question God’s omnipotence.

He couldn’t wait for their next dinner, to hear more.

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stephanie.simon@latimes.com