Editor's Note: This article originally ran on LDS Living in November 2021.
Sheri Dew, executive vice president of Deseret Management Corporation and CEO of Deseret Book Company, wrote in the Church News that she witnessed “a model for the ages.” According to Dew, “if we could bottle it, we’d achieve world peace and make a gazillion dollars in the process.”
She was speaking of the dialogue that took place between Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, lecturer of theology at Oxford, and Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles at a dinner sponsored by Brigham Young University’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies. The two leaders talked about their ever-growing and mutually appreciated friendship and the importance of interfaith camaraderie.
► You may also like: Elder Holland and Oxford’s Rev. Teal recap their special interfaith friendship
Dew then reflects on her own relationship with the Rev. Theresa Dear, an ordained elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Dew and Dear met two years ago at the NAACP annual convention.
According to Dew, even though she and Dear have very different backgrounds, “Every time we’re together, I feel refreshed and understood.”
Dew continues, “Because she has been places in her life I have not been, she broadens my point of view and understanding, even on the most sensitive of subjects. What a gift it is to feel safe to ask questions about race, culture, and complex social issues without feeling judged or criticized. What a relief to discuss tender topics with the confidence that the discussion is meant to shed light and create bonds rather than lead to the division and acrimony we see so often in media today.”
Read more of Sheri Dew’s thoughts about friendship and interfaith respect in her article on Church News.
