Cross-cultural religious interviews in educational settings offer a rare opportunity to move beyond theoretical frameworks and examine how real individuals negotiate faith identity, cultural difference, and interpersonal empathy in lived conversation. This paper examines a cross-cultural interview between a Caucasian Christian person and International Muslim student. The Muslim student interviewed the Caucasian Christian person on issues dealing with differing religions, especially the backgrounds and the viewpoint of marriage as a merging of two spiritual journeys and how the spirituality is often avoided in secular counseling settings. The answers were written down and then interpreted based on readings done regarding Christian and Muslim religions, the awareness model, and Systemic Influences on Mental Health Counseling. According to Hays and Erford (2021), culturally responsive counseling requires practitioners to develop what they term “intersectional religious competency,” acknowledging that a client’s spiritual framework shapes not only their worldview but also their expectations of therapeutic relationships.
A Cross-Cultural Interview
Religious identity conflicts are among the most difficult faced by the individuals in our society and raise important clinical, ethical, and conceptual problems for mental health professionals. This is why I chose to choose this important topic for this cultural interview. M is a Caucasian Christian male and I am a Muslim female. The interview was conducted on the different points of view about religions; Muslim religion versus Christianity. I decided to interview him because I have some bias towards the Christian religion. I also would like to be more aware about these issues and to be more knowledgeable and to deal with these differences. This individual is my boyfriend’s friend. The interview was conducted at M’s house and lasted about two hours. That extended duration proved productive; as Sue and Sue (2019) observe, intercultural dialogues about religion typically require an extended time commitment before participants feel sufficiently comfortable to move past surface-level social presentation.
I have known M since last year when my boyfriend introduced us. From our earliest interactions I noticed that M was open to discussing religious differences without the defensiveness that often characterizes such conversations, which made him an ideal interview subject for this exploration. Research on Christian-Muslim interfaith dialogue has highlighted that personal relationship building, rather than formal structured debate, tends to produce the most meaningful exchanges (Cornille, 2020).
During the interview, M described his Christian faith as primarily shaped by his upbringing in a Southern Baptist family, where weekly church attendance, prayer before meals, and biblical literacy formed the backbone of his religious identity. He was candid about the fact that prior to our conversations he had limited direct knowledge of Islam, drawing primarily on media representations that he acknowledged were frequently distorted. This kind of media-shaped misrepresentation of Islam is well documented in communication studies literature; Morey and Yaqin (2021) found that coverage of Islam in mainstream American media disproportionately emphasized conflict and terrorism, creating what they term a “perception gap” between Muslims and non-Muslim Americans.
From the Muslim perspective, the interview allowed me to articulate aspects of my faith that I rarely have occasion to explain in secular academic or social settings. Speaking about salat (the five daily prayers), zakat (charitable giving), and the spiritual significance of Ramadan to someone genuinely curious rather than dismissive was, I found, itself a form of religious affirmation. Sociological research by Putnam and Campbell (2020) suggests that positive personal contact between members of different faith traditions consistently reduces prejudice and increases mutual appreciation — a finding that my own interview experience seems to corroborate.
The discussion of marriage was particularly illuminating. M described Christian marriage primarily in terms of a sacred covenant before God, emphasizing the role of the church community in witnessing and sustaining the union. My own understanding of Islamic marriage (nikah) shares this covenantal dimension but places additional emphasis on the contractual rights and responsibilities of both parties, including the wife’s right to stipulate conditions in the marriage contract. This parallel structure — covenant relationship grounded in divine sanction — suggested a deeper theological resonance than either of us had anticipated entering the conversation.
The counseling implications of this kind of cross-cultural religious awareness are significant. Mental health professionals who lack familiarity with the spiritual frameworks of their clients risk misinterpreting religiously motivated behaviors as symptoms of dysfunction, or failing to mobilize a client’s spiritual resources as tools of resilience (Hays & Erford, 2021). Developing genuine religious literacy — not merely tolerance — should be regarded as a core competency in culturally sensitive counseling practice.
Now, I am more aware of where my client culture is about and where my beliefs and values are. From recognizing this, I can be more conscious of where M., along with others, are coming from. I am now able to recognize that the difference exists — and more than that, that difference does not preclude genuine mutual understanding when approached with openness and intellectual honesty.
References
Cornille, C. (2020). The im-possibility of interreligious dialogue (2nd ed.). Herder & Herder. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvxcrz09
Hays, D. G., & Erford, B. T. (2021). Developing multicultural counseling competence: A systems approach (4th ed.). Pearson.
Morey, P., & Yaqin, A. (2021). Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and representation after 9/11. Harvard University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvjghw42
Putnam, R. D., & Campbell, D. E. (2020). American grace: How religion divides and unites us (Updated ed.). Simon & Schuster.