Seven Minutes in Heaven: Speed Faithing at the Chaplaincy

Between a day full of classes in a week full of events, I found myself navigating the St Andrews Chaplaincy looking for Speed Faithing with Interfaith St Andrews. I walked into a lounge set up with two rows of chairs facing one another and thought I might be in the wrong place.

At the end of the line sat Tom Rippon and Arielle Friedlander, Campus Leaders for Interfaith St Andrews, who greeted me with a smile and waved me over. The hour passed with the line of chairs going largely undisturbed. Yet, in between four attendees, we had our own little speed-faithing square of stories, thoughts and questions. 

Speed Faithing is a space to discuss religious and philosophical beliefs in short conversations. You discuss your personal connections to a faith of any sort and learn about someone else’s. 

“It’s more about starting conversations than finishing them,” explained Rippon.

A testament to this mission, every time his timer went off, it was set against intense chatter. We passed the hour with slots of seven minute conversations, led by a slip of paper with guiding questions on faith. 

“We wanted a range of questions. It’s important that people can come to it from any background,” explained Friedlander. As someone who grew up with an atheist background, my exposure to religion was tied to cultural practices. Yet, I found I had things to say, explore, and ask each time I turned to the next person. Each question was picked “to find the right balance between the doctrinal, the theological, and the practical,” Rippon explained.

Speed Faithing is designed to centre the individual. Abandoning any expectations of individuals speaking on behalf of their communities, it's rooted in a principle of “taking people on their own terms”, and respecting how they define themselves. As everyone got comfortable with a cup of tea from the snack table on offer, Rippon stressed the importance of letting people explain their faith without making assumptions on what a specific faith might entail. 

Our conversations centred around attendees’ personal connections with faith – for one person this meant journaling about the first flower blooming – for another, this meant exploring services across different Christian denominations. Between just four, we shared perspectives from connections to Judaism, Christianity, Paganism, and Hinduism. 

The society’s first event of the semester, Speed Faithing captured the value of interfaith work in St Andrews. As Friedlander explained, “this town is very religiously interested,” but it takes time to see “exactly how big the tapestry really is.” Albeit within a small group, Speed Faithing started important conversations. To Rippon, the greatest value of these conversations lay in helping attendees learn to navigate but also explore difference.

“I thought the quality of the conversation was fantastic. Every new person you talk to you find yourself even answering the same question slightly differently because you're relating on different things. I had a lovely conversation about prayer and poetry, I wasn't expecting that.”

Graphic by St Andrews Interfaith