At the recent IFYC Conference, Eboo Patel, Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, spoke about World Faith, and specifically about the work happening in India under the World Faith’s National Director of India, Abdul Shakeel Basha.
While I was at the IFYC conference this past week, I reflected on the myriad of ways that the Interfaith Youth Core, and it’s awesome staff, has supported me as an interfaith leader, and World Faith as an organization.
First of all, as a member of the Fellow Alliance, they gave the NYU chapter of World Faith funding for interfaith service programs on campus.
Starting with the Fellowship, they have flown me four times to Chicago for trainings, meetings, and other leadership development programs. This training was wide in scope, including media engagement, dialogue training, and institutional and campus involvement.
I have had several media opportunities through IFYC, including being interviewed on Good Morning America, Chicago Public Radio, and an hour-long interview on the online radio show Embracing the Journey.
The contact network I have built both directly through IFYC, and as a product of the credibility of association with IFYC is immeasurable, but includes world-class leaders in the field, funders, and best of all, other activists who joined in the World Faith cause, including Joshua Stanton, Soofia Ahmed, Mustafa Abdullah, and Abdul Shakeel Basha, just to name a few.
Eboo has been a mentor to me since the end of my Fellowship, giving me insightful advice that I need to hear, when I need to hear it. He has been a true advocate, putting me in touch with people who otherwise probably wouldn’t give me the time of day. One of my favorite things is that Eboo can give me blunt criticism one moment (which I need and ask for), and yet gives World Faith shout-outs, further opening up possibilities.
The IFYC staff has played a vital role in our development in the previous few years. They each rotate between being a friend, psychologist, ally, and advocate, often more at one time. I probably email, call, or skype chat with an IFYC Staff member at least once a week, sometimes multiple times a week. Despite my constant questions or requests, they still respond quickly and with patience that I myself may be incapable of. This includes (but isn’t limited to) Megan Hughes, Amber Hacker, Cassie Meyer, Erin Williams, Hannah McConnaughay, Hind Makki, Jenan Mohajir, Zeenat Rahman, Charles Levesque, and April Kunze.
For anyone who is following World Faith, please take a look at the Interfaith Youth Core. I consider them a strong ally in the struggle for religious common action, and I hope that every World Faith leader is trained by IFYC in some capacity. Be sure to check out the IFYC website.
So, a friend and former roommate of mine, Daniil Leiderman, posted a valid and often unanswered question very eloquently on World Faith’s new Cause on Facebook. He has been the source of many great conversations that force me to articulate myself in different ways, and so I felt it would be interesting for you who read this. I attempted to respond with my personal thoughts, but I think this is a discussion that will continue on without a clear answer, but is still worth exploring.
Daniil Leiderman wrote:
True understanding between faiths is an admirable and worthy goal which has numerous precedents in human history. However the trouble comes in as religions seem to go through cycles of moderation and extremism.
In cycles of extremism seemingly moot issues become perevalent and make open discourse difficult–i.e. the Biblical and Koranic prohibition on idolatry, while apparently anachoronistic, became a major issue in the last decade or so beginning when the Taliban destroyed ancient statues of the buddha causing world wide protest in Christian and Muslim countries alike, followed by protests around the issue of Mohammed being visually represented in a Dutch political cartoon. How does one accomodate each dogma along with each possible degree of religious fervor–from the tolerant to the statue-exploding, to the western (quite possibly Eurocentric) willingness to treat nothing as beyond satire?
Another problem is that of interfaith tolerance between say Catholics and Satanists, or even the status of such faiths as satanism, wicca, astarte,Thelema or Scientology within the general question of religious tolerance. What to do about such “cults”, especially (back to satanism) when their foundation is defined by antagonism?
Frank Fredericks responds:
Very Good Question Daniil,
While I am no authority on the issue, There are some things I have stumbled across some concepts and approaches that allow for both maintaining religious strictness while acknowledging irreconciliable differences. Essentially, enough common ground can be made between two faiths which contain “exclusivity” clauses (e.g. Christianity or Islam).
Essentially, we can start by exploring shared values… While many paint religious relations in a dialectical manner, the religious with the most conflict have the most in common, in values and in shared history. This often leads to the creation of shared experiences… I as a Christian may have experienced the same questioning of my faith, or persecution for my faith, or what have you, as a Hindu, Satanist, or Athiest may. This is essentially shared humanity.
The next step is where I like to leave the common dialogue path, and why I don’t even like the term “dialogue.” Often times people feel they have to leave with something in agreement. I don’t. I think more important than “understanding” the opposing faith, is discovering the humanity of someone of the other identity. This is why at World Faith we focus less on talking, and we just want to get young people working together on community service projects (a shared value of faith traditions), as a means to build friendships with the “other.”
I think the problem lies is when people abuse religious language for politic gain. Your examples illustrate this effectively. Often times, among all religious traditions at some point, people will step forward with a tainted message that promotes fear, judgement, and ultimately hate. Yet when we look at religious traditions, if there is judgement, it is only for their god(s) to carry it out, or a spiritual law (e.g. Karma). I have found this true of virtually everyone religious tradition I have looked closely at.
So to break it down further, it is not that we do not promote (or discriminate) Moral Relativism. It is that we all are in pursuit of truth (which may be the lack of absolute truth for Moral Relativists). So let’s say one comes from a religion that forbids the consumption of pork. This moral believe does not require that the person admonish others for their swine-eating transgressions. Rather, they should live their life by their moral assumptions, and then use their interactions to show grace, humility, forgiveness, or whatever religious instruction they have on the topic. This, despite what many say about it, is the call by most faith traditions.
Now, I don’t believe we will ever get together and sing koumbaya, and I am generally annoyed by those who have such idealism (must be the New Yorker in me). However, right now, the extremists of all colors dominate the conversation of faith in society’s media and politics, though they are a tiny minority. We just have to mobilize well enough to reveal to everyone in the middle that they should not fear their neighbors, but that interaction, cross-religion friendships, and common action are safe, possible, and closer to the intent of faith traditions, so that the shared values and experience become mutual respect.
From the discussion board of the World Faith Cause on Facebook:
Frank Fredericks and Soofia Ahmed were invited to join Eboo Patel as he defined the interfaith movement to Robin Roberts on Good Morning America. This represents one of the biggest pieces of media on the interfaith movement, and we are excited that we were able to be involved.
World Faith received it’s first grant from Youth Venture, a project incubator underneath the Ashoka umbrella. This grant will be used to assist in programming in the 2007-2008 academic year. We are very happy to receive this grant and hope that it is the first of many.
