Tikkun Magazine, November/December 2008
Interfaith Work at the White House
By Eboo Patel
It was hard to hold back the tears when I heard Colin Powell say that America was a country where people of all faiths fought under the same proud flag and for the same hopeful future. A nation where a seven-year-old Muslim child should rightly dream of being president, just as Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants raised in the South Bronx, had long ago hoped to serve his country at the highest levels. Powell reminded the whole world of what America should stand for: equal dignity and mutual loyalty for citizens of all religious backgrounds, including those with no religion at all.
America is the most religiously diverse nation in human history and the most religiously devout nation in the West in an era of global religious revival. Every day brings fresh stories of hot religious conflict somewhere in the world, and simmering religious tension here at home. Those religious forces—fueled by youth growing up in an era of profound socioeconomic dislocation and seeking the deep identity that faith provides—could wind up making this a century marked by the clash of civilizations or a century defined by religious pluralism. If the color line was the problem of the twentieth century, the faith line is the challenge of the twenty-first. A new president should make building religious pluralism a central priority in the White House.
Religious pluralism has three key parts. The first is respect for people's religious identities. That means people of all faith backgrounds should have the same rights to establish their houses of worship, religious education programs, and faith-based institutions—and to feel free to dream big about their future. The second element of religious pluralism is positive relationships between different communities. That means that Jews and Muslims, Christians and Buddhists, Hindus and secularists should be constantly and positively engaged with one another through civic associations and citizenship activities. The third part of religious pluralism is a commitment to the common good. That means the various constituent communities in a country should seek to uphold the core principles and key institutions of the broader society, knowing that the well-being of each and all depends on the health of the whole.
Religious pluralism is a proud part of the American tradition, and a key element to building a more stable and secure world. Those who would say that America is fundamentally a Christian country where other religions are bit players at best, or those who say it is essentially a secular nation where faith has no place in our public life, forget the important statements that our founding fathers made regarding religious diversity. George Washington, for example, sent a letter to the Hebrew congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, with these words: "May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."
That tradition of religious pluralism is more important now than ever. Conflicts in the world increasingly have a religious dimension: Tensions remain high between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast, between Sunnis and Shias in Baghdad, and between Hindus and Muslims in Bombay. Threats to stability and security are increasingly likely to come from conflicts between religious and ethnic groups within nations and regions.
Our new president should take the following three steps upon entering office:
1) State in his Inaugural Address that just as America stands for liberty, equality, and opportunity in the world, so will it be a beacon of religious pluralism;
2) Create a White House Office of Interfaith Affairs that can coordinate efforts for religious pluralism domestically and in foreign affairs;
3) Find civil society groups that employ the best practices in interfaith cooperation and fund a dramatic expansion of their programs.
At the turn of the twentieth century, the Chicago Protestant leader Charles Bonney ended the first Parliament of the World's Religions with these words: "From now on, the great religions of the world will no longer declare war on each other, but on the giant ills that afflict humankind."
At the dawn of the twenty-first, an American president has the opportunity to make that vision a reality.
Eboo Patel is the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core. He writes "The Faith Divide" blog the Washington Post. His book Acts of Faith was recently published in paperback.
Source Citation
Patel, Eboo. 2008. Interfaith Work at the White House. Tikkun 23(6): 23.
