Interweave Newsletter

“Why do you let violent fanatics define what my religion is?” said Eboo Patel, the founder and director of Chicago’s Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). A questioner in the overflow audience at Temple Sholom in River Edge had suggested that the “real” Muslims were on the warpath against everything in the West.

“These terrorists are as abhorrent to me as they are to you,” Patel shot back. “Not only that, they are abhorrent to most Muslims.” If we let terrorists define Islam, he went on to say, then we give them what they want, and ignore not only centuries of Muslim tradition, but the vast majority of Muslims as well.

The setting was the second of two evenings last December, “A City Set on a Hill: The Promise and Challenge of an Interfaith America,” sponsored by Interweave and the American Jewish Committee. More than 350 people turned out to hear this bright, 29-year old American Muslim , a rising star among the second generation of Muslim immigrants to the U.S. At Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel in South Orange, NJ and at Temple Sholom, Dr, Patel faced large audiences filled with questions and concerns about interfaith conflict.

The world is at a crucial crossroads about religion and culture, Patel believes. The real battle is not between Islamist extremists and the West, but rather between “religious totalitarians” and “religious pluralists” in every faith-tradition. Totalitarians want to impose their own narrow brand of their own faith on everyone. Judaism, Christianity, and even Hinduism each have their own pockets of totalitarians. Pluralists are willing to accept the reality of diversity and make the most constructive uses of it. The outcome of the struggle between those two camps will be a major factor in shaping the 21st century.

Patel’s message is a clarion call to a socially-engaged religious pluralism. The IFYC brings together high school and college students of different faiths to work on common social concerns — cleaning up a streambed, tutoring poor kids, serving food to the homeless. Then the participants share beliefs, stories, and values from their own faith tradition that relate to the project they are working on. How does Islam view teaching and learning? What Christian values motivate believers to help the poor? What do the rabbis teach about social justice?

Eboo says that “heavenly matters” are best left in the hands of God, but that we have to deal creatively with the fact that we live, with different beliefs, side-by-side here on earth. How can we work together to create a better world? What are the “actionable values” common to many faiths that can form a basis for collaborative action? In that context, sharing our differing faith-traditions is not about converting each other, but enriching each other’s sense of values that can unite us in common endeavors. Because of America’s continuing religious vitality, a renewal and deepening of interfaith cooperation can be a revolutionary social force, just as the civil rights movement of the 1960s united Christians, Jews and secularists.

Not only that: the focus on “actionable values” can bring new life and vitality to the practice of one’s own faith. Patel’s own faith-journey parallels that of many young people today who grow up not seeing much connection between religion and “real” life. The son of Shiite Muslim immigrants to Chicago, Eboo’s elementary and high school years were, in many ways, “typically suburban.” Religion happened in a side room on special occasions.

During college his social conscience was awakened by encounters with the poor and marginalized, and he spent some time with Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker group in Chicago. Here he saw faith in action, Jesus’ words about rich and poor acted out directly. This discovery led him back to the study and practice of his own Muslim faith, in which the Prophet Muhammad’s vision of a just society parallels that of Jesus and Moses.

A Rhodes Scholar Fellowship and Oxford Doctorate later, Eboo began his pioneering work in organizing interfaith youth. Such work doesn’t make headlines nearly as easily as car bombings. Patel relates a story about a newspaper reporter saying his work wasn’t newsworthy because “you haven’t killed anyone.”

But, inspired by the IFYC example and model, interfaith youth efforts are springing up around the nation as well as internationally. Patel’s voice is heard on college campuses, on National Public Radio, and, increasingly, in the press.

“Blessed are those who dream dreams,” said Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “But still more blessed are those who put their dreams into action.” Eboo Patel’s ideas and work are a call to action embodied in one man’s innovative efforts. Most importantly, they are a sign that the future doesn’t have to belong to the people with the bombs and the guns.

So long as we don’t let them define what our great religious traditions are.