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June 2016

Featuring Eboo Patel

Featuring Eboo Patel
This year TIO has devoted its March-July issues highlighting a handful of contributors who have made a special mark in the interfaith community and been particularly generous in contributing to this journal. This month we are happy to share the work of Eboo Patel, a 41-year-old Muslim who grew up in Chicago, did his PhD at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, then founded the Interfaith Youth Core. Today IFYC has a staff of 45, a $6.5 million annual budget, and a laser-like focus on developing interfaith leadership in the confines of higher education in the United States.

New Rooms in the Interfaith Movement

New Rooms in the Interfaith Movement
IN THE OPENING SESSION of an Interfaith Youth Core conference a few years ago, a Chicago pastor took the microphone and introduced himself. He spoke about how much he had gained from his Buddhist meditation practice, expressed disdain for Republicans in power, and proclaimed how excited he was to be in a friendly space with people of other faiths. Finally, he noted his frustration that a particular type of Christian was always absent from such gatherings, saying:

What We Can Learn from the Same-Sex Seating Controversy

What We Can Learn from the Same-Sex Seating Controversy
A recent New York Times story on the tension caused when Orthodox Jewish men request same-sex seating on airlines for religious reasons generated over 3,000 reader responses. The scenario as described in the story generally unfolds something like this: the individual reaches his assigned seat and finds that the seat next to him is occupied by a woman. He shifts uncomfortably in the aisle until the flight attendant or an alert passenger recognizes what’s going on and asks the woman to switch seats with a male so the Orthodox Jew may have his religious views accommodated. Often the woman is offended; sometimes she refuses to move. This has made for many challenging situations and some flight delays.

The New Identity Politics of Religion

The New Identity Politics of Religion
As an undergraduate in the early 1990s, the heyday of identity politics, I was a full-throated participant in the protests for cultural centers and academic study programs that focused on racial and ethnic minorities.

In Promoting Campus Diversity, Don’t Dismiss Religion

In Promoting Campus Diversity, Don’t Dismiss Religion
A few weeks back, I was on a campus visit to the University of California at Los Angeles, where I first heard the story of Rachel Beyda. A pre-law sophomore, she applied for a seat on UCLA’s student Judicial Board and found her various identities an area of focus in the interview process.

Excerpts from Interfaith Leadership: A Primer

Excerpts from Interfaith Leadership: A Primer
Below are excerpts from the opening and closing of the Introduction to Interfaith Leadership: A Primer, a new book from Eboo Patel being published by Beacon Press this August. Copyright by Eboo Patel.

Training Interfaith Leaders for the Future

“Say you wake up one morning and as you’re going through your Twitter feed you see something that really ticks you off because it degrades a certain group of people. You can Tweet all your friends about it, post something on Facebook, take a selfie of you burning the article. You can send a campus-wide Tweet and email about meeting in the dining hall at noon to discuss an action plan. You have one person contact the president, another person get in touch with the events office, another other clubs, the geeky guy in the corner (that would be me) making a flyer and deciding the best phrase to use in the Twitter hashtag, and by 6 p.m. you have an event planned to address the issue.

The Shifting Terrain of Interfaith Relationship

TIO: As a second-generation American Muslim, raised in Chicago, with a doctorate from Oxford, you are an examplar of meeting the challenge of growing up in one culture and navigating the culture we share today. Your books unpack the complexities of ‘growing up Muslim in America’ beautifully, vividly. And today you relate to thousands of young people in American universities and colleges, coming into constant contact with second-generation religious minorities. Could you share the biggest challenges they face collectively?

Interfaith Fundraising: How to Make it Work

An Interview with Eboo Patel

Foreword to Faithiest: How an Atheist Found Common Ground with the Religious

There is a moment in the middle of Faitheist that nearly took my breath away. Chris is living in Bemidji, a small town in northern Minnesota near the headwaters of the Mississippi river. The nearest big city is Fargo, and it is several hours away. In the winter, the snow piles up so high he can’t see out of the bedroom window in his garden apartment.

Sacred Ground by Eboo Patel: A Review

With Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, Eboo Patel establishes himself as the preeminent voice of the interfaith movement. The book is about the “promise of American pluralism,” because, “Simply put, it is people who have protected the promise of pluralism from the poison of prejudice.” Patel unabashedly notes that “the main character” in this book “is the one I love the most – America.”