each year we gather with our chaplains
and staff faculty and staff colleagues
and partners student leaders beloved
alumni and close friends both here in
the room and also this year joining us
by livestream to explore an important
topic related to spiritual life in our
time tonight we are so excited to
welcome back to Tufts eboo Patel of the
Interfaith youth corps in Chicago and I
think eboo is still actually preparing
to speak to us so he's across the street
so I'm just gonna talk about him for a
minute
so eboo has been a friend a co laborer
and an inspiration in the field of
interfaith engagement and interfaith
leadership and higher education
to many of us for many years he is one
of the most recognized and esteemed
voices nationally and globally calling
for a vision of a nation and world in
which our religious and philosophical
differences do not divide us but
actually bring us closer together where
we can be inspired and challenged by the
best in each other's traditions to work
together for the common good and so it
made great sense this year that the
university chaplaincy and the Tisch
College of civic life would partner to
invite eboo and his colleague Rebecca
who I think is here where are you
Rebecca oh there you are
great welcome to help us engage in a
conversation about where we are
personally and as a campus in our work
for interfaith leadership in this time
four years ago eboo Patel came to Tufts
to speak as our common reading author
for the first year class the first years
who are now the senior class and much
has changed as we know over the past
four years not only have our wide-eyed
first years become serious seniors
getting ready for graduation and in a
month or so but we have a new
administration in the White House we
have seen a rise in hate crimes and acts
of violence around the country there is
a rising tide of nationalism and
populism around the globe and in many
ways our society and politics feel to
many of us more polarized and they have
in much of our lifetimes meanwhile our
society continues to become more and
more diverse we have more access to
information from around the globe at
faster speeds and we become more aware
all the time with a profound challenge
facing us morally and ecologically at
Tufts according to our spiritual
interest surveys we do with incoming
students about 80% of incoming
undergraduates want us to know what
their religious and philosophical
identities are and some 65% of incoming
students say that they are interested in
some form of interfaith engagement
involvement with the university
chaplaincy and the many spiritual and
philosophical groups on campus has been
growing steadily over the past several
years interfaith programs like our cafe
pre-orientation program has grown every
year and there's a vibrancy to our
intersectional work around spirituality
and social justice with so many campus
partners who are here tonight and so we
wanted to invite you boo back to Tufts
to give the Russell lecture four years
after his last visit to give us his
sense of the Interfaith movement in our
time what are its most pressing
challenges what are the greatest
opportunities that are facing this class
of first years now seniors as they
graduate from Tufts and go out into the
world what are the opportunities before
all of us as educators as activists
people of faith people of conviction
working to advance religious literacy
spiritual pluralism civic engagement and
work for social justice eboo and Rebecca
we welcome you back and we thank you so
much for being with us we've been
looking forward to your visit and we are
so excited for tonight's Russell lecture
I will almost in just a moment here
invite our Buddhist chaplain the
venerable preassure Amon to offer some
words of grace then we'll be invited to
share the buffet dinner that is at the
back that has been prepared so
beautifully for us during supper we will
hear some remarks offered by tufts chief
of staff Michael Bannon and then our
Muslim chaplain dr. Shalini Ibrahim will
introduce EBU in in a few moments so we
want to say thank you to everyone who
has been working so hard to make this
event possible Dean Allen Solomon just
burns and their colleagues from Pierce
College Zach Cole Alex to Shelby
carpenter from the University chaplain
see all of our chaplains and staff who
are here tonight who are sprinkled
through the room as as our table hosts
and anyone who
assisted in any way to bring together
this event we're so happy you all are
here welcome again and please join me in
welcoming venerable feel
in the Buddhist scripture there's a very
interesting statement about our
spiritual growth in that statement it
names two key elements that are
conducive to our individual spiritual
growth it says the two elements are wise
reflection and the voice of another now
whenever I think about it personally
it has always been true in my spiritual
growth it has been the voice of a kind
friend a kind colleague and many others
that have helped me in my growth so
today as we are grateful for the food I
want all of us to I want to invite all
of us also to be thankful for the
company that we are in so let us take a
moment to acknowledge all the factors
that brought this nourishment today in
the form of food in the front in the
form of our company in the form of our
friends colleagues strangers and the
community both interfaith and
international I want to say a few words
in Buddhist pali language that is used
to express gratitude [speaking in Buddhist Pali language]
please enjoy your meal
it's an honor to introduce Michael
Bannon who's chief of staff in the
office of the president at Tufts and a
key adviser to the university chaplaincy
Michael brings to his leadership role a
deep appreciation of the importance of
diversity and progressive thought in
higher education broadly and at Tufts in
particular which historically in today
has included the importance of spiritual
and ethical life and learning we are so
grateful for all of his advice and
support and we welcome you Michael to
please bring greetings and share your
thoughts on this occasion so this is
always one of my favorite events of the
year
under Gregg and his colleagues
leadership it has really flourished as
an opportunity not just to bring thought
leaders in contemporary religious
spiritual and ethical life to campus but
also to bring together on campus the
community of all of those people who
care about these issues which is often a
virtual community and so to get
everybody in the room from a variety of
faith traditions and ethical and
philosophical perspectives to think
together about what the speaker says to
hear each other's questions is always a
treat I also like this because it's a
chance for some of us to thank the
chaplaincy team and their colleagues and
the many students who work so hard on a
range of programs each year for all that
they've done we're coming up to the
beginning to the beginning of what I
call the sort of the awards season of a
cadet of the academic year and I want to
take this opportunity just to do a few
shout outs for all of the great things
that the chaplaincy team has been doing
first I'd like to offer special thanks
to Tisch College for partnering with the
chaplaincy on this year's Russell
lecture I think it's very exciting it
amplifies the impact of IBAs presence on
campus and it reflects Tisha's
very real understanding of the
importance of religion ethics and values
to a healthy civic life so thank you
Alan and thank you to all of your
colleagues particularly Jess for that
work it's been a really great year for
the chaplaincy and its partners new
colleagues on campus including at Tufts
Hillel which is such an indispensable
partner to the chaplaincy rabbi dr.
Naphtali Brauer as the new Jewish
chaplain at Tufts and nube our executive
director of Hillel Naftali and his
family have already become integral
members of the Tufts community and he is
making sure that Hillel moves forward
with the dynamism that has characterized
it for the last decades also welcome to
Thomas Dawkins new music director and
organist immensely immensely talented
great to have him on campus and it's
really been a great year for all the
chaplains we heard a beautiful grace
earlier from the venerable Priya and I
wanted to note that both Priya
and his humanist colleague Walker
Bristol are now in full fledged chaplain
positions both the humanists and
Buddhist positions were established
really as pilots a few years ago to see
what the response would be to see what
sort of impact having representatives
from those traditions could make on
campus and to the work of the chaplaincy
and thanks in no small measure to the
personal qualities of the individuals
but also to the importance of the of the
themes that they bring both of those
positions as of this year are now
chaplain positions and so
congratulations to both of them on that
well-deserved promotion from red I think
it was humanists in residence and
Buddhists and residents to really being
chaplains along with the rest of the
team so congratulations
Celine do you do you have a visual aid
that you can hold up for everybody up
so Celine continues to Celine Ibrahim
our Muslim chaplain continues to do
amazing work and one of her
accomplishments this year is the release
of a new edited volume on interfaith
encounters and connections across
religious divides entitled one nation
indivisible it's particularly nice that
it includes work by Tufts alumni one of
whom is our own Catholic chaplain Lynn
Cooper so congratulations Celine I
should mention that Celine actually also
has a contract for an upcoming book with
Oxford University Press which is very
exciting I saw her holding this I
thought Oxford doesn't work that quickly
Lynn has had a very I think you know
rich but also challenging year because
this has been not an easy year for the
Catholic community on campus in this
country anywhere in the world to see one
of the world's great religious
traditions and institutions have to
grapple so deeply with fundamental
ethical and value problems as an
institution and for Catholics as
individuals has been challenging and
Lynne has been doing amazing work
supporting our Catholic community in a
tough time Dan Bell our Protestant
chaplain has continued to do wonderful
work I want to salute Dan especially for
his outreach beyond the student
community to staff and faculty he's done
a great job thinking about how to engage
staff and faculty in spiritual
reflection and he's continued to get
wonderful wonderful support from the
Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts for
which we're very grateful I won't try to
enumerate all of the great programs that
have gone on across the year they range
from big signature events to countless
small scale gatherings that bring
students faculty staff and the
aplans together to to grapple with
really important issues I do want to
highlight the chaplaincies commitment to
issues of diversity and inclusion which
included partnering with the chief
diversity officers and the Provost's
office for a very successful Tufts table
dedicated to the people's supper and
reweaving our social fabric and for
their support for the community whenever
it deals with loss and difficult
situations really important work we have
a lot of students here tonight many of
whom are active members of the
Interfaith student council and none of
this work would be possible without your
engagement we know that you all are
incredibly busy as tough students and
the amount of energy and time that you
put into volunteering for your
traditions and for the greater good of
the community is extraordinary Greg
mentioned cafe which had a very
successful year very record participants
last August they're now getting ready
for the 2019 edition of cafe and
particularly gratifying to see cafe
highlighted in some of the contributions
in a new book co-edited by eboo Patel
this evening speaker educating for
religious diversity and interfaith
engagement which is intended as a
handbook for student affairs
professionals as they think how to work
on these important issues
the chaplaincy continues to try to reach
out through enhancing its communications
with alumni and Friends and it's also
actively engaged with the professional
communities off campus so kudos for
engagement with programs such as Boston
the Boston interfaith Leadership
Initiative and Boston bridges for
emerging leaders and with Rabbinical
college's campus chaplaincy for a
multi-faith world project Zach Cole
who's a tremendous asset to the
chaplaincy is very actively engaged in
the major national association of
student affairs professionals and played
a leading role in
major conference that they presented in
New Orleans on religious spiritual and
secular identities in December really
important topics for student affairs
professionals to be considering I can't
really say enough about Greg who is the
Energizer Bunny of university chaplains
and somehow manages at the same time to
be continuing to make progress on his
doctoral degree which I really admire um
he's been elected to the board of the
Association for college and university
religious affairs he's been active on
the national level ever since he arrived
at Tufts and he's an incredible
ambassador for the university I think
the it's been an amazing year the
chaplaincy has some exciting programs
yet to come including some very
interesting explorations about how
interfaith work in particular might be
integrated into Tufts academic work in
civic studies another area where Tisch
college is really paving the way so
thanks to everybody who's made this
another tremendous year at Tufts I'm
certainly looking forward to more great
years ahead and I think that we'll all
be able to look ahead to that work
drawing on the kind of reflections that
will hear from eboo tonight so thank you
in peace tonight it's such a joy to be
here with all of you and especially with
our esteemed guests who I have the honor
of introducing now I'm gonna give a
little bit of a vignette here so bear
with me many of you have probably found
yourself in this situation where it's
really late and where you should
probably just go to bed but then you
have this book that's just calling out
to you so you say to yourself I'll just
read a few pages and then a few hours
later you realize it's the middle of the
night you haven't really slept you're
about to you know have a commitment in
the morning and you've had a wonderful
venture through someone's life seeing
the world through their eyes and and
being inspired yourself to think about
your life and new so you might guess
that this was my experience in in
reading a vouz one of his very first
books that impacted me so greatly as a
young person in in graduate school
wondering what was I even doing in this
multi-faith program what was that what
was the professional possibilities for
me and eboo has been in so many ways for
so many of us sitting in this room
tonight around the the u.s. around the
world has been that model of how to take
a passion and turn it into a movement
and so I introduce to you tonight
someone who is a personal mentor someone
who is a visionary and someone who never
hesitates to shift the framework or
propose something that's radically new
and has not been done before as someone
who doesn't hesitate to look at the
gigantic picture and say and I have an
idea for a step one for how to realize
this goal so I introduced you today
someone who's a nonprofit leader who has
shaped the field of inter-religious
relations such that people know now
what the word inter-religious more or
less means I introduced to someone who's
a national activist who served in on the
inaugural committee for instance of
President Obama's faith and Advisory
Committee someone who is a devoted
Muslim and who inspires many Muslims to
be vocal to be present in America and to
not hesitate from from from contributing
to the common good so without further
ado I welcome a booth Patel to tonight's
Russell lecture thank you
you people are so nice nice to me you're
nice to each other this is so much last
night I was at home preparing to come
here packing my bags and my younger guy
is 9 just turned 9 Khalil says to my
older guy
dad's going again what does he do anze
says to Khalil bla bla bla bla bla he
does their what he does here I was
thinking I'm like tiny that's true
actually
so I have a little bit of a cold I'm
gonna do my best to get through this
without going getting into a hacking
suite let me find a place to put this
glass of water and two equally express
my admiration for Greg in the chaplain
see the great work that's happening at
Tufts see lots of friends in the Boston
area here tonight what a blast so much
fun so uh let me tell you the story
happened to me a few years ago in
Chicago a friend of mine introduces me
to the CEO of the Greater Chicago Food
Depository and I show up there early on
a Tuesday morning and the CEO and the
executive vice president take me on this
tour of this food to pasta anybody been
to a major cities Food Depository it's
kind of amazing right like on the one
hand it's like it's like a
football-field-sized in in in length and
width and it's like I felt like two or
three stories high just stacked with
canned goods and in some places fresh
vegetables and there's trucks pulling up
to to make deliveries all over the
Chicagoland area and you think to
yourself like wow like this is in so
many ways this is a human achievement
right like this is what a group of
people are doing together to help other
people and then think to yourself you
know richest nation and human
civilization and we still have so many
hungry folks you know it's it's it's an
interesting kind of hopeful moment and
also a sobering one in any case I'm
there I'm getting this tour and I'm
fascinated they have a kitchen there and
they're training chefs and you know like
I'm seeing how the whole operation
and about an hour in I'm like so y'all
are like busy and important people what
am I doing here
why did you ask me to come by why are
you spending all this time with me and
they sit me down with a couple of forms
that they had had printed out for this
meeting and they said look we've done an
audit of our entire operation and we
discovered some things that we kind of
knew at a gut level recruit but we now
have the numbers for them so first set
of numbers we have 650 distribution
sites across the Chicagoland area
I mean clearly not every hungry person
is driving to this one location to pick
up their bag of groceries right they
have places all occur from like you know
Elgin to Wheaton down into the south
suburbs all around the Chicagoland area
where people go and get their their food
and of those 650 sites they said we have
found that at least 450 our faith
communities churches synagogues mosques
temples Tsongas interesting right and we
did a similar kind of audit of our
volunteers and we have probably tens of
thousands of volunteers through here
every every year hundreds over the
course of a week to unpack trucks and
bag boxes of groceries and like
basically get the food packed up so that
it can be sent out to be 650 places and
at least 2/3 of the people who volunteer
here volunteer with a religious
community and you can actually watch
this happening if you stand up here in
the balcony above the kind of warehouse
area where all the food is stacked if
you stand up here on a Sunday afternoon
around 3 o'clock you will literally see
6 or 7 different faith communities walk
in when the volunteer bell rings for 3
o'clock they volunteer and 90 minute
shifts or whatever you'll see them file
in you'll know their different faith
communities because they're wearing the
kind of lime green banana yellow shirts
that you see you know with kids who are
heading off to to mission trips and
airports which I see every summer so you
know they're associated with faith
communities and they
kind of filing into their row and you
will watch them run through literally
the same format
they'll have kind of a moment of silence
or prayer and then the youth leader or
the pastor or whoever it is that's kind
of leading the group will say a few
words oftentimes read from what appears
to be from the balcony scripture
probably is scripture they'll volunteer
for 75 minutes or so and then that
leader will lead them in a short
reflection presumably you know what did
we learn about our religion and about
helping others etc etc and then you'll
see the six or seven groups file out and
they will acknowledge each other's
existence by doing one of these and
we've been thinking to ourselves about
how important diverse faith communities
are to the greater Chicagoland Food
Depository are most effective public
service announcements are when we have
pastors do public service announcements
we've had a couple rabbis do them we're
thinking about having your moms do them
they're really effective because those
folks connect cosmic issues and ideas to
serving others our most effective
lobbying days in the state capitol of
Springfield is Church day there's now a
synagogue day and a mosque day and so
these people from different faith
communities will will organize a group
of buses and go down and talk to
Springfield legislators about how the
Bible speaks to solving the problems of
or in the hungry I see Alex currant
smiling there because this is the stuff
he did for 20 years and we've been
thinking to ourselves what would it look
like to have in interfaith public
service announcement what would it look
like to have interfaith volunteer
efforts what would it look like to have
an interfaith day of organizing in
Springfield and then at the executive
table right this is happening at senior
levels of the organization we think
about all of the pitfalls what happens
if somebody says hey it's a great idea
to pray together and a religious group
is like we don't do that we don't
we pray in this way and not with other
people what if on the bus on the way
down an interfaith day in Springfield
somebody brings up a political issue
which divides folks and people say next
year we're not coming this is this is
not what we do this for and so we've
been thinking to ourselves recently that
there's all of this opportunity when it
comes to interfaith bridge building at
the greater Chicagoland Food Depository
but frankly the challenges are too great
the risks are too high so we're just
keeping the status quo and then you know
my friend Sonny guard tells me about ify
see and I figured well why don't we have
this guy eboo Patel come in and maybe he
can give us some advice so I want to
stop the story there and let's just back
up for a second and think about what
does this say about our society I want
to point out a couple things right by
the way does it does it surprise anybody
in this room that two-thirds of the
distribution centers for the Greater
Chicago Food Depository are communities
of faith surprised anybody that
two-thirds of the volunteers are our
faith not not individual religious
people but organized faith communities
it's a surprise anybody okay so you know
Robert Putnam across the way they're a
little place called Harvard smaller than
Tufts I know that's right exactly the
poor souls over sent over there
he points out in his book Bowling Alone
that probably 50% of American civil
society can be traced back to religious
communities and religious commitments so
this is actually pretty remarkable right
like the whole Civic fabric the greater
Chicagoland Food Depository American
colleges and universities there's 2,800
four-year residential college and
universities in America Catholics have
built about a tenth of them
230 Methodists have built about a
hundred a bunch of places that you might
not associated with Methodists
Duke Emory Syracuse USC all built by
Methodists ELCA has 24 I really
interesting a significant part of
American higher education built by
religious communities the same can be
said for hospital systems just today I
read a story about the terrible floods
in Nebraska anybody want to guess who's
going door to door in Nebraska wading
through the floods making sure
everybody's okay that the elderly are in
a safe place that animals are safe
draining the water from basements
anybody want to guess who they're
principally associated with which is
communities really interesting question
as fewer and fewer people go to
religious communities show up in church
on Sunday for Juma prayer and Friday
afternoon for Shabbat services on
Saturday morning what happens to all
those disaster relief organizations what
happens to the Catholic schools in the
Chicagoland area which serve 80,000
students you know many students on the
Chicago Public Schools total 400,000 so
the Catholic schools have no small
percentage of them as people stopped
going to church on Sunday and putting
their 20 on the plate what happens to
those schools 50% of the students aren't
Catholic over-representation of kids who
are poor and minority religious
communities play an absolutely central
and essential role in American civic
society and as those communities
sociologically erode what happens to
American civil society Tufts will be
fine st. Jude's and Englewood
I'm not sure kids need that school
what's gonna happen second thing
think that's interesting about this
story is that these really smart people
at the top of this organization who kind
of knew this was true the extent of
religious participation in making the
Chicagoland Food Depository run still
didn't have the confidence to say that
we're gonna move forward on something
we're gonna be proactive about it
because they thought that the risks were
too high and you know what the truth is
the risks in interfaith work are high
right and anybody who does this
professionally or even just as a hobby
you know Greg alex Jenni anybody in here
right we have made the mistake of let's
let's pray together
or let's campaign for this together or
don't we all agree on this and you
realize pretty quickly that you know
religious diversity is not just about
the differences you like and that people
who orient around religion differently
actually have very different views on
matters of ultimate concern there are
distinctive features to religious
communities it's not like you can take
all the knowledge you have gleaned from
race and gender and sexuality and
superimpose it all the way over to
religious communities right I'll never
forget the time where somebody said to a
Muslim friend of mine you know we're
we're so sorry about how oppressed you
are in American society this person
looks at my friend and says God gave me
the last prophet and the final
revelation I never think about being
oppressed
surah 93 says that I should only be
thankful and give gratitude to the Lord
but that is an interesting distinctive
feature of a religious tradition not
every Muslim feels like that but
probably don't want to talk to an
observant Muslim about how he or she
views his or her social condition
without having at least some familiarity
with theology
so what did I tell the folks of the
greater Chicagoland Food Depository
some version of you should hire a tough
graduate I'm actually mostly serious
about this we live in the most
religiously diverse nation in human
history the most religiously devout
nation in the Western Hemisphere at a
time when religion is a flashpoint of
tension is a growing divide is
opportunities for extremism and conflict
the greater Chicagoland Food Depository
that social context which is to say a
social context in which people who
orient around religion differently are
constantly interacting with each other
even if only in a head nod type ways
that is more and more every school every
hospital every social service agency
every recreational fill facility as a
religious diversity becomes more and
more a feature of American civic spaces
do we not think that there are going to
need to be experts and professionals who
are able to lean in positively to that
dimension of diversity to bridge it to
strengthen social cohesion to increase
social capital to reduce prejudice to
create a larger sense of we to be able
to do that well to be able to figure out
whose hand do you shake and whose hand
don't you shake to figure out actually
we have an over-representation of Shia
Muslims here who will be really great
really great to get Sunni Muslims to
know maybe these groups of people are
willing to have a moment of silence
together but we will respectfully
recognize that this group of people is
not going to participate in that which
discussions to have in which not to have
in other words just as multiculturalism
has taken off just as ESL has taken off
just as we are increasingly aware of
various genders and sexualities in civic
spaces do we not think we're going to
a similar level of interfaith literacy
in leadership in order to realize the
opportunity of religious diversity and
guard against the challenges and threats
let me take you back some 60 years or so
maybe longer 80 years if I can do my
math right to an experience that a great
comparative religion scholar head which
got him thinking differently about the
social and political context of
religious diversity and the intellectual
approaches to understanding that and
building healthy religiously diverse
democracy so Wilfred Cantwell Smith who
also spent a good part of his career at
an University nearby when he was a young
man straight out of Cambridge he gets
sent by the Canadian missionary society
says the early mid 1940s he's a very
serious presbyterian he sent by the
Canadian missionary society to city name
Lahore which is in present-day Pakistan
but back then it was part of an
undivided India under British colonial
rule ant Will Smith's in his mid-20s he
is a teacher at Forman Christian College
and he probably goes there with you know
with some pretty strong missionary
commitments right but when he gets there
he has this really interesting
realization that the students he's
teaching and the faculty that he's
teaching with are Hindus and Muslims and
six and Jains and Buddhists in the odd
secular humanist here and there and that
while we're they taught was Forman
Christian College what they were really
doing was trying trying to create a
community
that was religiously diverse couple of
things come to Cantwell Smits mind that
he believed into the day that he died
that Christianity had the feast
especially his Presbyterian
interpretation of it that Jesus was Lord
and Savior and evangelizing other people
is not the first thing that comes to
mind when you need to ask your
colleagues where do I find bread in
grocery stores around here a very
serious way right like there are a whole
set of like neighborly type concerns and
issues that rise when you're in a new
country and you're on somebody else's
turf and so you want to make friends and
be a respected colleague something else
comes to his mind although I believe in
my tradition I am learning to have a lot
of respect for these Hindus that have a
strong commitment to vegetarianism to
these for these Janes who have an even
stronger commitment don't eat onions or
garlic for these Muslims who perform
prayer five times a day including waking
up early in the morning and fast from
sunup to sundown no water during Ramadan
like these people in real life they're
not the people I read about in my
missionary books and so this thing
called a religiously diverse community
it's actually something that I want to
build a couple of striking things about
this back then not Cambridge where he
did his masters nor Toronto where he did
his undergrad nor the Boston area where
he would become a young professor or
religiously diverse Ana de England the
United States were largely religiously
homogenous societies largely Jews
Protestants and Catholics the 1965
Immigration Act had not yet happened the
act that brought many people from
different parts of the world to the
United States the labor intakes
of post-war Britain had not yet happened
and so can't Will Smith he's kind of
seeing the future right but he realizes
this that I'm seeing in Lahore this is
coming to Louisville I mean this
religious diversity is not going to stay
here and so he starts to have these big
thoughts and he thinks to himself you
know what the questions I'm asking
myself right now
am I really a Christian if I'm not
trying to evangelize these folks how do
you build a religiously diverse
community how do you stay true to your
own religious practices and views and
commitments while having great respect
for others I mean these are like major
psychological and theological questions
he says in 20 30 40 years everybody's
gonna be asking these questions and by
the way it's not just about this little
school you're in the mid-1940s
in Lahore I'm literally watching
religion blow up all around me right six
Hindus Muslims all in no small part
because of the colonial context under
the British Empire constantly at each
other's throats and a couple of years
later more than a million died in
virtually hand-to-hand combat in
partition so this like religiously
diverse society thing this is a major
issue actually says in this essay it is
going to take the same kind of minds the
same level of intellect and commitment
that we're currently putting into
nuclear physics how do you build a
healthy religiously diverse society most
of Princeton does PhD and it's actually
after that that he writes this essay and
one of the things that he points out is
as much as he learned about religious
systems in his PhD at Princeton he
didn't learn that much about what would
have helped make that a religiously
diverse community at Lahore Christian
College I want to say this again right
because this is kind of an important
turning point in this talk
he goes to p8 to Princeton to do a PhD
in religion and he says I learned an
awful lot about religious systems but
what I was really curious about was not
the fact that there is a call to prayer
in Islam but what the call to prayer
means to Muslims and whether we should
have one out loud for the small number
of Muslims on the faculty at Lahore
Christian college should we have
vegetarian food because the Brahmin
Hindus on the faculty can only eat food
that is cooked in an all-vegetarian
environment how do you build a
religiously diverse community and what
he says in this essay is it is going to
take a whole different form of
intellectual inquiry it's what I want to
turn to now how do we build a healthy
religiously diverse democracy and what
kind of academic preparation would help
us do this one of the things that struck
Cantwell Smith was that he learned a lot
about Islam in graduate school but he
had been around enough Muslims to know
that Muslims were not walking Islam's in
other words you can learn a lot about a
system and not actually know that much
about people because people are not
simply dropped from the system we are
formed in all sorts of other ways I'll
tell you a funny story about this story
that Barbara I heard from Barbara brown
Taylor one of the reasons Barbara brown
Taylor the great Episcopal preacher got
interested in interfaith work she's
teaching world religions at Piedmont
College in Georgia and they're doing the
part of the book on Islam and there's
like several pages spent on Sunni and
Shia so so what do Christians think when
they see Sunni and Shia in a book about
Islam what's their immediate reference
point
what that's right so she loved it she's
like I know what this is about
so she devotes like three class periods
to this right it's AB it's a big deal
It's a big deal of Christianity has to
be a big deal in Islam right
so spend spend all this time on this and
at some point the students in the class
mostly Christian kids from Georgia
realized that there's an exchange
student from Sierra Leone his name is
Mohammed they're super excited to know
something about Islam they can talk to
this kid about something same like
they're like Muhammad you o Sunni or
Shia he says I haven't heard those terms
until last week hey Muslims are not just
walking Islam's the context of wherever
Muhammad grew up in Sierra Leone
it's the Sunni Shia thing didn't mean
that much how do we build a religiously
diverse democracy that's with real
people and not with abstract systems so
in coming here I spent a good part of my
time reading Peter Levine stuff on civic
studies and like I totally geeked out
right because the way that he has put
this together is through kind of first
principles intellectual rigor he says
here is the question we are
investigating he defines every word what
should we do is that this is that the
line and then she goes word buy you like
he spends ten minutes on what it is a
thing of beauty I invite you to watch
the video how should we build a real
little tea religiously diverse democracy
I mean to find the terms democracy is
not just a place where people vote for
their representatives democracy is a
society where people get to make
personal convictions public say that
again democracy is a form of society in
which people get to make personal
convictions public you can stand out on
that corner and you can hand out flyers
advocating for a pro-choice view you can
shout about it at the top of your lungs
you can seek to raise money for
pro-choice causes you can look to elect
pro-choice candidates you can do all of
that within some limits
on that corner and somebody can stand on
the corner opposite from you and they
can hand out leaflets and raise money
and start a non-profit and seek to elect
candidates for the exact opposite cause
and you can say this view comes from my
deepest religious spiritual and identity
commitments a person the other corner
can say the exact same thing a democracy
is a place where people get to make
personal convictions public diversity is
not just the differences you like want
to say that again right I am at a number
of schools these days in which people
from a variety of races genders
sexualities and religions are in ace in
a room together they talk about how the
diverse they are and if you name the top
ten issues in American life they all
agree and their ideology on them I just
don't think that's a diverse room
diversity is not just the difference as
you like
diversity is being able to deal with
people who have very different ideas of
how a society should run of who should
be elected to office of what various how
various laws should look it's the
ability to engage those differences
religion for Paul Tillich is about
ultimate concerns so Michael Walzer in
his great book what it means to be an
American famously said that for
centuries political philosophers
literally from the time of the Greeks
believed that if you wanted diversity in
a society it had to be under a
dictatorship because think about this
how would any society allow another
groups views on ultimate concerns reign
over them how would you ever allow
people who believe something very
different not just cosmically but the
ability to put that into law and policy
and practice how would you ever allow
that group to be elected
has to be under a dictatorship if you
want a democracy Walzer says this is his
reading a political philosophy it has to
be homogeneous one people makes one
state what is one people same race same
ethnicity same religion of those
religion was the most important most
people thought think about how I define
religiously diverse democracy do the
difference is you don't like on matters
of ultimate concern that can be made
public
amongst other difference amongst a whole
set of conflicting views that's a recipe
for civil war Walzer ends that section
and begins the next one with this line
until the united states of america it's
interesting right for all of the sins
and mistakes of the founders and they
are legion and they should be talked
about and we should not forget them and
some we should not forgive for all of
those out religious diversity mostly
right when George Washington got a
letter from a man named Moses Setia s--
leader of the Hebrew Congregation of
Newport Rhode Island seventeen ninety
ninety-one Moses Esha says you know
what's gonna happen to my people in this
new nation right now that we have
ratified the Constitution now that the
thirteen colonies are all riding under
one banner it's gonna happen in my
people we who have been hated and how
didn't harass so much especially in
Europe and Washington writes back my
government will give to bigotry no
sanction and to persecution no
assistance let the children of the stock
of Abraham sit in safety under their own
vine and fig let there be none to make
them afraid at 1791 first iftar in the
White House is not held by Barack Obama
or George W Bush or Bill Clinton it's
held by Thomas Jefferson Ben Franklin
makes a donation to the building funds
of every religious sect including a
Jewish community
in Philadelphia he says the only thing I
want I want all of you to thrive the
only thing I ask is you celebrate July
4th together and commemorate my funeral
collectively every one of your prayers
to get me higher up there he builds a
Hall in Philadelphia uses his own money
he says the pulpit of this Hall will be
open to a preacher of any persuasion if
says directly if the mufti of grinding
of if the grand mufti of Constantinople
wants to send an imam preaching Islam
this pulpit is at his service actually
some of the earlier European settlers
they set the template for this right so
John Winthrop lands in the Massachusetts
Bay what 16 30 31 10 miles from here 15
miles from here
he builds a theocracy an anti-catholic
theocracy calls it a bulwark against the
Antichrist he is creating something that
will be impervious to the designs of
Jesuits just note this right America
launches not just as a racist project
but as an anti-catholic project how many
of you woke up this morning worried
about anti-catholicism serious is it not
remarkable that over the past several
hundred years the United States has
largely metabolized that because I had
this little bit role in the Obama
administration I was on the South Lawn
of the White House in October of 2015
when a black president introduced the
first Pope I thought to myself somebody
wake lime and beat her up from the grave
and say the nightmare came true
Roger Williams a lights here in Boston
Harbor a couple years after John
Winthrop and though he's just as deeply
Puritan as Winthrop is he decides he
doesn't want a theocracy he leaves gets
banished for Rhode Island learns the
language of the local Native American
populations does a sympathetic study of
their cosmology writes somewhere why
can't we have the idea of Muslims Jews
Quakers Baptists as subjects doesn't all
knowledge and experience show that they
can be peaceful and loyal citizens fair
and just dealers this is like 1640 this
nation at a mass level is the first
experiment in religiously diverse
democracy and you might say yes but look
at how we violated it along the way and
that is absolutely true and what I find
even more inspiring is how citizen
movements help to realize those early
ideals so let me tell you about one of
those movements did you know that when
the pilgrims arrived on Plymouth Rock
and they dusted off the stone they saw
the words judeo-christian nation itched
in it I was all you like you know like I
did really well on my SATs but that I
caught you out on that one buddy
think about this for a second if that's
not where the term comes from if it
wasn't written in the sky when John
Winthrop arrived if it wasn't given to
Moses on Mount Sinai several thousand
years ago where does the word come from
you've heard it enough right the current
occupant said not that long ago we're
gonna bring back judeo-christian values
so that everybody can say Merry
Christmas again well pause ten seconds
for you to make your own joke where does
it come from what's that
very close very close it emerges after
one of the American versions of let's
call it American pogroms in the 1920s
the Ku Klux Klan 20s at a time when the
Klan number three and a half four
million people it's a lot of avowed
white racists for a country that didn't
you know was still growing in population
anti black anti-catholic anti-semitic
one of the great victories of the Klan
in the 1920s was to light Al Smith's
Democratic presidents presidential
candidacy and fire so Al Smith was the
Governor of New York he was a Catholic
first Catholic to run on a major party
ticket for president and the Klan and
other anti-catholic native his forces
said things like Al Smith opened up the
tunnel in New York I think it was the
Lincoln Tunnel so that he could sneak
the Pope in faster he's gonna send a
one-word telegram to the Pope unpack
right Al Smith is is a facilitator of a
papal takeover in the United States they
let the candidacy and fire in Al Smith
loses and a group of Americans watching
this happen having seen the madness of
the Klan over the course of the 1920s
decides to start an organization they
call it the NCC J National Conference
back then National Conference for
Christians and Jews now the National
Conference for community and justice and
they basically say we can't be a country
that excludes the contributions of Jews
and Catholics we have to be a nation
that welcomes that right that makes
those people feel like they're part of
the American family and they run all
kinds of civic projects all across the
country try faith dialogues and you know
they go to college campuses and because
it's the run-up to World War two they're
going to to military bases they make 772
visits to military bases across the
world the message is the brotherhood of
man under the Fatherhood of God and they
know that
what they also have to do is kind of
create a new American narrative the
Protestant narrative whatever the
founders ideals might have been whatever
the beautiful language of the flushing
remonstrance and the letter to the
Hebrews a shinobi important on Rhode
Island the culture of the United States
was still fiercely Protestant Franklin
Roosevelt that great liberal lion was
once quoted as saying this is a
Protestant nation the Jews and Catholics
are here under sufferance that's how
fiercely Protestant much of the culture
of this nation was the NCC Jay knew that
they needed a different story so what
did they do they invented a term
judeo-christian America it's made up
it's a fiction it was made up not 5,000
years ago not four hundred years ago but
barely 90 years ago and it's not
especially theologically accurate a lot
of my Christian friends jesus is the son
of the Living God Lord and Savior for
some folks no one gets to the Father
except through him my Jewish friends
Jesus was a good rabbi maybe discuss
okay think about judeo-christian America
it's not something it's not like
theologically accurate and it's not
especially historically accurate it's
not like Jews feared really well in
Christian societies for much of Western
history so what is it it's a brilliant
Civic invention it is the most American
of things when the current story runs
its course but you need to keep on going
what do you do by the next chapter so
what do you think I'm gonna ask you now
in a nation in which die a neck says is
the most as the City Los Angeles that's
the most complex Buddhist city in the
world more Buddhist communities from
more different parts of the world live
in LA than any other
city in the world the most complex
Muslim country in the world more Muslims
from more different backgrounds are in
this piece of sacred earth than any
other patch of land around the world
except for the Hajj what comes after
judeo-christian I mean it's done great
work for 80 or 90 years right I mean you
could be critical of it but honestly
think would you rather be a Jew in
America in 1970 or 1920 it helped move
us a few inches forward right Gary
Snyder the great Buddhist poet says all
you can really hope for is to move the
world a millionth of an inch
judeo-christian did its job but what
comes next so you know what I love this
image of these people around this table
thinking of themselves you know we're
doing these great Civic projects and
we're going to military bases and we
feel like you know we're on the right
side of history but I don't know just is
there something bigger out there the guy
who's leading it is this you know young
guy got named Everett clenchy I think to
myself like some group of like tough
students northeastern students Harvard
students some group y'all are like
meetin right now and you're thinking to
yourself like what what's next right how
do we make sure that we are realizing
the opportunities of the greater
Chicagoland food depositories religious
diversity and not being afraid of the
threats like who's got that expertise
who's building that knowledge base who's
building that skill set right who's
thinking about what to call the next
chapter in America's mostly glorious
history of religious diversity and what
I think is so inspiring is like other
people have done that in the past and we
have inherited it and now we do our part
so what's the name of it what's the
skills folks need
what's the knowledge that we require to
build a healthy religiously diverse
democracy what happens to st. jude's
Catholic school to those students right
what does a religiously diverse civil
society look like in the early 21st
century the single best part about
working with really smart students on
college campuses I don't need the answer
I'm not smart enough to have the answer
right all I gotta do is plant the
question with you all this beautiful
line at the end of Hamilton I just took
my kids to see it you know this
beautiful line right America you
unfinish symphony you sent for me it's
still a question that requires our best
minds the kind of minds that would in
another area be put to nuclear physics
that's you all this unfinished symphony
it's sent for you thank you
either you do thank you so much for such
a thoughtful and timely lecture Russell
lecture and I know that there are
probably many questions and thoughts on
our minds EBU has generously offered to
give us five or ten minutes to engage
with him so we have some microphones
that we will bring around but if anyone
has questions or comments please please
stand up or raise your hand we'll come
to you
I thank you for your beautiful lecture
um I was wondering your opinion on how
do you engage in religious and like
interfaith dialogue and work especially
with like like you said the differences
that we don't like while retaining like
the safety of people who are
marginalized with marginalized
identities I'm like thinking
specifically of queer and trans people
whose identities might not always be
respected in some religious communities
how do you kind of take the two and have
have both the the dialog and the work
that you need while also making sure
that people are safe and respected yeah
so I think when I do interfaith work I
just expect disagreement I just I just
like I mean a smiley Muslim I'm part of
a small community of Shia Muslims that
many Muslims don't regard as Muslims and
that other people just have never heard
of I just I just don't expect I don't I
just don't expect I don't I don't expect
the same respect from other people that
I would expect of my friends interfaith
work is not about my friends right there
are some places I wouldn't enter where
where I'm like I'm I'm not you know like
I find this hateful but if I declare if
I find myself declaring fifty percent of
the world or the nation hateful then
it's my problem
what I mean by that is like I've just by
my problem what I mean is that I've just
you know Jane Addams has a great line
that if you if you limit your
interactions you have circumscribed your
your range of life in your ethics right
and so it just it means I learn less and
I convince fewer people that doesn't
mean I can't do it like I am NOT I'm not
standing up here and saying you have to
do this I'm saying if you're going to do
interfaith work expect disagreement
expect disagreement on matters of
ultimate concern expect people to to
believe that they have the banquet when
it comes to cosmic matters expect people
to have different views on things that
that you think are really important and
if you don't want to do it that's fine
right it's totally fine I the analogy he
uses you know when the mountain climber
approaches the mountain she's not
surprised she came to climb the mountain
she's prepared right so I think if
you're gonna do interfaith work you have
to prepare yourself for that and I think
that people have different zones of
comfort it's totally fine right when
when I heard that a group had said at a
particular small College I was going to
that inviting me as the convocation
speaker on campus was inviting somebody
who said at the right hand of the devil
and this was said to me as a warning a
month before I came and then a week
before I arrived I got an invitation
from that group to come speak to them of
course I accepted the invitation I mean
what what are they gonna do to me be mad
at me right like I would much rather
have that conversation that's the
decision that I made I'm not saying
everybody has to make that decision but
I am saying that for us to have a
healthy religiously diverse democracy we
need to have enough people who are
willing to deal with the differences
with which they are uncomfortable to to
strengthen that Civic fabric I'm gonna
I'm gonna give you um for me like a
stark example I dunno if I have a heart
condition and I require a two person
heart surgery I don't care if the heart
surgeons voted for different people they
need to perform their heart surgery on
me right and that's kind of how I see a
lot of civic life in America that
the only way you have a healthy
religiously diverse democracy is if you
can disagree on some fundamental things
and work together on other fundamental
things otherwise I mean do we do we find
ourselves in a situation where people
are saying I will not perform a heart
surgery with you because your views make
me feel disrespected no I am NOT saying
that in a dismissive way right I'm not
saying feeling disrespected us I'm not
saying like get over it snowflakes I'm
saying in order to have a diverse
democracy you have to be able to
disagree on some fundamental things and
work together on other fundamental
things otherwise it's not it's not
otherwise it's not diversity
hi there I was so happy to hear you sort
of mentioned Tillich and his concept of
ultimate concern but I I was also
thinking about how in his theology doubt
is such an integral part of arriving at
your own to ultimate concerns so you
have to sit with like moments of deep
uncertainty and deep doubt and I was
wondering how you handle moments of deep
uncertainty in your work especially
following tragedies like what happened
in Christchurch recently or the Tree of
Life Massacre how do you deal with those
moments of doubt
so those thank you for for for your
question um so those maybe I'm getting
I'm not fully understanding the question
but those moments make me weep they
don't make me doubt right like those
those are those are that's the act or
the the ultimate ugliness of the human
condition what happens in the aftermath
is the ultimate beauty of the human
condition and I think to myself I want
to be part of the spirit of of the
aftermath and part of the work that
would as much as possible prevent such
acts so so so but did you mean doubt in
a different kind of way when these
things happen like do you doubt the sort
of I guess the purpose of your work
because I don't know sometimes when I
work as an interfaith engagement
coordinator at a very small college and
when these things happen I sort of feel
like I'm I'm like you know it's like
drops in an ocean and I wonder like what
the impact of my work is on a larger
scale so I was thinking doubt in that
sense like these tragedies happen
no no I you know your your job is to
move the world in millionths of an inch
I think that Gary Snyder line is really
profound there are 7 billion people on
the planet and some of them are crazy
seriously right and and there's way too
many way too many small arms around and
sometimes those things cross and
sometimes really ugly ideologies make
crazy people crazier
and so I I don't measure the success of
our work against preventing every single
one of those things I think we have time
for maybe one more question and then who
actually is gonna stay with us
- hopefully sign some books actually we
have a number of this books here Hey and
you make such a compelling case for the
way in which religion is in the DNA of
civic society in America at certain
segments of the American population turn
away from religion how will that impact
Pacific society in the future that's a
good so so I think that's a really huge
question and I don't know but that
that's you know I was having a
conversation earlier with with some
faculty here at Tufts University and
part of what is in the mix is this idea
of could Tufts be a place for an
academically rigorous program of
interfaith studies and any academically
rigorous program would have a set of
research questions associated with it
and I think that that that is an
absolutely key research question right
what what happens to American civil
society in a post religious era let's
just say like let's recognize that we
are we're in proud and we are in one of
the five least religiously least
religious cities in the country all
right so if you went to Oklahoma City
it's not the same if you go to Dallas
it's not the same right when I get off
the flight in in in South Carolina
there's literally people at the airport
who are saying you know my name is Amy
sue and I go to the Lutheran Church
which one do you go to right and I love
like that's that's America I love that I
think I think that that's really
important and part of what I'm saying is
is just let's not assume the rest of
America roles the way people with PhDs
and ball
roll right this is still a nation with
the soul of a church as GK Chesterton
said but there's also no doubt that
participation in religious communities
is falling and that's gonna have an
impact on civil society right you know
it's interesting I there there are times
when I'm with particularly politically
engaged audiences and there's a little
bit of an eye roll that happens when I
talk about the importance of civil
society and there's there's a sense of
like this isn't political enough like
that you know the real action is like
political stuff right
no I'm being descriptive here I'm not at
all being dismissive so I don't you know
I think that I think that American civil
society is like one of the one of the
great geniuses of human civilization
like a third of AAA groups meet in
churches so tell me what happens when
churches close in the next what where
are they gonna go right I mean do we not
want places where Trump voters and
Hillary voters and Bernie Bros and ALC
supporters are like opening up by saying
hi my name is Donald and I'm an
alcoholic and like helping each other
like for me that's the genius of
American civilization is we have lots of
spaces that bring people who disagree
and fundamental things together to do
positive things together so like I can't
stand the current occupant may be clear
right and when my wife tells me that the
guy who runs the travel basketball
league that my kids playing
they got her athleticism not mine was
retweeting Trump quotes I'm like I can't
and then I stopped and I thought to
myself do I really want a nation where
people from the same political party
won't play basketball in leagues with
people from the other political party I
actually really don't want
Vasia right and that's American civic
life and a huge part of it is generated
by religious communities I want to make
one more comment on this just to kind of
highlight just how how remarkable this
is so in the famous early document from
Harvard like 16 16 40s 1650s lots of you
will have heard this quoted they said
now that we have come to this new land
they didn't mention the part about the
murdering of the American Indians but
now that we have come to this land and
we've set up a civil government and we
have set up in early the early signs of
our economy and we have set up our
churches we are building a university
because we do not want to leave in a
illiterate ministry to our churches what
our current ministers should lie in the
dust
why was Harvard built Harvard was built
to educate future ministers for Puritan
churches our vered was built as an
institution of a particular religious
community principally for the continuity
of that community what is Harvard now it
is a public good what is Tufts now it is
a public good what do I mean by that I
mean that it is stunning that we have a
civil society of institutions built by
religious communities first and foremost
for the service and continuity of their
community that now serve as public goods
that's that is that doesn't happen
everywhere there's a recent New York
Times article about the city of moster
in Bosnia and Herzegovina and opens with
if you're a Catholic and there's a fire
in your house the Catholic fire
department will come make the call but
not the Muslim fire department and if
you're a Muslim and you like to dance
you will go to the Muslim nightclub but
not the Catholic one
and if you're a Catholic and you go to
school you go to school from 8 a.m. to 4
p.m. when Catholics go to school and if
you're a Muslim and you go to school you
go from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. when Muslims go
to school in other words they have a
civil society that is also built by
religious communities and it is entirely
balkanized
so I think our diverse civil society is
a little bit like William Carlos
Williams red wheelbarrow remember that
poem from high school right this so much
depends upon a red wheelbarrow
glistening with rain beside the white
chickens that you know you don't think
about how important it is until you
realize what the alternative art
alternatives are and and like you I am
concerned both with the erosion of
participation in religious communities
and the hyperpolarization tribalism and
partisanship that we are in danger of
that red wheelbarrow rotting and us not
us not knowing it thank you
