Religious Tolerance

Regardless of where you look in the world these days, you will find religious intolerance is increasing.  Whether it is due to the increased mobility of the world's population, increased growth in the world's population, or simply a growing number of people living in cities and their suburbs, almost any city and country will exhibit problems when it comes to tolerating a religion other than one's own.  Up until now, it was mostly left to the elders of churches and communities to foster a better sense of religious tolerance.  But that has proven to not be enough in this day and age.   Just looking at the United States, we have problems when permits are issued for religious buildings, religious clothing is worn in the workplace, and to a certain extent outright fear and disdain for certain religions amongst select invidividuals and communities.  The problems are much worse elsewhere in the world, the intolerance often times leading to violence and bitter clashes between different religions and also between the different sects of one religion.  One has only to look at the conflict in Israel as an example, or even the intolerance that is growing the new Egypt, or maybe even the sectarian violence in Iraq and other Muslim nations.  What is needed is youth involvement and that is exactly the initiative that one young man and actually the White House are taking up. 

The young man is Eboo Patel and he runs a non-profit organization called the Interfaith Youth Core which is solely dedicated to promoting religious tolerance amongst the youth, specifically on college campuses.   (To see details of this, check out this article at the NYTimes).   The main objective is to get students from different religions together not just to talk, but to work on community projects together.  These projects can range anywhere from feeding the hungry, to building houses, to general community service.  But it will take projects like these along with inter-faith discussions to bridge the gap of religious diversity and promote religious tolerance amongst the youth.  By focusing on the youth, a new generation can be created in which people from different religions are not discriminated against in a community but are increasingly welcomed into one.   Patel was also invited by the White House to work on a new initiative announced just this April.  The initiative, called the "Interfaith and Community Service Challenge" is a request for all college campuses to pledge to a year of dedicated interfaith community projects that focus on bringing students from different religions together to work in the community and improve it.  President Obama sent out a letter to 2000 college presidents and has so far heard back from 400 of them saying they will make the pledge. 

These are the kinds of initiatives and programs that are needed not just on college campuses in the United States, but on college campuses throughout the world.  If we can get the youth of the world to increase religious tolerance amongst themselves, perhaps we can eventually bring increased peace and stability to communities and regions that are currently divided because of religion.  These programs will not solve the world's problems immediately.  The violence that occurs because or religion across the world typically has deep roots that will take years to undo and repair.  Any change that will occur, must start out small and eventually build to encompass the youth of the world.   To encompass the youth of the world is an enormous undertaking.  If initiatives are started and followed through on in the United States, however, perhaps they will spread and ignite initiatives and programs in other countries, slowly spreading to the regions most affected by religious intolerance.   Following off of yesterday's post, if we were to reduce the military budget, bring more soldiers home and spend that money to increase discussion and interfaith cooperation and community service, perhaps we would not have the need for such a large military.   Most of the issues that we deal with in any foreign conflict usually have some ties to religious intolerance or misunderstanding.  These are all complicated issues, but by starting with the youth in college, fresh minds largely unaffected by world problems, we can foster a new era of peace and understanding.  Am I being overly optimistic, yes.  But I feel that if we do not put all our eggs into this basket of interfaith cooperation, we will be screwing ourselves in the long run.  Today, make the effort to reach out to someone from a different religion for whatever reason and just have a conversation.  Start there and let it spread.