CAFE
Two Sundays (1/24) ago CAFE organized a mini-retreat for many of the religious student leaders. Fourteen students from 9 different groups attended, and while we were happy with that number, we realize that some groups were not represented and will continue reaching out to every group on campus. Ultimately, I hope this small retreat will have a large future impact in supporting CAFE's goal of creating a more pluralistic environment on the Tufts campus, and this retreat was specifically meant to establish avenues of cooperation among different religious student groups.
Instead of detailing every single thing we did at the retreat, I will try to frame its main message in terms of this video clip of God's Warriors' trailer, which we showed at beginning of the retreat. God's Warriors was a three-part documentary made by CNN that examined the intersection of religion and politics in the three Abrahamic faiths, and it ultimately had an interesting take on religion and religious extremism. While there's no debate about whether religious extremism is a negative force (it is), there is an interesting debate on whether religion in general enables these extremists to perform their acts of intolerance.
I personally believe that saying that "respect for religion enables extremism" is a simplistic and dangerous statement, and that the God's Warriors clip portrays a very incomplete view of religion. Now this is not a knock on Christiane Amanpour or Richard Dawkins because they are both incredibly bright and have very noble goals (ending religious tensions is what we try to do too). But here is my differing personal take on this issue of religious extremism:
1. That extremism happens with many different affiliations, such as nationalism and environmentalism. And while religious extremists have certainly caused a lot more tragedies than environmental extremists (huge understatement, I know), I would disagree with the implication that respecting the environment somehow enables environmental extremism.
2. None of the religious people I personally know would ever be displayed in the "God's Warriors" clip, and their views are probably much more compatible with Richard Dawkins than with religious extremists.
3. And more practically, since religion isn't really going away, I believe (and I think CAFE members do too) that the best way to combat extremists is by encouraging different groups to understand and cooperate with one another based on the many shared values they have in common.
This last part was truly the goal of the mini-retreat. We encouraged the leaders to bond over their personal stories of faith or belief and then plan an event together as a symbol of religious cooperation, and hopefully as a starting point for many more cooperative events in the future. The event the leaders came up with is a "story slam," in which each group is invited to share a story from their historical/oral/textual tradition. We also brainstormed a number of different events, and I hope the leaders feel more comfortable approaching each other to plan these events.
On that note here is a plug for CAFE events in the near future:
1. GIM on Monday, February 8th at 9pm in Eaton 201
2. CAFE Café: Soul Food an interactive discussion with chaplains and other religious scholars about the depiction of the soul in various traditions. Monday, February 22nd at 7:30pm in the Interfaith Center
3. Story Slam: the event planned in the mini-retreat. Each group (all faith and belief groups are invited) will share a story from their text/history/oral tradition... over dessert and a cup of hot chocolate. Early March, exact time and location TBD
4. Middle East Social: planned by the Middle East Peace Coalition (ASA, MSA, FOI, Hillel, CAFÉ and NIMEP), this will be a great chance to meet and socialize people from the Middle East and/or who care about the region. Thursday, February 25th at 7:30pm in the Interfaith Center.
Daniel Resnick (CAFE co-president); All the opinions here are mine alone.
January 19
A few days ago I was asked to post a blog for the Interfaith Youth Core on my interfaith "dream," to honor Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. I decided to wait until today (1/19) for this post because I was struggling to put my interfaith “dream” into words, and I thought that I might receive inspiration after I attend a community wide interfaith celebration of Dr. King’s life, hosted by Interfaith Action in Sharon, MA.
The event, like all the Interfaith Action events I had previously attended, was great. Three high school students representing different faiths planned the celebration, which was attended by almost 100 community members representing most of Sharon’s many traditions. It included reflections on Dr. King’s life by different community members, interfaith dialogue, and more. Looking around the large room during one particularly powerful moment, in which a student and an adult combined to play and sing traditional gospel songs, I couldn’t help but think that this is what my dream of a pluralistic community looks like. It was awesome to see different people interested in learning about one another, all while celebrating the life of a great man, who bettered the life of every single American, regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.
Dr. King once said that, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.” The U.S.S USA is a strong and diverse boat, but there are still people who live in magnificent cabins and those who live in shambles, and the diversity of this boat is rarely appreciated, let alone used for good. Most of the faith traditions I know believe in some form of the Golden Rule, however this rule is often forgotten when it comes to people of different faiths and cultures. My own tradition’s past has taught me that merely tolerating another person’s presence can lead to an ambivalence that then violates the Golden Rule.
Instead, I think that the Golden Rule requires us to learn more about our fellow Americans: to understand their past, to identify our similarities and differences, and to work together toward building a better America and a better world. At the event today, the student facilitator raised the question of why hasn’t there been much progress on one of Dr. King’s unfinished projects, the “Poor People’s Campaign.” If all faiths stand for justice, why is there so much inequality in the United States? One possible reason I brought up is that maybe Americans are unaware that their neighbors also believe in service and justice. If I think that my neighbor’s religion justifies extremism, than I probably won’t invite him/her to my next service project. While I know that this is a gross oversimplification, I do think that we need to better understand one another, so that we can treat one another as equal shipmates, and then work together to improve our boat.
My dream is that America becomes an example for the rest of the world: that people of different religions can not only live together peacefully, but also work together to improve the lives of one another. My dream in that high school students graduate with a basic knowledge of all of the major faiths in the world, and that college graduates graduate having had mutually enriching interactions with students from other religions and cultures. My dream is that a person would not be pre-judged because of his or her beliefs. I understand that creating pluralistic societies in the US will not eradicate poverty, indefinitely cure inequality, or prevent extremists from hating us. However, I hope that each person can embrace his/her own version of the Golden Rule, so that the U.S.S USA only grows mightier and more pluralistic.
Daniel Resnick
CAFE co-president
