Florida State University’s College of Social Sciences, the Claude Pepper Center for Intercultural Dialogue, and the Shepard and Ruth K. Broad International Lecture Series welcomed Eboo Patel, author and activist for religious pluralism, Friday, Feb. 22 to speak to the FSU community regarding “The Faith Line: The Need for a Different Conversation on Religion.”
Patel studied on a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University, where he received a doctorate in the sociology of religion. He published the book Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation in 1997.
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This “build, equip, cultivate” goal is fostered by what Patel calls the “shared values” approach where storytelling is utilized to ignite dialogue between factions of religions that are experiencing friction.
“There should be a continually, mutually enriching conversation, where we’re sharing stories back and forth on what inspires us to come to the great universal values of all of these world religions,” said Patel.
Patel also noted that differences between religions should not be the main topic of discussion.
“Muslims, Christians, Jews and others are just going to have to learn that they have irreconcilable theological differences, and that’s perfectly fine,” said Patel. “But why should that shape the framework of our discussion, as opposed to the ‘shared values’ framework? My Muslim stories of mercy and compassion take nothing away from your Christian stories, nothing away from your Jewish stories.”
Patel also maintains the importance of learning to mobilize the information once it has been unearthed through storytelling.
“The knowledge of how different traditions have shared value systems is only as good as the people that are putting that knowledge into action,” said Patel.
Patel stressed this transition from idea into action.
“We need to have a layer of people who know how to organize people from different religious backgrounds together to take action on those shared values,” explained Patel. “It’s not just mercy in the abstract; it’s tutoring a child. It’s not just hospitality as a theme; it’s going to build a house.”
Ismailimail 