พรพรสำฦต

Interfaith competency begins in year one

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Eboo Patel, founder of the , packed Memorial Chapel with people eager to hear his inspiring message: that young people are the key to building religious cooperation and interfaith leadership.

The Class of 2015 had read his memoir, , over the summer and discussed it in their first-year seminars. And Patel had been the special guest at a lunchtime meeting of พรพรสำฦตโ€™s Heretics Club โ€” an apropos venue, it turned out, for him to build campus rapport.

โ€œHeresy is the presence of choice, and the opportunity to choose is a key feature of modernity,โ€ he said, quoting a breadth of sources from the sociologist Peter Berger, author of The Heretical Imperative, to the poet William Blake.

โ€œReligion is inherently relational,โ€ Patel said. โ€œPart of being Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim, is how you relate to others. So the issue isnโ€™t the compatibility of religious systems, itโ€™s how the people get along on earth.โ€

As a Muslim growing up in Chicago, Patel experienced racism and religious prejudice. Today, he organizes and trains students on college campuses across the country to fight inequality and move American to a place of religious tolerance. His organization has a $4 million budget and 35 employees.
Patelโ€™s full conversation with President Herbst can be found on , on พรพรสำฦตโ€™s video , and soon on .