Kaufman Updates
Permanent link for A Reflection On Patel's Interfaith Leadership, by Franklin Specter, Kaufman Campus Intern on October 17, 2023
Interfaith Leadership A Primer is written by Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith America.The foundation stands to bring together diverse communities into spaces of cooperation; and this book compiles information, strategies, and personal narratives from Patel’s experiences working toward that goal. The book introduces the interfaith in a consumable way providing opportunity for the reader to think and explore further.
I am expressing my thoughts on an in-between I found in the book that I want to explore further. I found Patel’s book never really touched on what I discuss, and believe it is an interesting perspective to consider. If you build an educational bridge for interfaith for a community that wants to embrace it but doesn’t have the opportunity, can they cross that bridge and be considered pluralist?
Page 63 states a key concept from the book: “Such insights [discussing how diversity leads to civil isolation] lead scholars like Diana Eck to draw a distinction between diversity and pluralism: diversity is simply the fact the fact of people with different identities in intense interaction; pluralism is the achievement of understanding and cooperation.” This distinction was new to me, but it makes sense. A place can be diverse and individualist. However, I had a few thoughts regarding the paragraph. If the goal is pluralism, do you first have to make the space diverse? Can you educate on interfaith well enough without personal interactions for people to understand and be willing to cooperate once they do meet a diverse environment? I do believe it is possible, but then maybe never successful. If you instill within someone the willingness to cooperate, is it their job to seek out diversity? If a community is understanding and willingly cooperative but the environment isn’t diverse, will they ever be pluralist? The small town of Nowhere, Kansas would have a hard time enacting what Patel teaches even if they want to embrace it. There’s an interesting position within the transition between diversity and pluralism that exists. I think people reside there, and I’m not quite sure how I’d classify their experiences with interfaith.
Franklin Specter, Kaufman Campus Intern
