Affirming Identity, Achieving Pluralism: Insights from Interfaith Youth Work
Eboo Patel Thursday, 1 March 2007
We have inherited a large house, a great "world house" in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Moslem and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., "Where Do We Go From Here?", 1967
This article aims to develop a practical sociology of interfaith youth work. I begin by highlighting the significance that faith communities place on maintaining religious identity and the challenges that the pluralist modern world poses to religious identity. I go on to articulate a vision of a pluralist civil society that is respectful of different religious identities and encourages understanding and cooperation between diverse religious communities. I draw from my personal life as a Muslim in America, my professional experience as Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, and my academic training as a sociologist of religion to analyze the contextual issues surrounding interfaith youth work. I hope to provide a roadmap that helps interfaith youth work practitioners navigate those issues effectively.
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