Youth Voices: Why Interfaith Work Must Happen on College Campuses
February 21st, 2011 | Posted by: Chris Stedman
Want an exclusive sneak preview of my forthcoming book for Beacon Press?! Check out this adapted selection from my manuscript in the Journal of College and Character‘s new issue, guest edited by the Interfaith Youth Core‘s Eboo Patel and Cassie Meyer! My piece also includes amazing reflections by interfaith leaders Greg Damhorst, Aliya Bagewadi, Moustafa Moustafa. Please check it out, and don’t miss the other excellent pieces in this issue:
Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) Founder and President Eboo Patel was the commencement speaker the semester before I graduated from Augsburg College in December 2007. He was there to lay out his vision for interfaith cooperation and explain how it might be realized on campuses like mine.
I didn’t go. Looking back, I wish I had listened to my professor’s advice and requested a ticket. I might have caught on to the idea of interfaith engagement sooner.
I wasn’t interested in religious work. I knew that was somewhat ironic: After all, I was getting a degree in religion from a Lutheran college. But at that time I was antireligious, having struggled for years over my religious identity and my sexual orientation. Eventually I decided that I was an atheist and that religion was to blame for my struggles, and it seemed clear that interfaith work had no relevance for me.
February 22nd, 2011 at 11:04 am
[...] He is an atheist that promotes interfaith dialogue between believers and nonbelievers. Mr. Stedman provides a link which will take you to a preview of his forthcoming book on the topic. “I wasn’t [...]