Eboo Patel

Eboo Patel

THE FAITH DIVIDE

Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together. He is the author of Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation. An American Muslim of Indian heritage, Eboo has a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. He is on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation and the Advisory Board of Duke University's Islamic Studies Center. Eboo is an Ashoka Fellow, part of a select network of social entrepreneurs with ideas that could change the world. Close.

Eboo Patel

THE FAITH DIVIDE

Eboo Patel is founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international nonprofit that promotes interfaith cooperation. His blog, The Faith Divide, explores what drives faiths apart and what brings them together. more »

Faith Divide | Eboo Patel Archives | Interfaith Youth Core | xmlRSS Feed


« Previous Post | Next Post »

The Hindu on Capital Hill

Ben Franklin and Sen. Bob Casey would have disagreed on a lot of things concerning religion. Franklin was something of a skeptic where Casey is a choir boy – Holy Cross College, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and then a law degree from Catholic University.

But they would have had the same opinion about what recently took place in the U.S. Senate.

The Senate opens every one of its sessions with a prayer. On July 12, for the first time in U.S. history, a Hindu priest offered the prayer. Sen. Casey introduced him. And when a group of Casey’s Christian co-religionists tried shouting him down, Casey had them removed from the Senate chambers.

Franklin would have applauded Casey.

He was involved in the building of a church in Philadelphia that gave the evangelist George Whitefield a pulpit when he was so ridiculed by the religious establishment he was preaching in the fields. It wasn’t Whitefield’s fire and brimstone rhetoric – he was fond of referring to his congregants as half-devil and half-beast – that encouraged Franklin to lay out the welcome mat for him. Franklin insisted that same pulpit would welcome a representative from the Muslim world preaching Islam.

So even though Franklin and Casey might have disagreed about religion, they would have seen eye-to-eye on the spirit of American pluralism.

Please e-mail On Faith if you'd like to receive an email notification when On Faith sends out a new question.

Email Me | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Reader Response

ALL COMMENTS (71)

Post a comment

We encourage users to analyze, comment on and even challenge washingtonpost.com's articles, blogs, reviews and multimedia features.

User reviews and comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Additionally, entries that are unsigned or contain "signatures" by someone other than the actual author will be removed. Finally, we will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or privacy policies or any other policies governing this site. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions.

Top Local Global

On Faith is an interactive conversation on religion moderated by Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham and Sally Quinn of The Washington Post. It is produced jointly by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, as is PostGlobal, a conversation on international affairs. Please send your comments, questions and suggestions for On Faith to editor and producer David Waters.