With the backdrop of the Washington National Cathedral’s gothic architecture and the promise the building was intended to be a house of prayer for all faiths, Interfaith America founder Eboo Patel detailed the experience of how religion impacts politics across the world.
Held on the same night as President Donald Trump’s State of the Union, Patel was joined in conversation by the Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith and reporters Christine Emba and Peter Wehner. They encouraged the crowd to practice pluralism in their everyday lives in order to heal the country.
Pluralism is a system where diversity within a political body is recognized as a benefit for the people and government. Patel was asked by the Rev. Hollerith if Americans only recognize the good pluralism can bring during times of conflict — and if we’re in a time of conflict right now.
Patel, in response, noted an address given by Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, at Brigham Young University, where he, an atheist in a same-sex marriage, celebrated the teachings of civility that stem from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and how badly the rest of the country and all of modern Christianity needs to adopt this approach, too.
“That is a note in the symphony of pluralism,” Patel said of Rauch’s speech. “We need to elevate that conversation. We need to use that word.”
Patel noted he recently visited his mother in her nursing home and overheard at least five different languages. That’s happening all over the country, he said, because the country in the past valued and prioritized pluralism and diversity.
Emba noted, however, that “pluralism is hard.” As humans, we’re likely to “other” people who are different from us, whether that be skin color, language, sexual orientation or political beliefs, the speakers said. “It has to be a practice” that is implemented in daily life by challenging yourself internally to find out more about another person and their beliefs, she said.
“It’s hard to really practice, which is why our civic institutions have to be dedicated to the practice of pluralism,” Patel said, noting that schools can practice it by sitting students down who have disagreements and generating conversation between them in order to solve arguments and highlight the importance of speaking with those who you have differences with.
Patel said that at Interfaith America they often say that pluralism and America at its best resembles a potluck, building off the time-old saying that the United States is a melting pot.
“You need people from different identities to bring a diverse set of issues. You need a host who is willing to set up, to really step up and invite people to create a place that is safe and open and clean,” he said. “Literally everything good that comes out of America … comes out of people in different ideologies mixing together.”
Then, the Rev. Hollerith asked, “does pluralism require a crisis?” Patel said he thinks being reminded of conflict can “focus the attention.” Wehner argued that conflict is necessary in order to sustain pluralism.
Often throughout their discussion, the panelists evoked the vision of the Founding Fathers and leaders like President Abraham Lincoln. They set up a system and a vision for the United States built on the idea that all men are created equal and out of many, we are one. Humans, Wehner argued, over time tend to take things for granted, which is where the U.S. currently is at.
“And then you begin to assume that they’ll always be with you. I do think sometimes it’s only when you begin to lose those things that you remind yourself why they’re worth your affections and your loyalty and defense,” Wehner said.
“Then the question becomes, when you’re in the process of losing them, do you have the collective courage and strength to defend (them)?” he asked. “And that’s the drawing of human history, which is at those moments what happens and who rises up and what prevails?”
