Sacred Ground

by Eboo Patel

  Then note the too-few movements of dialogue among faith groups and stories of common participation in sacrificial and noble acts, and notice how much IFYC has achieved despite its lack of resources, publicity, or celebrity. I have observed Patel and IFYC in semi-public gatherings as they planned for their public offerings on campuses. The sessions were instructional, showing attention to detail without which a movement such as this stands little chance of surviving or finding itself ready for change as changes come. It impresses those of us who represent informal “Interfaith Aged Cores” to see how democratic and trusting the young participants are.

  Odds are that in the next generation, those who look in on agencies and gatherings promoting the interfaith movement will be able to enjoy seeing and learning from participants who are often less gray or bald or slowed down than many are today. (But may older participants continue to make their contributions.) The goals and tactics of IFYC are portable, transformable, and exemplary. Patel has argued for and contributed to such movements, so that they together can achieve much more in the crucial decades ahead. For now, he is busy with IFYC, and we readers can be engrossed in its story, even as we keep the larger culture in mind. Patel tells stories and gives often implicit advice about what Interfaith Youth Core and its kin can set out to achieve. People of all ages, whether on campuses or not, will pick up advice and likely experience a boost in morale and resolve.

  —Martin E. Marty

  Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus

  University of Chicago

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  When I mentioned to the Reverend Michael Garanzini, SJ, the president of Chicago’s Loyola University, that I was looking for a quiet place to work on a book, I was hoping maybe he’d find me a large broom closet somewhere in the Education Department. Instead, he suggested that I use his personal office overlooking Lake Michigan. His generosity was matched by the graciousness of the staff and administrators in Burrowes Hall who were my colleagues over the course of the summer of 2011, especially Dipti Shah, whose smiles greeted me every morning and whose frowns told me it was time to stop staring out across the lake and focus back on the computer. Thank you also to Tara and the crew at The Grind, who always give me coffee from the most freshly brewed pot, extra-toast my bagels just so, never roll their eyes at such requests, and therefore provide the perfect environment for a writer to work on his craft.

  I am eternally grateful to the board of Interfaith Youth Core and, especially, its chair, Howard Morgan, for giving me the time and space away from managing the organization to gather my thoughts and write this book. They are a rare group of directors, individuals who care deeply about the mission and impact of this organization, and equally for the people who staff it. I am proud to work for them.

  I am indebted to Barbara McGraw, coeditor of Taking Religious Pluralism Seriously: Spiritual Politics on America’s Sacred Ground, for our conversations connecting interfaith cooperation and sacred ground in America.

  My editor, Amy Caldwell, did for this book what she does for all books: made it better. I am thankful for her sharp insights. Thank you to my agent, Don Fehr, for giving me the sage advice that the best publisher for this, my second book, was the publisher of my first: Beacon Press. Working with Don was great, and being a part of Beacon—the press that has published the works of personal heroes of mine from James Baldwin to Geoffrey Canada—is an honor.

  Thank you to Rabbi Or Rose, Professor Charles Cohen, the Reverend Dr. Kenda Dean, Jenan Mohajir, Peter Gilmour, and Tom Levinson for your insightful comments on the manuscript. Special thanks to Claire Albert, who worked with me every step of the way on this manuscript, from the initial ideas to the final endnotes. Thank you to the terrific staff of IFYC and the network of young interfaith leaders we have the pleasure to work with. You will recognize much of this book. The best ideas were formed in discussions with you. The best stories are inspiring tales of the bridges you have built. Advancing this movement with you is nothing short of a thrill.

  And to my family—my parents and brother, who have only been encouraging, my wife, who was blessed with immeasurable grace, and my children, who constantly amaze me by going at Mach 5 all the time—what can I say except that I wish I deserved how good you are to me.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1. Pew Research Center, “Views of Religious Similarities and Differences: Muslims Widely Seen as Facing Discrimination,” Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, 2009 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey, http://pewforum.org/.

  2. Quoted in Maria Rosa Menocal, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain (New York: Little, Brown, 2002).

  3. Ibid., 22–23.

  4. Michael Walzer, What It Means to Be an American (New York: Marsilio, 1996), 55.

  5. Barack Obama, “President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address,” January 21, 2009, The White House, http://www.whitehouse.gov/.

  6. Martin Luther King Jr., “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,” April 4, 1967, American Rhetoric, http://www.americanrhetoric.com/.

  7. There is an alternate version of this in which the real estate developer Sharif El-Gamal is at the center of the story and calls the project Park51. For a good description, see Mark Jacobson, “Muhammad Comes to Manhattan,” New York, August 22, 2010, http://nymag.com/.

  8. Ralph Blumenthal and Sharaf Mowjood, “Muslim Prayers and Renewal Near Ground Zero,” New York Times, December 8, 2009.

  9. The O’Reilly Factor, Fox News, December 21, 2009.

  10. Omid Safi, Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism (New York: Oneworld, 2003).

  11. Eboo Patel, Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation (Boston: Beacon, 2007).

  12. Max DePree, Leadership Is an Art (New York: Dell, 1990), 11.

  13. Surah al-Hujurat 49:13.

  14. Justin Kaplan, ed., Whitman: Poetry and Prose (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1982), 956.

  GROUND ZERO

  1. Kirk Semple, “Council Votes for Two Muslim School Holidays,” New York Times, June 30, 2009.

  2. Ibid.

  3. Celeste Katz, “Carl Paladino Advertises on Ground Zero Mosque Issue,” New York Daily News, August 5, 2010, http://www.nydailynews.com/.

  4. Peter Nicholas and Julia Love, “Obama Supports Plan for Mosque Near Ground Zero,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 2010, http://www.latimes.com.

  5. Michael Barbaro, “Mayor’s Stance On Muslim Center Has Deep Roots,” New York Times, August 12, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.

  6. To its credit, the Anti-Defamation League—after the furor around their anti–Cordoba House position—launched a robust task force providing legal defense for mosques being opposed in various communities across the United States. As this is in line with the high ideals of the ADL, I am proud to be part of this group. For more information, see my “Why I Joined Abe Foxman’s Anti-Islamophobia Task Force,” Huffington Post, September 7, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.

  7. Barbaro, “Mayor’s Stance On Muslim Center Has Deep Roots.”

  8. For first speech, see Justin Elliott, “Michael Bloomberg Delivers Stirring Defense of Mosque,” Salon, August 3, 2010, http://salon.com. For second speech, see Wall Street Journal Staff, “Bloomberg on Mosque: ‘A Test of Our Commitment to American Values,” Wall Street Journal, August 24, 2010, http://www.wsj.com.

  9. Sharon Otterman, “Obscuring a Muslim Name, and an American’s Sacrifice,” New York Times, January 1, 2012, http://newyorktimes.com.

  10. Michael Barbaro, “N.Y. Political Leaders’ Rift Grows on Islam Center,” New York Times, August 24, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.

  11. Ibid.

  12. Kenneth T. Jackson, “A Colony With a Conscience,” New York Times, December 27, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com.

  13. “Remonstrance of the Inhabitants of the Town of Flushing to Governor Stuyvesant, December 27
, 1657,” Flushing Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), http://www.nyym.org/flushing/.

  14. George Washington, “To Bigotry No Sanction,” American Treasures, Library of Congress, August 17, 1790, http://www.loc.gov/.

  15. Steven Waldman, Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America (New York: Random House, 2009), 65.

  16. Paul F. Boller, George Washington and Religion (Dallas: Southern Methodist University, 1963), 120.

  17. Langston Hughes, “Let America Be America Again,” 1935, from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (New York: Knopf, 1994).

  18. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “The American Dream,” February 5, 1964, from “Online Exhibits,” Drew University Online Archives, http://depts.drew.edu/.

  19. Walt Whitman, Whitman: Poetry and Prose (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1982), 50.

  20. Eboo Patel, “On Muslims, Gays and Tolerance in America,” Huffington Post, December 28, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com.

  21. Nico Lang, “Dreaming of a ‘Different World,’ ” Faith Divide blog, Washington Post, February 15, 2011, onfaith.washingtonpost.com.

  22. Jalaludin Rumi, from “Masnavi-I Ma’navi,” in Teachings of Rumi, trans. by Idries Shah (London: Octagon Press, 1994).

  23. Umar Faruq Abdullah, “Islam and the Cultural Imperative” (Chicago: Nawawi Foundation, 2004).

  24. In early 2012, Mayor Bloomberg was again in the news on issues related to Muslims. This time, in my opinion, he was on the wrong side. Bloomberg was a strong supporter of the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslims, for the simple fact that they were Muslim, at over a dozen colleges, including Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. See “Bloomberg Stands By Spying on Muslims,” RT, February 22, 2012, http://rt.com/usa/.

  THE MUSLIM MENACE

  1. “Mineta Quits with Parting Shot 20-Year Reign: Key Democrat Leaves Congress, Calls GOP Agenda ‘Mean,’ ” San Jose Mercury News, October 8, 1995.

  2. Pamela Geller, “Pamela Geller: In Her Own Words,” interview, New York Times, October 8, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.

  3. Laurie Goodstein, “Drawing U.S. Crowds with Anti-Muslim Message,” New York Times, March 7, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com.

  4. Evan McMorris Santoro, “Gingrich Calls for Federal Ban on Shariah Law in US,” Talking Points Memo, September 18, 2010, http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com.

  5. Many observant Muslims, similar to Christians in previous centuries, eschew involvement with interest, essentially requiring them to use different banking and financial tools than everyone else. With a billion and a half Muslims in the world, this is clearly an opportunity to create and sell a whole range of banking products, from checking accounts to mortgage loans, that are “sharia-compliant.” Several million Muslims live here in America, many looking for American financial institutions that they can do business with in a way that is consistent with their religious values, a sure-fire market opportunity.

  6. Newt and Callista Gingrich, “America at Risk: The War With No Name,” Human Events: Powerful Conservative Voices, September 8, 2010, http://www.humanevents.com.

  7. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952), xxiv.

  8. Lorraine Woellert, “Gingrich Said Freddie Mac Could Be Good Model for Mars Travel,” Bloomberg News, December 1, 2011, http://www.bloomberg.com.

  9. Justin Elliott, “Newt: For Shariah Law Before He Was Against It,” Salon, June 8, 2011, http://www.salon.com.

  10. Newt Gingrich, Rediscovering God in America: Reflections on the Role of Faith in Our Nation’s History and Future (Ontario: Integrity House, 2006), xiii.

  11. Newt Gingrich, “Why I Became a Catholic,” National Catholic Register, April 26, 2011, www.nationalcatholicregister.com.

  12. Newt and Callista Gingrich, “An Inspiring Story of Freedom Through Faith,” Human Events: Powerful Conservative Voices, April 7, 2010, http://www.humanevents.com.

  13. Jerry Filteau, “Pope Made Important Overtures to NonChristian Religions,” Catholic News Service, 2005, http://www.catholicnews.com.

  14. Maria Monk, The Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Monastery in Montreal (New York, c. 1850), 49.

  15. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 36.

  16. Shaun Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  THE EVANGELICAL SHIFT

  1. Lydia Saad, “Anti-Muslim Sentiments Fairly Commonplace,” Gallup Poll News Service, August 10, 2006, http://media.gallup.com/.

  2. Shaun Casey, The Making of a Catholic President: Kennedy vs. Nixon 1960 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  3. Ibid., 22.

  4. Ibid., 168.

  5. Mark S. Massa, Catholics and American Culture: Fulton Sheen, Dorothy Day, and the Notre Dame Football Team (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2011), 78.

  6. Casey, The Making of a Catholic President, 133–34.

  7. Ibid., 133.

  8. Ibid., 138.

  9. Ibid.,125.

  10. Massa, Catholics and American Culture.

  11. Casey, The Making of a Catholic President, 141.

  12. Ibid.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Massa, Catholics and American Culture, 78.

  15. Newt Gingrich, “America at Risk: Camus, National Security and Afghanistan,” address, American Enterprise Institute, July 29, 2011, http://www.gingrichproductions.com/.

  16. Human Khan and Amy Bingham, “GOP Debate: Newt Gingrich’s Comparison of Muslims and Nazi’s Sparks Outrage,” ABC News, June 13, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com.

  17. Tom Hamburger and Matea Gold, “Gingrich Woos Evangelicals as He Eyes Presidential Bid,” Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2011.

  18. Erik Eckholm, “Using History to Mold Ideas on the Right,” New York Times, May 4, 2011.

  19. Jeff Zeleny, “On the Stump, Gingrich Puts Focus on Faith,” New York Times, February 26, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com.

  20. Hamburger and Gold, “Gingrich Woos Evangelicals.”

  21. Asifa Quaraishi, “Who Says Shari’a Demands the Stoning of Women? A Description of Islamic Law and Constitutionalism,” Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Law 1 (2008): 163–77, http://www.law.berkeley.edu.

  22. Ron Kampeas, “Anti-Sharia Laws Stir Concerns That Halachah Could Be Next,” JTA: Global News Service of the Jewish People, April 28, 2011, http://www.jta.org.

  23. Justin Elliott, “What Sharia Law Actually Means,” Salon, February 26, 2011, http://www.salon.com.

  24. Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (Boston: Little, Brown, 2002).

  25. Ibid.

  26. Anna Quindlen, Loud and Clear (New York: Random House, 2005), 113.

  27. Boston Globe, Betrayal.

  28. Erick Eckholm and Jeff Zeleny, “Evangelicals, Seeking Unity, Back Santorum for Nomination,” New York Times, January 14, 2012.

  29. Drew Katchen, “Graham: Santorum, Gingrich Christians; You Have to Ask Obama If He Is,” Morning Joe, MSNBC, February 21, 2012, http://mojoe.msnbc.msn.com/.

  30. Jonathan Capehart, “Angry Rick Santorum ‘Throws Up on JFK,’ ” Washington Post, February 27, 2012.

  THE SCIENCE OF INTERFAITH COOPERATION

  1. This Week with Christiane Amanpour, ABC-TV, September 28, 2010.

  2. Laurie Goodstein, “American Muslims Ask, Will We Ever Belong?” New York Times, September 10, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com.

  3. Institute for Islamic Thought, “A Common Word Between Us and You,” A Common Word: Official Website, 2009, http://acommonword.com.

  4. Jonathan Sacks, The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations (New York: Continuum, 2003).

  5. Diana Eck, A New Religious America: How a “Christian Country” Has Become the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Natio
n (San Francisco: Harper, 2002).

  6. Donald G. McNeil, “A $10 Mosquito Net Is Making Charity Cool,” New York Times, June 2, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com.

  7. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).

  8. Robert Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century—The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2007).

  9. Putnam, Bowling Alone, 66.

  10. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum,” 148–49.

  11. Robert Putnam, Better Together: Restoring the American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).

  12. Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).

  13. Scott Keeter and Gregory Smith, “Public Opinion about Mormons,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 2007, http://pewresearch.org/.

  14. Robert Putnam and David Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010).

  15. “Views of Religious Similarities and Differences: Muslims Widely Seen as Facing Discrimination,” Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, 2009 Annual Religion and Public Life Survey, http://pewforum.org/.

  16. Lydia Saad, “Anti-Muslim Sentiments Fairly Commonplace,” Gallup Poll News Service, August 10, 2006, http://media.gallup.com/.

  17. Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, “In U.S., Religious Prejudice Stronger Against Muslims,” Gallup.com, January 21, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/.

  18. Michael Shapiro, Who Will Teach for America? (Washington, DC: Farragut, 1993).

  19. Wendy Kopp, One Day, All Children . . . : The Unlikely Triumph of Teach for America and What I Learned Along the Way (New York: Public Affairs, 2003).

  THE ART OF INTERFAITH LEADERSHIP

  1. Chip Heath and Dan Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard (New York: Crown Business Publishing, 2010), 27–32.