The Online Reflector

An inaugural Interfaith Lecture was hosted on Nov. 27 in McCleary Chapel. The Office of Ecumenical and Interfaith Programs hopes to offers a series of such lectures once every other year.

According to Dean of Ecumenical and Interfaith Programs and Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion Michael Cartwright, the Interfaith Lectures were created to invite people from various religious traditions to talk about a religious tradition different from their own, and then have someone who practices that religion respond.

“As with many would-be good ideas, the only way to see if this will work is to see if this will work,” Cartwright said.

The first speaker was Lipscomb University Professor of Religion Lee Camp. He discussed his book entitled, Who is My Enemy? Questions American Christians Must Face about Islam—and Themselves. Camp said that conversations with people of other religious traditions are valuable because they help put a face to the issues.

“At a minimum, they [interfaith conversations] begin to dispel some of the fear that comes from our fear of the unknown,” Camp said.

According to Camp, he set out to write the book after being criticized for his comments at another event. He said that he realized how much he did not know and wanted to change that. So, he spoke to people in his community and around the world. He talked to everyone from Muslim leaders to Christians with explicit anti-Muslim attitudes, and many in between.

“I think it’s terribly important that we try to hear people’s stories,” Camp said.

Camp said that there are two prevalent attitudes in the Christian community towards Muslims. According to Camp, one attitude says that Muslims are essentially doing the same thing, while the other says that they are ungodly. He asserted that both of these attitudes are incorrect.

“Mohammed was concerned with social justice,” Camp said. “He was concerned with helping the poor and the weak.”

According to Camp, some scholars say that the Islamic philosophies and practices are from the seventh century, but he does not believe this is true. Even if it was, he does not think that it would matter, because violence has not ceased to exist.

“There is not a whole lot of evidence that suggests that modernism has solved the problem of war,” Camp said.

When Camp was finished, Executive Director of the Muslim Alliance of Indiana Aliya Kahn Chaplin responded. According to Kahn Chaplin, Muslims are not a group that can be stereotyped, because there are so many. She said, however, that they are not out of touch with the modern world and that many scientific advances have come from the Islamic community.

“No Muslims are chronologically living in the seventh century,” Kahn Chaplin said. “There are millions of Muslims living in the U.S. who live peaceably under the constitution of the U.S.”

According to Kahn Chaplin, the first time that she was physically threatened because she was different was during Operation Desert Storm. She said that it was wrong for people to do that, and it is wrong now for people to believe that Muslims do not condemn the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Kahn Chaplin said that she is not a scholar, but just a Muslim trying to live her life.

The Muslim Alliance of Indiana helps Muslims get involved in service projects and other community events. At the end of the day, Kahn Chaplin said, all that anyone wants to do is leave the world a better place for his or her children.

Like Kahn Chaplin, the University of Indianapolis Christian Ministries Council and a group of students led by EIP Steward of Interfaith Programming Jessica Leaman read Camp’s book in preparation for the event.

Freshman Pre-Physical Therapy major Zak Mitiche was a part of the student group. Mitiche, who is working to reorganize the UIndy Muslim Student Union, said that students should take advantage of conversations such as these.

He did not agree with all of Camp’s presentation but said that the lecture helped encourage open-mindedness. According to Mitiche, interfaith dialogue not only helps people understand another person’s point of view, but also helps a person understand his or her own faith.

“I think that honest dialogue like that is necessary for our own education, for our own humanity,” Mitiche said. “So we can live peaceably.”