Abstract
The primary claim of this book—to support the work of bridge building across religious traditions—is a bold one within the current climate of hostility, partisanship, and division in the United States. As a result, I approached Patel’s claim with a bit of skepticism. I expected that like too many calls for interfaith “this or that,” the author’s preferred solution would be the dilution of the unique differences of each religious tradition in order to find a common denominator that all could embrace. In other words, I assumed that the author would neutralize the unique claims of various religious traditions as the preferred avenue to get on with interfaith leadership. The temptation for those who promote interfaith dialogue and engagement is to do so by gutting the faith of interfaith—as if to assume that the only way by which we can talk about religious differences is by removing authentic differences.
But not so with Patel’s approach, one in which the author takes both the inter and the faith of interfaith quite seriously. I found an author who deeply respects and finds value in each religious tradition that he describes and whose primary component of his leadership approach is to nurture such sympathy in others. The starting place for the author’s conversation is his own religious commitments and identity as a Muslim, and ownership of this identity is the key to inviting others to own theirs. In this way, the author approaches his role of interfaith leadership coach from a place of personal authenticity that gives legitimacy to the entire project.
Patel is calling for a kind of interfaith dialogue within which each religious tradition is authentic and true to itself. This is not the kind of approach that minimizes differences or criticizes the other for exclusive claims of truth. At the same time, Patel is quite pragmatic—folks engaged in interfaith work must sometimes simply avoid their differences, even while recognizing their existence. Says Patel:
The purpose of interfaith work is to build stronger connections between people who orient around religion differently. . . . A . . . challenge posed by deep disagreements is the inclination to focus only on the disagreement, to go right to the elephant in the room. That, in my experience, is not a good idea. When people charge toward the elephant, they instinctively bring out the spears they have been sharpening for years. . . . It is almost impossible to turn people toward shared values and common ground once the war paint has gone on (Pp. 104–05).
Patel’s counsel reflects what many of us have learned to accept in other social relationships like our families and neighborhoods—sometimes achievement of the greater common good must overcome the need to air our differences.
Patel’s perspective emerges from his experience that diversity is not necessarily the highest good and can be quite divisive. Diversity is less what is needed, says Patel, than pluralism. Patel differentiates pluralism from diversity by suggesting that “diversity is a fact” while “pluralism is an achievement.” The problem comes in celebrating diversity without engaging in the hard work of nurturing pluralism. Part of the challenge in American society today is that modernity has led to the context of diversity but religious leaders and others have been slow to nurture pluralism around shared goals and expectations.
Interfaith Leadership is a road map for responding to the divisiveness of diversity and cultivating pluralism. It is a guide for those who desire to follow the author’s footsteps in giving leadership to interfaith conversations and activities. In fulfilling what it sets out to do, this book has value for anyone interested in gaining more information about the tensions being experienced in a very politicized culture. It is also especially valuable for:
those in conservative/fundamentalist religious communities who feel threatened by the ethnic and religious diversity they are experiencing and for whom the safest response seems to be hunkering down and building walls,
those in progressive religious communities who call for everyone to just get along but whose way of doing so is to promote the elimination of unique differences and exclusive claims among religious traditions,
religious “nones” and others whose lack of understanding of religious traditions leads them to assume that religious people cannot work across their differences for the good of the broader society and that religion is inherently divisive.
I appreciated Patel’s call for religious folks in all traditions to intentionally develop a theology that addresses interfaith differences. Patel gently challenges religious leaders to be proactive in identifying within their traditions those sacred texts or experiences that point to the kind of bridge building that he himself has been doing. Again, Patel doesn’t do so by encouraging religious communities to disown their exclusive truth claims—addressing those claims is not his project. Rather, his encouragement is to learn more about one another, develop appreciation for the other, identify commonalities, and work at “curating” faith activities that nurture relationships.
The book is divided into seven chapters. In the first, Patel assists the interfaith leader in identifying their own personal religious and social position. In the second and third chapters, the author analyzes the inter and faith components of interfaith. These chapters are richly informed by sociological concepts and theory. Chapter four identifies the landscape that the interfaith leader is trying to transform as the leader applies the tools of interfaith leadership. In the fifth chapter, Patel addresses the stones or knowledge needed to be a successful bridge builder across faith differences. In the final two chapters, the author offers practical skills that are needed for interfaith work as well as the more abstract but essential human leadership qualities needed for the task. The text also includes a kind of quick reference, an appendix that summarizes the various frameworks presented in these chapters.
Sociologists will quickly identify the solid sociological grounding within which Patel embeds his interfaith bridge building; the influences of Weber’s verstehen as an approach to understanding, the value of the sociological imagination, the influence of phenomenology, and much more are woven throughout the book. While the book is heavily sociological, Patel does an excellent job of translating sociological concepts and theories for the non-sociologist, illustrating concepts and theories with many stories from his own life and experience or that of others. These stories illustrate the usefulness of sociology as a frame for understanding religious differences and as an antidote for addressing the conflicts that these differences too often create. Indeed, this book is a great answer to the question I ask my students each semester: “What is the usefulness of sociology?”
Interfaith Leadership is well written and clearly organized. It would have broad appeal to both academic and popular audiences but particularly for those who are disturbed about the tone of our social and political dialogue today and who would personally be interested in becoming part of the solution rather than the problem. The book would be quite useful in an undergraduate or graduate course in the sociology of religion, any applied religious course where one of the desired outcomes is interfaith understanding, seminary courses engaged in the training of religious leaders, or leadership development courses. The book offers practical suggestions for activities to bridge religious traditions and promote greater understanding, a process that Patel terms the “theology of the hammer.” In this regard, it is easy to imagine a service-learning activity—volunteering at a food pantry, serving in a homeless shelter, addressing local ecological concerns—whereby students engage across religious lines and hone some of the specific skills that Patel recommends in Interfaith Leadership.