Pluralism and prejudice: How conflicts over religious pluralism reveal America’s new ‘Sacred Ground’
Posted at 05:43 PM ET, 08/23/2012
TheWashingtonPost
By Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
The only Protestant running for president in 2012 is President Obama, an American of both a racially and a religiously diverse family background. Both vice-presidential candidates are Catholics, and Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee for president, is Mormon.
Does it matter?
Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core thinks it does. In his new book, “Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America,” Patel sees our political process as a mirror of our increasing diversity, especially religious diversity. He writes, “America is among the most religiously diverse countries in human history and by far the most religiously devout nation in the West.”
The question Patel poses, however, is how are we, as a nation, managing these factors? Are we furthering the narrative of “American exceptionalism” in which religious freedom and tolerance are supposed to be one of the best ways we showcase our values to the world? Or are we losing “social capital” to religious fragmentation and even enmity?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/pluralism-and-prejudice-how-conflicts-over-religious-pluralism-reveal-americas-new-sacred-ground/2012/08/23/74375c22-ed64-11e1-b09d-07d971dee30a_blog.html
