Building the Interfaith Youth Movement

Eboo Patel is the Founder and Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Core, a Chicago-based international organization that brings young people from different faith communities together to build understanding and cooperation. He earned his doctorate in the Sociology of Religion from the University of Oxford, where he studied on a Rhodes Scholarship. Patel is a regular guest on Chicago Public Radio and a frequent contributor to the Op-Ed pages of The Chicago Tribune. Additionally, he has written for The Harvard Divinity School Bulletin, Utne Magazine, The Journal of Muslim Law and Culture and National Public Radio. He serves on the Boards of the International Interfaith Center, CrossCurrents Magazine and Duke University's Islamic Studies Center. Patel has been featured in a range of media, including The New Republic, NPR, the BBC, and CNN. He is a sought-after speaker, and his addresses include the keynote speech at the Nobel Peace Prize Forum with President Jimmy Carter and the Baccalaureate Service Address at the University of Pennsylvania. Patel is an Ashoka Fellow, part of an elite network of social entrepreneurs with ideas that have the potential to change the world. Patrice Brodeur has recently been appointed Canada Research Chair on Islam, Pluralism,and Globalization at the University of Montreal in the Faculty of Theology and the Science of Religions. Born in Canada and educated in Israel and Jordan, he obtained his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1999. He has published on a variety of mostly contemporary subjects in Islamic and Religious Studies, from theory to applied religion. He has been active internationally in the field of interreligious dialogue and has begun articulating theoretical implications for the interdisciplinary academic study of religion. He was a fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University (1997D1998) and received a summer National Endowment for the Humanities grant to study Islam at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (1999).

Those working in higher education, or with similar aged youth, will find this volume a valuable resource across campus divisions: administrators in preparing mission and strategic planning, faculty in the classroom, administrators in student affairs, and chaplains in campus ministry offices to name a few. Perhaps [this book can be] most effectively used as a reference book for working groups exploring ways to foster interfaith action.

• Chapter 1 AcknowledgementsChapter 2 PrefaceChapter 3 IntroductionPart 4 CONTEXTS OF INTERFAITH YOUTH WORKChapter 5 Affirming Identity, Acheiving PluralismChapter 6 Young Adult Development, Religious Identity, and Interreligious Solidarity in an Interfaith Learning CommunityChapter 7 Theologies of Interreligious Encounters and Their Relevance to YouthPart 8 INTERNATIONAL INTERFAITH ORGANIZATIONSChapter 9 Towards a Transnational Interfaith Youth Network in Higher EducationChapter 10 The Gujarat Young Adult Project of the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF)Chapter 11 Youth LeadershipChapter 12 The Next GenerationPart 13 HIGHER EDUCATIONChapter 14 Youth and the Pluralism ProjectChapter 15 Seminarians InteractingChapter 16 Towards a Multifaith Community at Wellesley CollegeChapter 17 Bringing Interfaith to the University of IllinoisChapter 18 Ariculating What is at Stake in Interreligious WorkPart 19 SECONDARY EDUCATIONChapter 20 Teaching World ReligionsChapter 21 Secondary School Teacher Training in Religious StudiesChapter 22 Training Teachers in American Religious DiversityPart 23 COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECTSChapter 24 The Interfaith Youth CoreChapter 25 Interfaith Youth Leadership Council of the Interfaith Ministries for Greater HoustonChapter 26 The High School Youth Program of the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan WashingtonChapter 27 The Sacred Stories of the Ghetto Film SchoolPart 28 IMMERSION PROJECTSChapter 29 Spirit into ActionChapter 30 E Pluribus UnionChapter 31 The Chicago Interfaith Service HouseChapter 32 Face to Face/Faith to FaithPart 33 PASTORAL WORKChapter 34 Ask Pastor PaulChapter 35 ConclusionChapter 36 EpilogueChapter 37 IndexChapter 38 About the Contributors