First years, faculty and many other members of the Luther community gathered enthusiastically on Sept. 3 at the opening convocation to hear Dr. Eboo Patel.

Patel is author of the summer Paideia reading, “Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation.” He is also the founder and executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core of Chicago.

In his convocation address, he re-emphasized his belief in religious pluralism and interfaith leadership, underlining the need for interfaith action at Luther College and calling on students to become social entrepreneurs who can build a society where people from different backgrounds live in equality.

“I implore you to be an interfaith leader,” Patel said. “I implore you to not forfeit the territory to Osama Bin Laden’s world.”

He urged the Luther community to choose religious pluralism over totalitarianism. The reason for this is that religious extremism can be a consequence of totalitarianism.

He continued to urge everyone to be outspoken in their oppostion to bigotry based upon religion, ethnicity, gender and other categorizations. Benjamin Johnson (‘13) asked whether there is or could be a middle ground between pluralism and extremism. Patel responded by saying that staying out of a religious or moral crisis is allowing the matter to worsen.

“The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain neutrality,” Patel said, quoting Dante’s “Inferno.”

To show how silence can lead to serious consequences, he also gave the example of Sept. 11, 2001 and its impact on Muslims in the U.S.

“In the absence of an identity advanced by Muslims, somebody else established it for them, ” Patel said.

He said that the majority of the people in the world consist of youth and, just like leaders of the 20th century such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and the Aga Khan, the youth at Luther College should seek to accomplish a common dimension between all religions to enhance understanding and cooperation amongst all.

“The vast majority of the world believes in pluralism and few extremism,” Patel said. “Seventy percent of Iran is under the age of 30 and 80 percent of West Bank under 33.”

Professor of Political Science Paul Gardner has used Patel’s writing in his Politics and Religion course.

“A lot of people on campus are trying to understand other faith traditions,” Gardner said. “I suppose in a way college is us working together to understand the various things happening in the world.”

Gardner recommended Patel’s book to the Paideia committee.

“His story is a story that I thought would resonate with many of our students and he has a very valuable message about the world for all of us to hear,” Gardner said.

Alexandra Nyman (‘13) described Patel as an intelligent and powerful speaker, and other students seemed to agree.

“The high school and college experiences that Patel narrates in the book are easy to relate to,” Zoey Crandell (‘13) said. “The book shed light on a lot of issues I didn’t know about.”

Eboo Patel has led students and many others to give serious thought to ways in which mutual harmony and dignity could be established around us.

Johnson was not fully satisfied with Patel’s options of pluralism and totalitarianism.

“I was just trying to find a better option,” Johnson said. “In the end, not all young people are leaders and some young people search very hard to find someone to follow.”

To start promoting pluralism on campus, students are forming a new interfaith dialogue group called JourneyConversations that will provide a “structured process to reflect together on experiences of faith and spirituality.”