Our Sacred Heart school has a tradition of inviting incredible authors to visit our campuses at Octavia and Broadway. Early this year, we had author Jennifer De Leon grace our halls as an author in residence, where she ran workshops for the whole K-12, influencing the future writers of tomorrow. At the beginning of the quarter, we invited author and leader of the largest interfaith organization in America, Eboo Patel. Patel has written five books on the subjects of religion and democracy. Patel served the American people on President Barack Obama’s inaugural faith council. He was named “one of the best leaders in America” and holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University.

One of Patel’s main ideas is religious pluralism. Religious pluralism is the idea that religions should work together to reach a common truth. Or, as esteemed ethics teacher and incredible German speaker Mr. Campos explained, “Religious pluralism is a worldview that values the diversity of cultural and religious value systems for people to be able to reach some kind of agreement on how to live well.” Early in the semester, we interviewed Dr. Patel about what religious pluralism meant to him. “The United States is the most religiously diverse nation in human history, and it’s a lot better for a nation if there’s cooperation between people from different faiths than if there’s conflict, and one of the things that cooperation gets you, for example, is social service organizations.”

With recent crises like the Los Angeles fires and Hurricane Helene wreaking havoc across the coasts, 60% of aid comes from religious organizations. How can people live religiously pluralistic lives? Dr. Patel said, “Reflect on what your own religious beliefs are and how your own religious beliefs inspire you to make positive connections with people from other religious groups.” Separating yourself from someone else based on religious disagreements is what Dr. Patel is trying to fight against. Connecting with someone else’s belief system through a shared belief is better than separating ourselves through our differences.

Religious pluralism is an important concept for each Stuart Hall student to take to heart. Learning how to come together on shared beliefs is more important than separating. We live in the most religiously diverse country that has existed in the 200,000-year history of human existence. Being appreciative of our differences is a strength that we need to cultivate. Especially in these times of global conflict, we need to build an interfaith America.