Forum; No. 2; Race, Class, and Diversity: Religion and Diversity; Part 2

I've always described our churches at the intersection of the shopping carts and the and the BMW because we're right across the street from a park where a lot of homeless people congregate and next door to a very posh athletic club. And there are many different there are many different language communities in our neighborhood. And so we've been trying to make our tradition available to those who speak Spanish. And it's been a wonderful, enriching and growing experience for me personally to be able to offer worship services in English and Spanish and to to understand the different dynamics that people are bringing culturally, spiritually their life challenges. It's a very different experience to be an immigrant, first generation immigrant, whether you're coming from the war in Central America or from a place where you couldn't make a living in Mexico and to be someone who's, you know, like myself, fourth generation Californian, you know, had all the privileges of a good education. People come with different experiences to church. And in our tradition, one of the things that we believe is that diversity of opinion is very valuable. It's kind of like the story of, you know, the people with their eyes closed trying to figure out what the elephant was.

And, you know, one's holding on to the leg and they think it's a tree trunk and the other one is touching the side and they think it's a wall and someone else is holding onto the tail and they think it's a rope. And in a certain sense, we each have a piece of the truth, but we don't have the larger picture. And so to have a religious community where people are committed to sharing that piece of the truth that they have, whether it's from a particular experience that they have from a particular ethnic community or being a certain age, you know, 16 year olds and 85 year olds have a different piece of the elephant. There's no question but to create a community where people can feel accepted and welcomed and be able to talk to each other, you can it's enriching. It's wonderful. And it creates a larger glimpse of of the purpose and meaning of life. In the spirit of what you've just said, I hope that that's what at least we hear about today. We're talking with members of a number of different faiths and doing something that we think is very important here at the chapel in the Presidio, the Interfaith Center. We are broadcasting live from there. We have a live audience with us. We'd certainly welcome your calls.

Those of you who listen are listening to us out there high and low throughout the Bay Area. We're at four one five eight six three to four seven six. Again, the number of the four one five area code is eight six three to four seven six. The idea here is to see if we really can. Indeed, we're doing so thus far, if I may say so, have a dialog, an interfaith dialog. Religion has all too often historically been a source of enmity and great hostility and war and conflict. But here today, at least, we're trying to talk about it in terms of what brings us together, as well as what separates us in in the real spirit of interfaith dialog. There are many people who are here with us in the audience. Again, those of you who would like to join us, just raise your hand and we'll try to get you to a microphone or get a microphone to you and have you participate in this live and interactive program. In fact, let's go to one of our members of an audience first here and in the back. Barbara, you want to give that young lady the microphone and thank you. My name is Heather Dunfield.

And my question is specifically for Paul and Paul, given the. Lack of essentially many things that we do not have is being sacred in this society or a lack of sacredness in this society. Oh, I know that's a gross generalization, but what would you see that the Native American tribes have to bring to an interfaith approach to the spiritual aspect of people? What what do the Native American tribes have to offer that specifically? Well, it seems to me there are a couple of things. And one of those has to do with with once again, finding our our spiritual connection with creation and I think is as a major life view, we have one that's slightly different in the Genesis account that that often gets referred to by people where we talk about humankind having dominion over the

over the gifts that had been given to us by the creator. I think Native American people, by and large and across many different tribal lines, come from a sense that what they believe is that when humankind was created, the creator was finishing a long process so that the most needy and pathetic of all that would be placed here on Earth would be brought in to a reality where the rest of creation accepted responsibility to help care for us. And that gives us a very different starting point to to have, I think, a new discussion. I think, however, also what Native American people would like to do simply because we see so many people in society today searching for a different kind of spirituality, and we have many coming from a variety of different faiths to sit with us in ceremony who want to know what it is that we have because they're looking for something magic or something to just fill such a deep need.

And one of the things we are attempting to do from our perspective is to reintroduce people to their own particular faith system and encourage them to take into that context the very kinds of things they want to attribute to us. In that sense, I think we've already started, you know, an important interfaith kind of discussion. And it is these sort of interfaith, I think, developing opportunity that I would anticipate is going to be a major part of the effort here at the Interfaith Center at the Presidio. One of the reasons we've chosen to be involved with this effort is that it seems to be honest, it seems to be open. And from the very beginning, we were invited in at a critical juncture so we could be a part of the formative kinds of discussions. And that's been extremely important. And I need to tell you that that opportunity for our people has been sadly missing and too many of these kinds of discussions. Thank you, Paul. Father, our work is stepping up to the microphone here.

Father, thank you. My name is Father Jerry O'Rourke. I work in the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Ministry for the Archdiocese of San Francisco. And the one thing that I would like to say, first of all, is that this is a celebration. It's a celebration of us coming together, coming from what Paul says here. And one of the big things, the thing that I am devoted I'm over forty six years ordained as a priest, and I am now celebrating at this juncture of my life the fact that I can relate to people that are around the table with you, Michael, right now and people in this audience. And but I'm committed to find the relationship that is basic to us all. I respect where they come from. I totally respect for I come from. And even as I grow in this work, I find that my own sense of being the Catholic expends rather than

it disappears, as Paul hinted there. But the thing that's so important for us is to search where are we going to find in this Kairos moment as we come to the end of a century, the beginning of a millennium, where are we going to find the relationship that exists between us so we can bring harmony, peace, respect and love into the world that we live in? I want to wonder, sometimes violated in. Thank you. And certainly we would love to be able to foster that. You get to feel I just throw this out to the panel, then we'll go to another member of our audience and want to get some callers in as well. But do you feel to some extent that everybody here seems to be of goodwill? Our audience, certainly many of them clergy themselves and so forth, when you look at those who are turned off by religion, those who feel that religion has this rather dark history to it and cruel history, the things that are done in the name of religion and all of the secular folk and all of the people who feel No. Connection with religion, can those people be reached on a level that we're talking

about here today? Are they are they people, in other words, that that you can talk to, talk to, so to speak? I think the answer is yes. I mean, I think that religion definitely has a dark side. And I think that each of our faiths has been both victim and perpetrator at different times. And you made a quip after I mentioned Lutherans before, and I was thinking to myself that we don't give thanks for the anti-Semitism of Luther, but we give thanks for the light of the Lutheran faith. And I think that the key is openness. And the key is trying to find what is a deeply spiritual in each of our faiths and also finding the common threads and the ways that we can work together and in the Bay Area, that often comes about in forums for helping others less fortunate than ourselves. But those doing that does include the issue. Forgive the choice of words or the faithless and those who are without faith. I would also, Reverend Lindela, I would also add that I see something

happening generationally where there is a sector of folks that I would say perhaps 50s on up that had some experiences where they basically were disillusioned with their faith. They saw hypocrisy or they saw the dark side. They felt excluded in some way and in many ways they kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater. They raised their children not in any faith community. And those children are now growing up and they're not hauling around religious baggage that they, you know, were forced to go to church or anything. But they're getting to be in their 30s and they're looking around and they want something deeper than the mall and, you know, entertainment and going to work every day. So they're trying to create a sense of spirituality for themselves. So there's there's different generational experiences, I think, in terms of people's approach to religious life and development. I don't want to raise a profound theological question, but I'm assuming if God is everywhere, he's also at the churches, also at the mall, right? Yeah. It's just a little harder to find her there.

Gentlemen, from our audience, yes, I start by the Islamic greeting. Salaam aleikum. Peace be upon you. First, I'd like to start from a verse in the Koran when Allah God sees in his holy book. Exactly. Oh, people, I have created you from a male and female, and we made you of different tribes and nations. So the best among you is the most righteous. This verse actually is an exact, you know, summation of what the Muslims are, you know, believes is we believe in God as the creator. And he made us all of different nationalities, different languages, different cultures, different tribes, so we can learn how to live together. And the best among us is those who do the good work,

the most righteous. Thank you, sir. I'm going to actually go to some of our callers who have been waiting patiently and bring them in to the discussion. You have something quick that. Yes, yes. I just, you know, concerning the like, the emotions sometimes of the Muslims in different religions, we as Muslims, sometimes we find ourselves when something happens in the Middle East or somewhere in the world, an Islamic act where immediately, you know, prejudged and we're labeled the religion is so much misunderstood. I just want to ask the panel, what do they do when they hear something negative about Islam? Do they try to learn? Do they try to approach somebody to to to really understand where Islam, the religion, not the people, but the religion stands on the issue? An important question separating the people from the religion. Anybody want to feel that they're. Because certainly when Oklahoma City went I mean, when when the bombs went off in Oklahoma City, people were immediately pointing their fingers not only at Arab terrorists, but Muslim terrorists. That was what one heard immediately from the newspapers and from the from the public.

I mean, is it the job, in other words, of other faiths to create a sense of to follow the necessity of making the rest of us not judge or those of your people not judge? Well, I think certainly fairness is is is appropriate in every circumstance. And so I would think that, yeah, we would we would be as open to finding out what the truth is. For instance, in the Oklahoma City reference that you made before prejudging anything is Reverend Scott Peterson, by the way, just because there are a lot of voices here and those listening don't have the advantage of putting them aside. Let me go to our listeners, if I may, and let's begin with Andy in San Francisco. Good morning. You're on the air. Good. I have a question for the Pentecostal minister. And my question is, does he think that Buddha, Socrates and Gandhi are not now in heaven? And if they're not, where does he think they are? And I'll take my question, my answer off the air.

Thank you. Sure, I don't know where they are. You're on the spot here. Yeah, I figured that. You know, I figured today when when Barbara asked me to be on this panel, I figured that I was the only white Anglo-Saxon Protestant Right-Wing Fundamentalist Pentecostal. I you know, I I'm everyone's worst nightmare, I'm afraid. And I don't mean to be I didn't ask for that. I simply go back to the word of God that says God was concerned about reconciling the world. Everyone to himself. He is the creator. He loves Socrates, Gandhi, and who's the other Buddha? As mentioned, as much as he loved me, as much as he loves anybody at this table. And I certainly hope that that they are in heaven. Gentlemen is up here in front of the microphone. Could you let us know who you are? And yes, I'm Reverend Aharon Zahraa. I'm an interfaith minister and the director of a school in Santa Cruz in called the Interfaith Seminary, where we teach and share all

the world's spiritual traditions. And in addition, I do radio Michael. I do a radio program. I have a nice voice. Thank you. So do you. I do a program called Everything You Want to Know About Religion, but were afraid to ask. And what I'm hearing here is the same thing I hear from from the callers who call in to the program is they want to know about the different faiths. They're confused or they have, you know, misconceptions, but they really want to know. And so my challenge here to you is I heard all of you talk about how you have adopted your own version of Sunday school and you teach your own religion. And here we are all together. What about sharing all the faiths with your congregations and in your communities so they'll really have some understanding of of the commonality and the humanity of all faiths. This is, in a sense, what the interfaith movement is about, really isn't exactly. And in fact, we had mentioned here the Baha'i faith, which, of course, tries to break

their action by representatives who, yes, tries to bring together the ideas from all the major religions. And I thank you for that. We want to go to another of our live audience in the back. Yes, sir. Good morning. My name is Keith Thompson. I'm a writer here in the Bay Area. And I wrote I'm in the process of writing a book in which I'm traveling around the United States, spending time with as many different religious and spiritual traditions as I can over a two year period, entering into their practices with them and entering into their world views and one of the most in the process. Hopefully finding out what my own spiritual ground is at this point in my life. One of the most interesting encounters I had was with the writer Hyams Storm, the author of the classic book Seven Arrows up in Mendocino. And if I could, I'd like to read just a very short paragraph, extremely short, in which he responded to my question. I asked him to tell me about his spirituality. He said, well, what is your orientation? I said, well, I started out Episcopalian, but I haven't stayed there. I'm looking to find my true ground or my faith.

He said, well, don't count on settling anywhere. You're a mixed breed. And I want to tell you what he went on to describe by mixed breed. It's very short and I like to get some comment on it. Storm went on to say that he himself is a Mayte or a mestizo, a person of mixed blood. His mother was Cheyenne Sioux and Irish American. His father was born in northern Germany and later became an American. Over the years, Storm learned to speak Cheyenne Crow and other native tongues, including Quray Sioux, as well as what he calls Mexican, Indian, Spanish, American, English and German. And I'll just finish his comment, he said. He went on to tell me most people think the word breed in terms of plants and animals, a crossbreed breed of plants or animals, is thought to be a hardier being. A spiritual mixed breed exists between cultures and can understand a lot of what transpires between systems and peoples. And he concluded by saying the spiritual mixed breed moves easily among these many worlds. And I'll simply say that I'm finding a lot of people in the United States who are spiritual, mixed breeds, who not because they're trying to be glib, but

are drawing from a multitude of spiritual and religious paths and attempting to find what each offers at this time in our culture. Thank you for that, Keith. I should mention that I got a fax last night from out of an article that Keith has has written about this. And it raised a very elemental question, in my judgment, which is, do we go down a path toward religious dogmatism and separation or do we move toward the kind of spiritual renaissance that I think that quote that he just raised and brought to our attention speaks to go to our callers. Larry from Freema, join us. Good morning. You're on forum. Hi. Before I get to my question, I just wanted to point out that the Unitarians have been trying to drive me out of town. They burned a question mark on my lawn. Unitarians burned the question mark on your lawn. That's a good line. Yeah. And I noticed on that. No, that's true. OK. My I guess I have a couple of questions for I wanted to ask the Pentecostal minister there, what how can he be both a Pentecostal

and a fundamentalist? I thought those were mutually exclusive, illogically. And I guess the general question I wanted to ask to the panel is what you know, the main way that we see religion interfacing with politics and society in our country today is through the the religious right or the Christian right. I like what you see in you. I see that as being very negative because it tends to be bigoted, homophobic, sexist, pro-war and so on. Do you all have a more positive vision of how religion can affect society, affect politics? All right, Larry. First of the opening, Reverend Scott Peterson. If you just quickly address the question about your denomination, like I said, I'm everybody's friend. Yeah, I think that there is some room for separation between Pentecostalism and the fundamentalism, that

there are certain areas of doctrine that we would not agree on, particularly as pertains to the function of the Holy Spirit in today's life and religious experience. Although your group talks with tongues, which is not. That's right for the right. And the the essence of the question is, is that there is some commonality, though, between us in terms of the whole idea of spiritual rebirth and things like that through Christ. So there's some commonality and there have been some growth in the area of of the evangelical wing, in the Pentecostal wing of of conservative Christianity. So he's right. There is still some disagreement. However, there is a you know, a growing commonality there among groups that are seeking that, like the National Association of Evangelicals and and the Pentecostals and charismatic renewal movement. Since you identified yourself as the Missouri from the right. And I don't know how apt that is. I'm inclined and prompted to have to ask you, apropos of Larry's remarks, what do you say to to to those who are highly critical

of the kind of brand of Christianity that is identified with, say, the Ralph Reed's and the Jerry Falwell's? That seems to be not as open toward the humanity of homosexuals, of women, of people, of color, etc., cetera. Right. I would not identify myself with Jerry Falwell. I would not identify myself with some of the things of the Christian Coalition and other right wing groups. I think that there has been some issues that are being brought out. As I mentioned earlier, when we start talking about racial reconciliation within evangelical Christianity, to own the the fact that there have been racist attitudes and there has been exclusion and that right now there is a move on to try to correct that by admitting some of the things that have taken place in the 20th century. And as far as the situation with women go, I think people may be surprised to know that the Pentecostal a lot of Pentecostal denominations are some of the few in in Christianity that will ordain women and

see women to to have equal status in that regard as clergy. So, you know, there's nuances and things, you know, that are in all of us. But I hope that helps. Gentlemen at the microphone, please identify yourself. So Cisco United Methodist Mission. And I think there are a lot of parallels between racial segregation and religious segregation. And I think we've we've learned that recently. We've operated out of stereotypes and what's happened as we've started to move beyond the stereotypes and build relationships that we found precious beauty in each other. The same thing is happening in the religious world. And I think as we look at each other and get beyond the stereotype of the pious Jew or the aggressive Muslim or the separate, uptight Christian, we're finding that there are some beautiful people there, even from the religious right and from the religious left and from the Native American tradition and so on and so forth. We're finding each other and discovering more

about the beauty of ourselves as we discover each other. And I think this is a most exciting time in history to be part of the religious and interfaith community. Thank you. Thank you for that statement. We go to the back of our back of the chapel. Now, gentlemen, if you could identify yourself. Yes, I can identify myself. Good. I was taught to do that. My name is Bob Phillips and I'm a member of the Baha'i faith. And the question I have is really reflects the question I asked myself when my own spiritual search, the reason why I joined the Baha'i faith was in my looking around at the world. What is clear to me and I think to all of us, it's the lack of a spiritual and an ethical. Consensus, which makes us unable to confront the reality of racism, of war rather than peace, of the destructive relationship with our environment and with each other, and that if religion is to carry out its mission, which, in the words of

Bahaullah, the founder of the Baha'i faith, is to create unity among diversity, it must achieve some commonality. So my question that I come to you is, in the Baha'i teachings, religious truth is seen as being relative, that all people at all times have been connected with a creator. So the challenge to us is people who believe that we are fundamentally spiritual, as how would each of you and your own congregations come together to emphasize that and so that religious and spiritual truth can be brought to bear on public policy. We're going to have to let that question hang because we are up against the clock here. But I thank you. We will try to talk more about unity and diversity in the next hour, as well as stereotyping as well as proselytizing, as well as many of the issues that I think have been raised during this hour. I want to thank all of our panelists and thank all of you in the audience. We'll try to get some more of our callers on in the next hour as well. Our programs producers are Robin Gibb Genitalium, all David Minko and Holly Kernan. You're listening to member supported radio KQED FM in San Francisco. I'm Michael Krasny.

From National Public Radio News in Washington, Unkovic Coleman, the National Transportation Safety Board, is in its third day of hearings about last May's crash of a ValuJet airliner into the Florida Everglades. All 110 people aboard the aircraft died. NPR's Cheryl Devall reports from Miami. Testimony is focusing on the various levels of responsibility among ValuJet, its contractors and federal aviation officials for possible lapses in maintenance that might have led to the fiery crash last May. Witnesses include maintenance supervisors from the airline and officials from the Federal

Aviation Administration charged with enforcing airline safety regulations. Dozens of relatives of the crash victims are listening as the Safety Board investigators ask about procedures, contract manuals, any detail that might shed light on what caused the plane to catch fire and plunge into the Florida Everglades 13 minutes after takeoff. The hearings continue through Friday in Miami. I'm sure all of the crew of the space shuttle Columbia has completed its first major task of its 16 day mission. Astronauts have released an observatory into orbit. It will be retrieved in two weeks. Pat Duggins of member station WNYC reports that first satellite is built to view the universe in ultraviolet light. Now that the ORFEUS spot is on its own, the way is clear for the next satellite release. And that payload has a checkered past. Scientist build the Wakefield facility as a high tech factory that may lead to the next generation of super pure semiconductors. This is the third flight for the satellite that shaped like a 12 foot wide Frisbee, and

the results have been mixed. On its first flight, Wakefield broke down and couldn't fly on its own. The astronauts could only dangle the satellite from the shuttle's robot arm. On the second flight, Wakefield lost control and tumbled for a time before regaining control. As a result. Scientists got only a fraction of the semiconductors they wanted Wakefield to scheduled for release on Friday. For National Public Radio, I'm Pat Duggins reporting. The Labor Department has settled a racial discrimination and sexual harassment case with an aviation repair company. Labor Secretary Robert Reich says the settlement with Trian International Maintenance Company, also known as Temko, includes not only money but training. The settlement is for back pay for these people who were discriminated against. It's about 240000 dollars. Also, the company has agreed to train employees so that these kinds of incidents simply don't happen again. Now, if the company fails to live up to its promises, that company will be debarred as a government contractor. Labor Secretary Robert Reich. House Republicans have elected to keep Georgia Congressman

Newt Gingrich as their leader. The vote was by acclamation and pretty much ensures Gingrich will again lead the House as speaker in the next Congress. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials are up nearly 23 points at 6400 20. Trading is active. This is NPR. This is for him, good morning and welcome, I'm Michael Krasny. This is our number two of our special broadcast live from the Presidio Chapel here at the Interfaith Presidio Center in San Francisco. And we are with a live audience, like once again, for those of you in the audience to in a kind of almost maybe halleluja way, let everybody know that you are here with us this morning. I also want to remind you that we are taking questions and comments from the audience as well as from you, the listeners, for one five eight six three to four seven six, of course, is the number to call in on. This is a special part of our yearlong series on diversity. And today, the subject obviously is religion and interfaith diversity. Let me tell you again who is with us.

Abu Qadir Al-Amin is the imam of the San Francisco Muslim Community Center. Also with us is Pam Fridmann, bar rabbi with Shalom Jewish Community in San Francisco, and the Reverend Scott Peterson, a bishop with the church on the hill, a Pentecostal church in Vallejo. Reverend Ronald Nakasone, a visiting professor of Buddhist studies who is a Buddhist priest and is with the Pacific School of Religion and Graduate Theological Union, Paul Schultz, executive director of the Bay Area Native American Ministry in Oakland. Reverend Lindy Ramsden, senior minister of the First Unitarian Church in San Jose. And I thought we might begin by talking about where we had a gentleman from the audience who was a member of the Baha'i faith, raising that question again about unity and diversity and how particularly we open up other faiths, open up themselves to other faiths and really embrace other faiths or look toward other faiths as perhaps members of other faiths as being some people that they can work with, that they can work in tune with all in the greater interest of the glory of God or if you will.

Imam, can I get your response to that? Certainly. In our work as a Muslim, we interact with other individuals in our neighborhoods, the churches, the synagogue, some of the social issues that are affecting all of us as a community like homelessness, crime, justice, education, all of these issues and various ways. We work cooperatively to try to better our situation here in America and throughout the World Service. Then Israeli service is very important and Islam is a religion that is directly tied to service. The individual who raised the verse from the Koran, it says, I have created you a male and a female, nations and tribes. Not that you despise one another, that you know one another. And the best of you in the sight of God is the.