Written by: Divya Bhatia, Shreya Bhatia, Maria Saraf

In her landmark book, Encountering God, Diana Eck discusses the increasing religious diversity in the world. She notes that “today people of all faiths are more or less aware of one another, and those who articulate the meaning of faith for today must do so in the complicated context of religious plurality.” Taking this reality of religious pluralism one step further, and proactively engaging with such diversity, is the idea behind Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program, established in Sharon, Massachusetts. The program, nicknamed “the YLP” by its high school participants, gives teens the opportunity to learn more about the religious “other,” thereby reflecting upon and developing their understanding of their own beliefs on faith. The YLP gives teens an environment in which they can connect with other teens of different faiths.

Throughout the year, we participate in multiple facilitation and project management trainings to develop the leadership and communication skills we use to plan and run our youth-driven conferences and community events. By using the skills learned in the trainings, we create community programs through which the town embraces cultural and religious differences. As a goal to achieve a more pluralistic society, teens are in the driver’s seat to create the projects themselves, from start to finish. Watching a project fall into place, we enhance our leadership experiences and gain an enormous sense of confidence. The heart of the events we plan revolve around the importance of good communication skills that allow us to increase cooperation among diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups in our community. As leaders, we facilitate understanding among diverse people and encourage people to learn about each other and, by finding similarities and respectfully learning about differences, share ideas that benefit the community as a whole.

One of the main challenges to pluralism is the idea that we should work to understand those with beliefs different from our own. Although there is no simple answer, one way to think of it is that by being a part of the wider interfaith movement, we are not merely representing our own religious traditions, but strengthening our understandings of our own faiths by learning about other religious traditions.

Our meetings take place in various houses of worship in order to ensure that we become familiar with the traditions of others. From our own experiences, the best way to achieve a pluralistic society, one in which people actively engage in religious diversity, is to embrace diversity in our everyday lives. And we do that by attending one another’s events so we can walk away from them with new insights about ourselves, other people, and the world. For example, every spring, during the Hindu festival of Holi, YLP teens play a classic game of Holi by throwing powders of bright, exotic colors and water on each other, creating a vast array of colored shirts (that just minutes before playing were white). By participating in this festival and learning about Devika, whose story provides the foundation for the festival of Holi, we learn about Hinduism by experiencing it first-hand. Furthermore, during Ramadan, we hold an Iftar dinner to break the fast at sunset after a whole day of fasting. Many YLP teens also fasted for the whole day, experiencing directly what it is like for the millions of Muslims who fast during the holy month of Ramadan every year. After a full day without food or water, putting the flavorful biryani and delicious fresh fruit chaat in our mouths, we learned about the hardships faced by many in our world and the luxuries we take for granted. Taking part in these religious experiences, we create diverse groups and have everyday exposure to the religious “other,” realizing the shared values and ethics of various faiths around the world.

Building on the notion of shared values of different faiths, we even host many events in which we connect with people around the world. For example, almost one year ago, a group of YLP teens met to plan the annual Teenage Interfaith Diversity Education Conference (T.I.D.E.). The planning committee set the stage for what was to become the facilitation, logistics, and recruitment committees, each consisting of teens that spent countless hours planning each and every minute of the remarkable conference. At the T.I.D.E. Conference this past May, diverse teens from all over the US, including New York, Albany, Cincinnati, and Massachusetts, roomed together, ate together, and led and participated in faith-based learning, dialogues, and skill-building workshops together. People of all religions, ethnicities, and backgrounds came to this amazing conference, which was a learning experience for all.

Additionally, this July, we held an Iraqi exchange program planned by a small committee of teens. We began the day with community service, got extremely dirty while harvesting produce under the boiling sun, and then ate lunch at a local Indian restaurant. After the lunch, we made our way to a Jewish temple; for many of the Iraqis, it was the first time they had been to one. There, the rabbi engaged us in a question-answer seminar and gave us a close-up view of a Torah scroll. One of the highlights of the day was the meaningful discussions about religion, life, education, and the war in Iraq. It was so interesting for everyone to hear the views of people who have actually experienced it. Then, we visited the Islamic Center of New England in Sharon, Massachusetts. Throughout the course of the day, we learned so much and even had many of our own stereotypes debunked. Even though we were all from such different places, we connected on universal and cultural themes, things that all teens around the world are concerned about. Their love of Lady Gaga was definitely something we related to. Overall, it was a powerful and enriching experience that we will never forget.

Being part of Interfaith Action’s Youth Leadership Program is not just about learning and experiencing each other’s religion; it is about forging strong bonds of friendship that will last a lifetime. Because of our contact with people of many cultures, we are more accepting, not only as an interfaith community, but as individuals. We ask more questions out of genuine interest. And by asking the right questions, we overcome the problem of ignorance.

For instance, a Hindu girl was invited to a Seder by her Jewish friend because she asked how the Jewish friend’s family celebrated Passover; two Jewish and Muslim high school students ended an online conversation with the word ‘peace’; and two Indian Hindus and a Pakistani Muslim are collaborating on this very article. All of these scenarios are results of the openness and acceptance that interfaith work has instilled in us. We learned more about others, but also about ourselves.

Divya Bhatia is a senior at Sharon High School and this is her fourth year in Interfaith Action. Along with being a senior facilitator, Divya plays tennis and sings classical Indian music.

Shreya Bhatia is a sophomore in High School and this is her second year affiliated with Interfaith Action. Shreya also enjoys playing tennis, practicing karate, and dancing.

Maria Saraf is a junior at Sharon High and this will be her second year in Interfaith Action. Maria loves playing basketball and lacrosse.

Rabbi Leonard Sharzer, MD will continue to coordinate LFI programming in bioethics, with the new title of associate director for bioethics.

“I am pleased to return to the directorship of LFI,” says Dr. Visotzky. “I look forward to implementing Chancellor Arnold Eisen’s vision of Jewish learning that is intimately connected to the world. I hope to emphasize the original vision of LFI to apply the wisdom of America’s religious communities and traditions to matters that affect us here and abroad.”

The Appleman Professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at JTS, Dr. Visotzky joined the faculty immediately following his ordination into the rabbinate in 1977. He also served as associate and acting dean of The Graduate School of JTS, and as the founding rabbi of JTS’s egalitarian worship service in the Women’s League Seminary Synagogue.

Dr. Visotzky was a visiting faculty member at, among other institutions, Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, Oxford University, and Union and Princeton theological seminaries. In addition, he served as the Master Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Dr. Visotzky consulted with Bill Moyers and was a featured participant in the ten-hour PBS television series, Genesis: A Living Conversation, which premiered in 1996. He has authored nine books and written more than 100 articles and reviews. His work continues to be published in America, Europe, and Israel.

Dr. Visotzky serves on the boards of Fordham Law School’s Stein Center for Law and Ethics and the Journal of  Inter-Religious Dialogue and on J-Street’s National Advisory Council. He is a member of the New Israel Fund Rabbinic Council’s steering committee and the American Jewish World Service Education Committee and Rabbinic Council, and sits on the advisory board of Auburn Seminary’s Center for Multifaith Education.

Internationally, Dr. Visotzky is engaged in Jewish-Christian-Muslim dialogue in capitals such as Washington DC, Warsaw, Rome, Cairo, Doha (where he was in the first group of Jews invited by Qatar’s emir), and Madrid (where he was in the first group of Jews invited by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia).

Since 1938, the Louis Finkelstein Institute of JTS has maintained an innovative interfaith and intergroup relations program that emphasizes conversation among diverse communities. The institute’s ability to unite voices from different academic, social, and religious communities has resulted in singular conferences and interfaith cooperation and brought the relevance of Judaism and other religions to prominence on a myriad of issues.

Response by Hafsa Kanjwal: It is imperative that we understand the backlash against the Ground Zero Mosque (now renamed Park 51 in hopes to alleviate some of the criticism) in the context of Islamophobia. It is nothing less than that, and even amidst hearing critics say that they find the building of this mosque “offensive”--there is an underlying sentiment that indeed, Islam is offensive. The way this issue has been politicized is not shocking, but it is disappointing. Read more here.

Response by C. Nikole Saulsberry: There are always two sides of a story; that is a journalistic given. But more often than not, media outlets today hyper-polarize the opposing sides of every religion story to further instigate the detrimental idea that faith is exclusive and inherently combative.  And we can see this here, in the seemingly unbiased CBS News video. Read more here.

As I observe the reactions of some of these folks, especially the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrinch on FOX News, it’s as if they believe Bin Laden himself is building this mosque. Park 51’s developers have repeatedly stated that they want this center to be a place of dialogue, tolerance and inter-religious understanding. For those who wonder where all the “moderate” Muslim voices are—well, here they are. And look at how they’re being curtailed and demonized.

I was also disappointed to see that the ADL, an organization that works to combat anti-Semitism and “all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all” joined voices with the bigots. Their objectionable response warranted Fareed Zakaria, CNN journalist, to return an award that they granted him a few years ago. Zakaria’s response is commendable—I hope that the ADL retracts their statement and  stands up for the civil rights of Muslims, as they would Jews and other minorities.

As a whole, this clip is rather balanced.  Arguably, both sides of the political spectrum are represented and we hear both points of view. But when it comes to religion, only Muslims are speaking in this video and all other individuals are “average Americans” or the American hero (firefighter Tim Brown), subtly suggesting one can either be Muslim or American, but not both. Perhaps the most telling example of religion's controversy with media is shown in the title, "Ground Zero Mosque Sparks Fight". By using the word Mosque, the piece aligns the fight with Islam making it a religious fight.

Why can't more media stories focus on the root of the problem, prejudice and fear?

It is not Islam, Christianity, or even politics that is the issue here, it is fear, and a fear based on prejudice. There are facts and then there is rhetoric. Somewhere along the way we mistook the two and now equate media stories with facts (and not carefully crafted messages designed to persuade).

The overarching question regarding media and religion is; what comes first, the story or the public opinion? Ultimately biased stories would not be published if the public developed a distaste for them, which is where religious pluralists come in. Interfaith work is the catalyst for religious social change, and when society changes, so will the media.

This article was first published in the Huffington Post

In my first piece about atheism here, I wrote that religious believers should not have a monopoly on concepts like spirituality, awe, inner peace, and even prayer. Recently, I began to think about that statement a little more closely.

I was talking with a friend about belief. She said, "I believe in God. But I don't define God. I don't know how. I just pray to God, because it makes me feel better."

I thought about that. I am an atheist. I've called myself an atheist since I was 16 or so. When I was 15, I started leading a congregation in prayer. I am a lay clergy member. I still remember vividly the first time I stood behind the podium, in front of the congregation. Their faces blurred together. I opened my mouth to sing, shaking and terrified and feeling like a child who had somehow stumbled into an arena much too advanced for her, and I had no idea what would happen. I had no idea if my voice would be there. But it was. I began to sing, and as I sang, I felt the space change. I felt a connectedness that I'd never experienced before. There was something binding all of those people, with their blurry, upturned faces, to me, and something binding me to them, and something binding us all to something bigger. The something bigger, I felt, was both all living people and all of history. I didn't think to call it God. Despite the religious setting. Despite the spiritual connotations, I knew as strongly as someone knows that they feel God's presence that I did not feel God's presence.

And I never have.

But it becomes a little blurry sometimes. The line between belief and non-belief, I mean. The definitions on both sides can be so easily expanded to encompass everything. My mother likes to tell me, "You just don't define God broadly enough." According to her, I'm a believer, I just don't know it.

I tend to think that people are what they say they are. Otherwise, someone else always has to decide, and that other person doesn't ever have the full story. There is a long, complicated, possibly sordid, and definitely thrilling history that has led to my identity as a non-believer. I couldn't begin to explain it here, because it'd take too long. And it'd be beside the point. The point is that people tend to get stuck on the concept of God. And everyone has a different idea about what God means. And all of those ideas come with different rules. So that when our identities blur and blend and the colors bleed together slightly, everyone yells, "See! I told you so! You're not what you claim to be!"

For example, I sometimes catch myself praying. Maybe "prayer" is the wrong word. When my friend said, "I pray to God" to explain her personal belief system, and to clarify that she fell on the side of "belief," as opposed to "non-belief," I suddenly wondered what it meant to pray. I suddenly felt something a little like guilt. Because I knew that I'd done something that could definitely be defined as praying. And I knew exactly when it had happened. Not just once, but many times.

It was always during the Amidah, the climax of the Jewish liturgical service, when the congregation is standing together. We sway and bob, davening with the familiar gentle rocking motions. And on the bima [raised platform], I face the ark and hold my siddur (prayer book) against my chest and think about my life. And I ask for something. The text of the Amidah petitions God. I must have learned the beseeching nature of the experience long before I understood any of the words. I don't remember anyone explaining it explicitly. But I always knew what to do at that point. Ask for something.

"Please...Allow me to better appreciate the joy in my life, and to better reject the sadness."

I never said "God." It was never, "God, would you...." It was just a request. From me, to -- I never knew, or cared to know. The world? Myself? Nothing at all? It never felt relevant.

Had I cheated, somehow, on my atheism? Had I slipped up and grown dependent on a relationship with a God I didn't even believe in?

I don't think so. I don't think that "cheating" exists in this context. It isn't a game. And the rules are arbitrary. I wasn't slipping up or cheating. I was thinking about my life in a context where self-reflection is formalized and encouraged in the shape of prayer. I was using a tool readily available to me.

Prayer is deeply powerful. It comes in too many forms to count. It sports a breathtakingly enormous fan base. People who practice it like an art, people who take it incredibly seriously, people who use it for healing, people who do it casually, people who make a living studying it by hooking up Buddhist monks to EEG sensors. And, apparently, me -- a person caught constantly between her culturally religious identity and her non-belief.

I know a lot of people will want to tell me that I simply don't understand. That if I pray, I'm doing something religious, and am therefore a believer. They will want to tell me that I'm writing out of a place of profound confusion. Well, maybe I am. Maybe I'm confused about the need for painfully simplistic definitions. And the need to give absolutely everything a name and a designation. Maybe we need new words for different types of the thing we call prayer. But more than that, maybe we need to let atheists pray once in a while. Without God. As radical and paradoxical as that might sound. As fundamentally incorrect as that might sound. Maybe we need to just let atheists pray.

The days before Ramadan in Cairo are filled with anticipation. Paper and tinsel streamers appear across inner courtyards and wide roads. Lanterns and miniature mosques made of everything from crepe paper to recycled tin are hung and lit at night. Everyone waits for the sliver of moon to appear and to hear the official news announcing the start of the 30-day fast. Ramadan this year is scheduled to start on August 11.

“Ten days eating. Ten days cake. Ten days new clothes. This is what they say about Ramadan,” Mr. Ashraf told us the night he drove my husband and I to his home for Iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daylong fast.

Mr. Ashraf is a sincere and gentle man of immense bulk. At first he appeared a bit frightening, with broad hands that look as if they could knock your head off. He told us during our first trip together that he had been teaching computer science at the university for $100 per month, but found taxi driving more lucrative. He was our preferred taxi driver while we lived in Giza during the year 2001, and my husband and he developed a special friendship while driving through the snarl of Cairo traffic. Even though their worlds, experiences, and way of thinking would always make them strangers to one another, their mutual appreciation and genuine liking became stronger with time.

“You always need three times money during Ramadan,” he continued that night in the car. “To buy meat. To buy sweets. To buy clothes. You know, everybody like[s] Ramadan because [your] stomach takes a rest and [you spend] every night with family. One night with my mother. One night with my brother. One night with the mother of my wife.”

“And you, Mr. Kees,” he turned to my Dutch husband. “You are like brother to me. Really. I mean this. Tonight we eat with my brother.”

The significance of this statement was not lost on any of us. Only three months had passed since the tragedy of September 11^th, and the idea that East and West, Christian and Moslem, might be brothers seemed a small miracle in the midst of the world’s fear.

He turned the car down an unpaved narrow street and parked. We entered the dark foyer of an apartment building and carefully climbed the unlit concrete steps to the first floor. Mr. Ashraf opened the door and bid us to enter. “You are welcome.”

We timidly walked into the living room which was furnished with gilded chairs and a sofa out of a Louis XIV decorating showroom. One wall was completely wall-papered with a giant photograph of a river stream. Mr. Ashraf sat us down and then disappeared with great agitated excitement. Soon his 15-year-old son, Wusem, appeared through the same door that had swallowed Mr. Ashraf. “Welcome to Egypt,” he said and as quickly disappeared. Wusem was a perfect miniature of his father, only without the mustache.

We sat listening to the television blaring Ramadan tunes in the next room and the busy shouts of preparation from the entire family. We were then invited into the dining room, which also had one entire wall papered with a series of waterfalls. It was there we met Mr. Ashraf’s wife, Huwayda, and 9-year-old daughter, Chulut.

The room was sparsely furnished, and we all took our places at the table which was set with individual portions of chicken, rice, peas and carrots in a tomato sauce, and a dish uniquely Egyptian called molokkia. This green slimy soup-like broth is made of minced Jew’s mallow (a leafy herb) and chicken stock. Tablespoons of molokkia are poured over rice to flavor it.

We started with a hot bowl of “bird’s tongue soup” so named for the pasta that floats in it has the shape of what birds’ tongues might look like. Huwayda’s hair was completely contained under a chic head wrap and her smooth skin was the color of café latte. Our eyes met across the table and we each seemed to approve of the other. She spoke little English but understood more. “My wife say you bring light into our house,” Mr. Ashraf translated for us.

The tender chicken was then devoured with relish with our fingers. Mr. Ashraf kept smacking his lips and saying to me, “Eat. Eat. The chicken is very good.” In fact, that was his ploy all evening, telling us how one thing or another “was very good,” which any polite guest would agree with and then prove by eating all the more.

After the meal, our fingers saturated with chicken grease, we were ushered into the bathroom to wash our hands. On the floor in one corner swimming in a basin was a catfish, saved by the little girl from death the other evening. It had narrowly escaped being part of the feast of fresh fish. We returned to the living room while everyone else became busy with the cleaning up and preparation of the tea and desert. Every so often, Wusem would appear in the doorway, beaming, “Welcome to Egypt.”

Soon the children came to show us with great solemnity their new clothes for Ramadan. I noted the matching pink bows on Chulut’s jeans and jacket and we balked at the size of Wusem’s new sneakers. His huge hands and feet exposed his immanent growth into manhood. Then the children retired to the room they shared, and their parents returned with mint tea and a plate piled high with katayef, a sweet delicacy of fried dough filled with hazelnuts.

“The katayef are very good,” Mr. Ashraf said pointing to the twenty sweets that sat in front of me. What could I do? Of course, I had to overindulge. Everything in the end was washed down with two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, the second glass only appearing after I agreed that it was “very good.”

After all this gorging, Mr. Ashraf returned the conversation back to sacrifice. “You know. Fasting is good. You learn that you can control many things. Everything is for only looking, but no touch. Water, food, your wife. And after, you learn that you can make this.

“My mother learned me one thing. What you put in a glass, that is what you drink. You put in sugar, you drink sugar. You put in tea, you drink tea. You put in something not good, you drink that. It’s the same with your children. It’s the same with your life.”

And so with that, we said our thanks and goodbyes. We felt blessed for such an evening with a family that had generously taken us in for the Iftar meal. Ramadan seemed to reflect all that is human -- piety and gaiety, charity and ostentation, sacrifice and indulgence.

Catherine Ann Lombard is a psychosynthesis counselor, writer, and teacher specializing in activating the will and bringing meaning to the workplace. She is a published writer of first-person essays, poetry, and news articles. She also teaches academic writing at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.

Terrorism is brutal and devastating, and its ultimate goal is fear. Terrorists hope to set allies against each other, and build tension between compatriots. The atrocities carried out by terrorists on September 11, 2001 were particularly devastating and, in many ways, the fear generated by the attacks is still being felt today.

Since this spring, critics have condemned a proposed Muslim community centre in Lower Manhattan, formerly known as the Cordoba House. The community centre’s leaders recently changed its name to Park51, referring to its address at 51 Park Place, in part to emphasise that it will be located several blocks from Ground Zero and that it is hardly the “Ground Zero Mosque” it had been branded.

When built, Park51 will feature “a 500-seat auditorium, swimming pool, art exhibition spaces, bookstores, [and] restaurants” and will be a “cultural nexus” for New York City, according to one of its sponsoring organisations, the Cordoba Initiative, which promotes positive Muslim-Western relations and interfaith dialogue.

Though hosted by a Muslim group, and indeed equipped with a Muslim prayer room, it will be open to all New Yorkers and full of all the facilities of a top-notch community centre.

In spite of Park51’s clear value to the city and its citizens, its location several blocks from Ground Zero has prompted protests that aim to keep some Muslim Americans from practicing their faith in freedom and peace, and from opening their doors in a truly American way to welcome guests from all faith traditions.

The terrible irony is that under the guise of fighting extremism, some critics of Park51 are unwittingly furthering the agenda of the terrorists who attacked us so viciously on 9/11. The terrorists wanted us to be afraid. They wanted us to put our rights in jeopardy. They wanted us to believe that not all religions are welcome in America. They wanted us to undo ourselves by debasing our own principles.

Although the First Amendment of the US Constitution makes clear that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, it is ultimately up to American citizens to ensure that the principles enshrined in the Constitution are applied in full. When a religious group, in writ or practice, is kept from establishing a gathering place for the community, those ideals are undermined.

The protests against Park51 are all the more severe, as they undermine the freedom of a religious community seeking not only to build a gathering place for itself, but to provide a space that is open to Americans of all faiths.

As Americans, we must stand with Park51 as part of a free society. A new movement is afoot to do just that. Known as Religious Freedom USA, the group seeks to protect all Americans’ right to religious freedom, and is focusing its efforts specifically on Park51.

With a strong and diverse base of support in its Board of Advisors, Religious Freedom USA plans to unroll an online video campaign to amplify the voices of current and emerging leaders who are empowered by their faith and patriotism to support religious freedom and Park51. The video campaign will then be used to galvanise support across New York City and beyond for rallies and public demonstrations in support of Park51, and advocacy efforts spanning college campuses and congregations, seminaries and civic organisations.

As one of Religious Freedom USA’s co-founders, I have found my work both profoundly patriotic and deeply religious. As a Jew and future rabbi, I cannot pray with a full heart when others in the very same city are kept from gathering to do the same, especially when they seek to open their doors to others.

The great 1st century BCE Rabbi Hillel is famous for his saying, “If I am not for myself who will be for me, but if I am not for another what am I?” I respond with his last line: “And if not now, when?”

Protecting religious freedom for all begins now. It begins at Park51. It begins with Religious Freedom USA.

This article was first disseminated by the Common Ground News Service.

interView about the Peace and Justice Education Conference

Response by Anna DeWeese

The question at the beginning of the video - do we teach violence - has a rather haunting quality, especially when it is posed as a religious one. In my previous post I mentioned that religious language has potential for great power, which can be utilized in equally positive and negative ways. Violence is about power, and as such religious violence is an issue I take very seriously. Read more here.

Response by Liane Carlson

I’m not sure that’s really the question being asked.  Rather, I think there’s a more specific understanding of violence at stake, with some notion of intentionality behind it.  It’s less whether we teach violence than whether we teach hatred or sadism.  It’s common to claim that animals don’t enjoy watching each other suffer.  We undoubtedly do.  Does that mean we have an instinct for sadism? Read more here.

Response by Michael VanZandt Collins

One can argue that we propagate an attitude or culture of violence in a myriad of ways. Surely, those arguments can also be applied to our schools and our religious communities, as well as our society-at-large. Such communities are simply too large and diverse not to produce inequities and attitudes of superiority at some level, subtle, blatant or anywhere in between. Read more here.

Response by Jess Kent

The coordinators of the Peace and Justice Education Conference at Columbia University had a daunting task at hand, but also an exciting one. Eric Shieh identified that running this conference without creating space for religion to be discussed and represented would be a "glaring absence". Without having attended the conference, I surmise that their efforts to bring religion to the table shed a different light than expected into the mix of conversation. Read more here.

Another important aspect of this video was the notion that peace is a ‘touchy’ topic – well, of course it is! We are talking about bodies, about life, about death! Of course it makes people ‘touchy’. But I ask one thing to be kept in mind when talking about peace: pacifism is not passivity. Peace keepers and peace-makers are not doormats who allow injustice to pass through unchallenged. Peace is not for the faint of heart. In my Christian understanding, peace and justice are the work of all who espouse to be living the gospel, and it is not laid out in scripture to be an easy task. But in peaceful community we can achieve what I believe to be God’s will.