Narrator> A production of South Carolina ETV Governor Jim Hodges> One of the ideas which shaped our country was that of religious tolerance.

Many people came to South Carolina escaping persecution and seeking new homes to raise families, to work, and to worship.

After the attack of 9/11, I asked our state Human Affairs Commissioner Jesse Washington to call together community groups of various faiths to talk of our hopes and our fears.

South Carolina ETV recorded these forums, which went for many hours longer than the program we'll see.

We'll hear in our voices this essential truth of liberty... our diversity is not division, but the common ground under us all.

[outdoor ambient sounds] Tom Fowler> I'm Tom Fowler with South Carolina ETV along with Jesse Washington of the Human Affairs Commission.

In the next hour, we'll listen to three different groups of our fellow citizens' religious perspectives after 9/11.

Three different groups of people in three different communities.

How did this come about?

Jesse Washington, Jr.> Tom, this came about as a result of the tragic incident of 9/11.

Religious and faith leaders across the state of South Carolina began to talk, and the conversation evolved into having forums, and this is what we will view tonight in South Carolina.

Tom Fowler> We'll listen first to the Columbia group.

Jesse Washington, Jr.> The panelists in Co responded to the question, How have the tragic events of 9/11 changed the nature and purpose of interfaith dialogue?

Rabbi Sanford Marcus> Interfaith dialogue has been on and off here in the Columbia area over the time that I've been here, 16 years.

We've had our high points and our low points.

There's always been a need for interfaith dialogue, but not always an interest, a concomitant interest.

I would say that after September 11th people really began to think very seriously about the meaning of who they are and who the, quote, end quote, "other" is.

in other words, anyone other than your religion, your race, your ethnic group, whomever.

So that, There's quite an awareness in America today and a need to reach out and a need to make contacts and friendships with those who are, in any one of those ways unlike you.

Arumina Sinha> More than ever, it is absolutely necessary now to have interfaith dialogue.

I also have been involved in interfaith dialogue for last 12, 13 years, but more than ever, I have realized that it is very important to let people have the knowledge and education about all the religions, and especially minority and especially in this state of South Carolina.

And also, only by education we can control the hate groups who are trying to find ways, to find their ways in the light of this, what has happened, which is unfortunate.

Groups like 700 Club and things like that should not be promoted.

And that can only be done if good people like us, interested people like us, people who believe in interfaith dialogue and the growth of the community come ahead and have some dialogue, have some education, try to embrace all and try to deny none and be accepting.

Barbara Morningstar Paul> Historically in our country, faith isssues have been very superficial, and when they become in-depth, they're usually between an elite group of people.

In our country, we have been very good at avoiding what's uncomfortable.

The good thing, the only good thing, in my opinion about September 11th is Indian people have always risen from the ashes.

This country had to rise from the ashes.

This was not an elite group of people that were attacked.

We as a country were attacked, and everybody was affected in this situation.

Whereas in other situations, it was very easy to point a finger, or put up a curtain, or walk away.

This time we can't 'cause this affects us all.

Imam Omar Shaheed> We received calls from Rabbi Marcus, a good friend of ours, Jewish community.

Also, we received calls from Reverend Kneece from the Christian Action Council and many other persons in the community, from the Christian community across the board, even you, I think.

Yeah, you gave us a call.

That's correct.

And, we also, Not only did we receive calls, but we received... help.

In other words, it was extended to us.

Do you need someone to go with the women to go into the shopping malls, to go shopping.

We received these calls.

And we also received calls from the FBI--we were glad to receive those calls-- telling us that, report any phone calls-- any phone calls or any trouble.

Report that, because they are not going to tolerate anyone acting out against us, and I thought that was very good.

And I would also like to add that we also tried to get out into the community to let others know our position, because it's dangerous for us to be in a mosque and people don't know our position, especially when there was a crime committed against humanity, and those persons were identified as Muslims, so we had to state the position of Islam, the position of Muslims.

Arumina Sinha> It's very easy for me to respect because according to my faith perspective, we embrace all and deny none, because we, our very scriptures are based on diversity and there is a code from the scriptures which says that "Ekam Sat Vipra Bahudha Vadanti," Truth is one and paths are many, religions are many.

The reason we are not able to respect, we are emphasizing too much, especially in our interfaith dialogues, Talking about tolerance.

To me, tolerance is not even a civilized word for the religious world, because I can tolerate my anger, I can tolerate pain.

What is there for me to tolerate about Omar here?

Where there is love, there is respect.

And one of the most important thing is storytelling.

We must meet and talk.

Sometimes the storytelling, everybody doesn't have the capability or interest of talking something philosophical, or theology or rituals or philosophy.

People can sit down and just talk, and sometimes the storytelling, saying our hearts, saying our stories of families, traditions and things like that helps.

So where there is love, there is respect, and it's about time to understand the gist and the essence of all the religions, which is love.

Tod Ewing> And what causes sometimes religious intolerance is, and I think we probably have to come to grips with this is, too much emphasis and really, I'm not talking about the interfaith groups really that are here, but in our community, too much emphasis on the concept of finality of a particular prophet, or that a particular religion has an exclusive path to the truth.

And I think those kinds of concepts, create religious intolerance, similar to the way that a racial dominance in one group, thinking that they're superior, have access to knowledge, but more than one other group, would create racial intolerance.

And I think there's a suffocating spirit, that is engaged, that really limits the possibilities for spiritual unity when there's a kind of a concept of exclusive, or a particular, access to the truth that you have and others don't.

And I think we have to come to grips with that notion if we're going to if we're going to have true religious unity.

Malkiat Guram> But human mind is such you can't change it overnight.

We are in the right direction with interfaith, although it may not have been that successful, but people are meeting, they are talking.

There is conversation.

And that's, in my opinion, is the best way.

Rabbi Sanford Marcus> I happen to be Reform.

And I do not wear a head covering every day.

When I'm praying, I do, but otherwise I don't.

So that when people see me in the community, they have no idea, not necessarily, that I'm Jewish.

However, people who do, wear any kind of, outer covering or whatever to, to distinguish themselves, be it Jewish, be it Muslim, be it Hindu, be it whatever it is, it automatically contrives up, it conjures up in people's minds, a certain, a whole, a whole set of, attitudes as to what might be inside this person and often, incorrectly.

Minhaj Arastu> Well, this issue about the that people have based on appearance, it it takes me back to the comment that, Mr.

Ewing made about, you know, why there is, difficulty or tension between communities.

On one hand, he said that it's because of the claim that some groups have, that they have a monopoly on truth.

My feeling is that the reason for the tension and the difficulty is not that claim, because that's really a very logical claim.

I mean, when we say in mathematics, a two plus two is four, we're making a claim about truth.

And somebody who doesn't believe it, you know, we don't we don't have an argument or a fight over it.

We disagree.

We both have different claims on truth.

And and we would be right to say that if you're not, if you're not agreeing with the truth and you are false, that you are on the wrong path, and it's the ignorance about what their claim of truth is.

It's the ignorance about why do they claim to have the right path and, you know, why do they do what they do?

I think that's the reason for the the tensions and the, you know, bigotry and things like that.

Not the claim of truth, because that's really a very logical thing.

And for people to claim that, that they are the truth and anything different is not true in.

Imam Omar Shaheed> In our religion, Islam, it tells us, God says to us, He says, "I have created all mankind."

Not speaking to Muslims.

He's speaking to humanity.

All people.

"I have created you from a single pair of a male and female, and made you into nations and tribes that you may get to know each other."

Now we see humanity as one.

We see the cultures, the diversity in the cultures.

Our humanity is one.

And I think as we if we get to know each other through just dialog and working with each other, not just dialoging, but also working with for the common good and looking more to what God created.

God created humanity.

We created races.

David Dickey> I think that a lot of it comes down to, and I think it's already been said, this evening self-examination.

If we show intolerance, if we show exclusivity, that's more of a reflection on our lack of practice, of our own faith.

The weakness lies not in the faith, but in the fact that we're all a little bit less than perfect.

And something that's not been mentioned tonight yet, but I think is a is a major theme in tolerance and respect is forgiveness.

One of the problems that we have as human beings is that we want to protect ourselves.

And when we feel wrong, one of the ways that we we react is by lashing out.

Forgiveness is one thing that I'm sure we all have in common, respect and love for all humanity.

If each and every one of us works within his own faith community to make sure that we all do a better job of practicing our own faith, a lot of these problems will disappear.

Rev.

Dr.

Gail Anderson Holness> It boils down to the fact that we don't understand each other.

We're not really aware of why the Baha'i do what they do, why the Muslims pray the way they pray, why the Jewish groups celebrate what they celebrate, why, Unitarian Universalists do what they do.

We don't have a clue about the core of other religions, just as we don't have a clue about the core of a lot of cultural aspects in different races.

We don't understand why some people eat kosher food and others eat, cornbread and collard greens.

We don't understand, and I think we are a little more tolerant than we are respectful of different groups because of our ignorance, and the ignorance does not make us dumb or stupid.

It only makes us not knowledgeable about what is going on in a particular faith group, or in a particular ethnic group.

Dr.

Duncan Howe> If we look at the definition of dialogue, dialogue is, people coming together and actually thinking together and brainstorming and putting ideas out on the table that might be unconventional or different, coming from a different worldview than the other person that they're talking with.

So dialogue involves a certain amount of vulnerability, and it takes a certain amount of courage for a person to engage in that kind of dialogue, which you're really, genuinely sharing ideas, heart to heart and trying to understand each other.

And so, our faith communities have a, and a great opportunity, because to develop that courage, that's a very spiritual thing.

And developing confidence in yourself and in your in your faith, being able, allows you, enables you to be able to do that, to make yourself vulnerable and have these, these kinds of conversations.

People of faith don't need courage to practice what they believe to be their Creator's will, and I believe that if we truly walk in the faith that we discuss kind of what what David was talking about practicing the faith rather than just talking about it, I believe that courage isn't required.

And I also wanted to say something.

I was listening to what everyone was saying, and I hadn't heard anybody talking about fear.

I learned when I was a little girl that a lot of prejudice comes from fear, that people are afraid of things, and their response is either anger or rejection or what it reprisals out of fear.

And I think fear comes again from ignorance, which I also heard somebody talk about.

The problem I have with the word tolerance kind of ties in with all of that.

I believe that if I tolerate my brother here, it's because I've judged him, and if I have to tolerate him, it means that I've judged that he's worthy of my tolerance, you know, and that's not acceptable to me.

The way I see things and the way I've been taught is that I need to accept everyone for what they are, and my people have an expression.

They say "all my relations" 'cause we believe we're all related.

And we believe that each one of us is equal in God's eyes.

I don't tolerate any of these people.

I accept their absolute right to believe what they believe.

And in accepting that courage isn't required.

And what I have instead is an interest in understanding what it is that they do believe.

I think one of the solutions to that might be joint worships that our group would come and worship with your group, and your group would come and worship with our group to get a greater understanding of how we worship.

We've dialogued a lot, and we continue to dialogue and we continue to dialogue and still don't understand.

We can read a book on how to paint the Sistine Chapel all day long, but until we get on a ladder and paint the Sistine Chapel, I submit to you we still do not know how to paint.

We still don't have that understanding and acceptance, Imam Shaheed, not only respecting but accepting and and knowing why.

So I think that to offer, joint worship, it would improve the respect and cooperation among all faith groups and we wouldn't ask ourselves so much, why, because we'd know.

Dialogue is not just the speaking and the listening, but also the hearing of what that other group has to say.

And we can dialogue as, Ms.

Holness said, all day long.

If we're not really hearing what they're saying, what we're each saying to the other, then there's no understanding.

So there's an additional component to that dialogue than just the speaking back and forth.

It's that actual hearing and, therefore the understanding.

We have a cycle in our curriculum for our youth and our children and their religious education.

And one whole year of that cycle is taken up by, exposing the children to various faiths.

We have curricula that describe in some detail the beliefs and practices of various world religions.

And whenever possible, we attempt to bring religious leaders in from those communities to talk with the children.

The idea of being, this openness and communication, and exposing that in an early age to the beliefs of other faiths.

And we also try to take the children on visitations to other communities.

We've visited the Hindu temple, Buddhist temple, not only exposing them to the teachings in an abstract way, but also actually exposing them to people that practice that faith and see the setting in which it's practice where they can ask questions and also, we emphasize on these trips with the children that the first and foremost thing we want them to do is show respect.

And that's, been very helpful to it.

And we have today an open invitation to all of these panelists, all faiths, everybody in the audience.

We meet every first and third Sunday.

I have given you the address.

A vegetarian meal is served after the service.

It's about two hours.

They can come talk to our congregation, and, we got speakers and others.

I think that's the best way to invite each other and others so that they can talk and then after that, have a discussion on questions.

Fear is there.

And especially after September 11th, there is more fear.

And when we were talking about if our communities are affected, I think all the communities and especially minorities, they're very much affected by fear.

And I think fear can cause a lot of problems.

Fear can cause even, at early age, for children, you know, to in their growth, it can interfere with their open mindedness, with their, the understanding.

And I think a lot of fear is that in our community it's not that much, but I can see it is there.

So our identity to realize that we all have our own identity is very important.

And melting pot and even soup bowl is not agreeable to me.

I have heard a lot of politicians talking about melting pot.

I think all metals, they lose their identity in the melting pots.

Even in soup, all the flavors are there.

Yet, they're original.

Existence is not there.

Their original personalities are not there.

I talk from my own perspective, not as an imposition, but just a decision.

I always think of the whole world as a bouquet of flowers.

They all have their colors, their textures, their fragrances and the nutrition, which is the water, or the soil or whatever, is one.

And yet they have different colors, different varieties, different personalities.

And that concept is very important for all of us to accept it.

And the thought or the notion of faith groups and ethnic groups losing their identity.

And in my mind, the first thing that came was Plessy versus Ferguson.

We are separate but equal.

But if we're going to live together as one, we still have to get to a point of understanding and acceptance.

Sunday is one of the most segregated times of the week in America.

11:00.

You go to your church, I go to my church.

You worship how you worship.

I worship how I worship.

And you can find that separation on Sunday mornings.

Or yet, those who worship on other days, there's still a separation.

And somehow, even in our own identities, we've got to be able to identify and accept others and not have so much of a separation.

Having moved back home eight years ago, my daughter was eight at the time, and she said she had never experienced so much racism in her life until she moved to South Carolina.

And that's something for an eight year old to say coming from Washington, D.C.

and Baltimore, Maryland, from a Georgetown environment where you're in a melting pot.

But even in a melting pot, you have an understanding that they have their own identities.

South Carolina is a different, is on a different plane than many places.

Different plane, different boat.

[audience giggles] It's just, it offers something different.

From Columbia, let's turn now to Rock Hill.

The Rock Hill panelists were asked, do we in South Carolina have the ability to overcome the aftershocks of nine, one, one?

We're Americans.

We're godly people.

We press on.

And just like they did at Pearl Harbor, just like they did Iwo Jima, just like they did in all the wars we fought.

Isn't it amazing when the buildings fell, the people ran to the churches?

Isn't it amazing that in a time of need, man naturally turn to God?

Because man is not sufficient in himself.

He needs God, and God longs to be with man.

The issues of September the 11th are heart issues.

You see, Osama bin Laden attacked America because, in his own words, he hated Christianity.

It was a heart issue for him.

The sin that he committed is no different than the sins we commit every day, because it's a heart issue for us.

We should love him and everyone the same.

I agree with every panelist, but in our love it can only be displayed through the power of Jesus Christ.

Our world is full of hate.

Is this something we can minimize, or can we be successful in reducing the hatred according to your religion or your denomination?

I can't sense that we can hate somebody if we make it more personal, if we know their name, if we listen to each other.

And I would even add to that as a believer and a Catholic, if we can pray for each other by name, that's transformative.

I find it hard to hate somebody that I can name and pray for.

Secondly, that we listen carefully and not put each other in a category or interpret one another's faith, but that we listen to what it is and let each person not just on this panel, but as we meet, wherever that is.

Thirdly, that we search for alternatives, that we don't just assume that stockpiling arms, a raging in the military budget is a response to September the 11th.

And I prize the work of the Quakers.

They're not on this panel tonight, but they consistently try to translate for us what the dollars mean.

If we build another bomber, how many hospitals does that really cost?

How many elderly won't be cared for?

Can we do that kind of translation?

What alternatives are we looking for?

I think the founders of all the faiths here did that in their own time.

What does your religion require of its followers with respect to relationships with their neighbors?

Mr.

Barnett.

the God of my scriptures tells me I cannot hate somebody.

I must respect everyone.

I must pray for my enemies.

There is no such thing as a slave, a free person, a Jew and Gentile, somebody from Islam, somebody from Baha'i.

We're all the same.

Created in the image of God.

It doesn't matter who you are or what you are or where you are.

God loves you.

He loved me so much that he gave the life of His Son, and by believing in Him and trusting in Him, I cannot, I cannot hate others.

I have to even turn my cheek when you want to hit me in the face.

Because God said so.

Ms.

Phillips, what are some of the core values of your religion and define the Baha'i's commitment to its surrounding community and relationship with people of With the Baha'i, it's not a head thing, do you know what I mean?

It's a heart thing.

We can easily say what we believe, say what we want to do, but let's do it.

And we've been talking about that from the panel tonight about what is, but what do we do?

And I think one of the things that's just wrong with that, before I get to the other part of the question is that we don't understand each other and we don't really try to get together to understand each other, and that is what education is all about.

We don't know a lot about each other.

And I can say to someone that I'm a Baha'i and it could be a religious person.

They don't say anything.

They don't know anything about it.

They don't know that God has spoken to man again.

And even if they don't believe it, as a religious person, I would want to know.

A Baha'i is compelled to know about Judaism, about Islam, about, all of the Christian faiths, all of the Christian sects, I should say, Buddhism.

This is what a Baha'i is.

He knows about all these things.

He knows about the teachings of God.

He wants to know about all of the messengers, a prophet or a teachers or whatever it is you want to call them that brings this message to mankind.

It's like, it's like stair steps.

In every age and dispensation, God speaks to man again.

Because we do grow as people, we become intellectually sound that we can learn something else.

And that's where we are as Baha'i's.

How do you encourage religious tolerance among the members of your mosque?

In Islam, our religion tells us that those who believe in the Quran, those in the Jewish Scripture, those who believe the Christians, any who believes in God in the last day, shall have their reward from their Lord.

We see one family on this earth.

This is what our religion teaches us.

One family, all the descendants of Adam.

We're brothers and sisters.

We belong to the same family, our distinctions, our nationalities, our c differ.

Our religious traditions differ.

But we call on God.

I was listening to my co-panelists up here identifying their role models.

Identifying their mentors.

And me, I identify Mohammed as my mentor.

But Mohammed showed me how I should live my life.

Jesus shows the Christian how the Christians should live their life.

And as the sister said from the Baha'i faith, Baha'u'llah shows how to live a life.

Scripture tells us that we should work for others, to get to know each other, look for the good and support all that is good from Rock Hill, we'll turn to Beaufort.

Each community designed the forum in their own way, and as we'll see, Beaufort's forum was different than Rock Hill and Columbia.

It was, Tom.

Beaufort had its forum on a Saturday, a lunch was held beforehand and small table discussion, and it worked very well in Beaufort.

The panelists, spoke of their faith.

The religion of Islam believes in one God.

We believe in the God of Abraham.

We believe in the God of Noah.

We believe in God of David.

We believe in the traditions of the Old Testament, the New Testament, And we believe that the Quran is the last book that was revealed to man, and is part of a progression of literature that has been given to us, from God in the form of revelation to man through his prophets.

And that's a very important thing to understand a lot of times, you know, I have heard that mentioned here a couple of times in the early discussions that, there was certain misunderstandings as to what Muslims believe, but it is certainly a part of the Abrahamic tradition.

And, in that context, and I think it's important to begin to then to study Islam as well as is important for Muslims to begin to study Christianity.

I think the position of African-Americans in America, and I'll be very specific in that regards, the, approximately four to five million Muslims that are in America, at least half that number is African Americans.

And, there are many, social reasons why African Americans have accepted Islam in such large numbers.

But they become a very, important contribution to the understanding of Islam for many reasons, because of the cultural identification, obviously, because of the historical conditions that we as a people have come through, the realities of, social conditions.

Part of it was alluded to this morning, the conditions that we have, been exposed to, which allows, I think, us as American citizens to be able and as Muslims to be able to identify with social realities exist, but to look at it within the context of a social environment that we've grown up with, because I think ofttimes what'll happen, and I'll close my remarks by saying this, ofttimes what has happened is that will often take the religious position and the social context in which people grow up and and confuse the two, we'll merge them together.

We'll look at a Pakistanian's background and his social background, and we call that Islam.

Or we'll look at a Saudi Arabian's social background called Islam, or we'll look at a person from Malaysia and called Islam.

And in fact, there's a distinction between the person's social background and their social customs and the social habits and the religion.

Humanism actually can be summed up in the old Roman poet statement, nothing human is alien to me.

Or you can take it more actively and indicate that whatever else may or may not be true of the universe, human beings are responsible for the human condition here and now.

Those are the centers.

Then, within that, humanism ranges all the way from atheists to naturalist, to theist and everything in between.

Find two humanist, you'll find at least three positions.

Now, given that why this particular activity and venture for a humanist, and I try to indicate some of that in one or two of my questions this morning, basically, I think my concern is that in our anxiety to establish commonality, we miss the genuine values of diversity.

So I'm not sure I want commonality.

Or at least I want enough of it to survive, but enough diversity to make it worthwhile to survive.

And so I would go from toleration to respect, which is where the questions go.

And I'd add another feature to it, appreciation.

I believe that nine, one, one was not a war between God and man.

Had it been so, We know who would have won because God is the omnipotent, the omniscient, and the omnipresent God.

I think on an international level, we need to think about reconciliation rather than retaliation with the guns or with the weapons.

I think there is a form of reconciliation that can take place on an international level, as well as on a national level, as well as on a local level.

And that first, level would be that first would be to go to our knees.

I think there's a need for America to repent of what it has done in the past, not only remembering the good, but there's some other things that we have done in the past, and all of us have enjoyed the privileges of what has been done to other countries.

I do believe, too, that on a local level, we need to recognize one another and respect one another, regardless of our differences of our backgrounds.

I think it's just so beautiful that we're all so different, but we were all created by the one God and therefore there is only one God, one faith and one baptism.

But we tend to focus on the difference of that which contains the light.

And so I would suggest that it would help us to think about each religion, the spiritual principles which are reiterated from time to time in the same words, almost from one era to another, according to what was needed in that era, according to the capacity of people to carry on in ever advancing civilization, and then to distinguish that between the social teachings which develop a community, they fulfill themselves.

And then we need to move on to develop the next stage in community.

And I suggest that we're in our adolescent period and perhaps moving from adolescence to maturity.

And it is a struggle, and it will be.

But imagine the marvelous consequences when we get there.

Americans who define themselves as a people of God.

I think this whole issue of terrorism right now is being clouded, certain real facts, and we should continue to remember and face daily in times of peace, in times of tragedy, at all times we paid homage to God.

And, we did that because we believe that God is the author and the sustainer of life and liberty, and we in turn, have shaped our lives and laws and according to the widely shared principles informed by the rich tapestry that each of our religions have brought to our lives.

It's still interesting to note, in spite of everything, nearly two thirds of the American people say that religion is very important in their lives, and close to half say they attend worship services at least once a week.

That's amazing in these days, with these changing situations on a daily basis, even more, the current polls tend to show that the belief in God and the devotion of prayer has reached historic highs, not because of, necessarily because of nine, one, one, but because of an ongoing experiential, opportunity for prayer, for devotion in our lives.

As a Baptist, Doctor LaPoint has expressed much of this.

I always emphasize we accept the authority of the scriptures as our rule for faith and practice.

We believe in the baptism of believers only, meaning personal accountability that no one else can be proxy for you, that each person must believe.

We believe in also the autonomy of the local church.

We believe in religious freedom.

And on that, I'd like to emphasize what I think is most precious at this particular time.

The grand experiment was when, the Fresh Baptists from England, Roger Williams, came to the United States in the early 1600s, was run out of Massachusetts because of religious intolerance, and set up the first charter of religious freedom in the history of the world in Providence, Rhode Island.

I am most proud of what Baptists have done to help shape the spirit of America in that we accept and respect, not just tolerate, other faiths.

This one point about Baptists is really wonderful.

We have been the forefront of those who have said we must look at everybody else as a potential child of God, as a child of God, and respect him as one that God loves just as much as he loves us.

God's no respecter of persons.

We have a crossroads of, a cross section of America at Parris Island with many different faiths, many different cultures, not only from within the United States, but also people from around the globe come and join the military, through immigration.

And, it has been stretching for me to look at my role in facilitating ministry.

One of the mottos are, the motto of the chaplain core is cooperation without compromise.

And for me, that means that I facilitate other people's faith because they have the constitutional right to believe whatever they want or not to believe for that matter.

And ensuring that they have that right is vitally important to each and every person.

We're all souls.

We're all spirits and accommodating religious practices and beliefs for individuals.

From a military point of view, of readiness with spiritual readiness is very important for that individual and how they will function in relationships with their peers or with their superiors, or carrying out the mission of their commanders.

Jesse Washington, Jr.> What can your religion learn from other religious traditions?

You know, we're all comfortable in our, in our comfort zone, in our local community.

And to venture out involves taking risks.

And when you take the risk, there's some cost to that.

And, I think a lot of times in, you might not know what you truly believe in your own faith until you experience another faith experience another culture, another philosophy, theology, because that is part of your growing and expanding your horizons so that, that you can find the commonalities, and also it solidifies your own belief.

I know as a very young sailor, in the far East, I decided, having grown up in the Baptist, I thought I'd look at Maharishi International.

And so I did for a short time.

But, you know, I learned about the meditation technique and which I have been able to implement in Christian meditation on my faith.

But going into that and and experiencing that helped me to identify, my own beliefs and what I felt that truth was to me in my traditional faith that I had grown up in.

And I think that's important.

We have to be willing to risk something, if we're going to make any progress, if we're going to be able to, break down the barriers.

I mean, we can find enough barriers to keep around us, to keep us away from, being threatened and maintain our security.

But growth only comes when we're willing to take that risk and willing to lose and willing to be open to for change.

And here, I think I would say, certainly we could learn that as humanists and so on.

But I think others might too, from the, Buddhist tradition.

We're always anxious to get things done, you know?

Give me a plan.

Give me a budget.

Let's go to work.

And what's your timetable?

And I don't think human life either can or ought to be lived that way.

I think there's going to be a different tempo, which we and certainly the United States, but not only in the United States, have really failed to appreciate.

And so you want to talk about what to learn?

I think it's as something is as simple and as complicated as, take it easy, the world will still be there.

Slow down, catch yourself.

We don't believe that.

Okay, so I would I would put I'd look in those directions.

Let's return to Columbia as we pick up their final question.

What is the greatest challenge to your religion or your faith in the 21st century?

The greatest challenge to us is, doing the, doing our practice, which has the objective of helping each individual develop their best, their highest life condition.

And so that's our challenge.

And our belief is that peace comes when people start to, really develop that high life condition and, endure all the vicissitudes that happen around them without getting upset and being able to deal with these situations.

When that happens, then we can have peace, but there's a challenge.

And I think it's a challenge for all of our faith communities is practicing what we teach.

If we practice what we teach and we practice it sincerely, I think the objective is to develop ourselves, become more capable people and, more capable contributors to our society.

So that seems to be a tremendous challenge, because we do have many social problems which result from people not doing that.

They're down and lower life conditions.

They're going at situations from a condition of anger or, or, uncontrolled desire, materialism and those sorts of things.

So, it's a spiritual development of each individual to elevate themselves so that when they're interacting with the people in society and their environment, they're doing it from this, this higher, higher level rather than these lower levels.

So I see that as a really tremendous challenge.

There's probably many things that are, challenges.

One is the name, the name Baha'i.

I think that we're if we're not used to something, a certain terminology or are like Buddhist, Baha'i, then it can seem foreign and then we automatically dismiss it.

As for somebody else, the fact that the Baha'i Faith originated in Iran, is automatically sets people in a certain mindset, and they think of Iran and they start thinking about their version of Muslims and what they've seen on TV, etc.. So I think the name, I think the, terminology around the prophet founder's name is Baha'u'llah.

So you start talking about as soon as you start saying things, it's from the Middle East, it's Baha'i, it's Baha'u'llah.

And then I think there's some fundamental things that, cause challenges for any religion.

And that's peoples, in a sense, blind imitation of the past and unwillingness to investigate truth for themselves, that they really accept many things that have just been passed down to them rather than investigate for themselves to see with their own eyes and determine if they think it's true for themselves.

So I think there's kind of a habit of just accepting, particularly with religion, whatever your parents were, or your grandparents and, and not really searching for truth for yourself.

So I think that's a challenge.

I think our greatest challenge is dispelling stereotypes.

As many of the people sitting on this panel have the same issues.

You know, I go into schools a lot to educate children.

I've been very blessed.

I've been asked to go in and teach some children about some of the Native American beliefs.

And some of the things that come out of these children's mouths is just horrifying.

You know, they have this "John Wayne bang bang, shoot em up, you're all savages" image of who we are.

And I think our greatest challenge in this century is to start educating people as to the truth of our beliefs and the gentleness of our beliefs and the all inclusiveness of our beliefs.

Because we're we're viewed as savages and as primitive people and as something other than a part of this country.

I also think that, we face a tremendous challenge in that Native American people have the highest levels of poverty in this country, and it's affected a lot of people that in the fact that hundreds of years ago, the church came to help our people.

And in doing so, unfortunately removed many of our cultural identities.

And we are, many of us, trying to reclaim the identity that was lost, when the churches came.

One thing that always occurs to me about the Muslim community here is that, we grew up very quickly because, it's only been in the last 30 or 40 years that there's been a sizable Muslim presence in the U.S.

and all of a sudden they were, that community was thrust into, you know, war with America, in a way.

I mean, September 11th put it in that kind of a context.

And other communities, you know, the Jewish community been you have 300 years the other minority groups have been here longer.

They've built up communities and, formed organizations, and they have a presence politically.

They have other structures there to deal with issues like this.

I guess the Muslim communities challenge is to to build those structures and those organizations and, and develop on its own.

We're still, struggling to bring the different people, the Muslims come from many countries that are local Muslims and to bring them together to have the organizations that can give a presence and a voice to those Muslims.

And I think that's, the difficult that's the challenge.

And, September 11th put that challenge, you know, in a really stark spotlight.

I think one of the greatest challenges to our religion in the 21st century is change itself and keeping our young people engaged and keeping them focused in a spiritual manner because of all of the things that are offered to them in society.

They have the internet, they have a lot of, television programing and, and different things.

And to keep our young people spiritual and focused morally is going to be a great challenge.

In the 21st century.

I think it's critical that we do keep the young people engaged and involved.

It's also critical that we help people get past their fears that they're not, and I think somebody had mentioned fear before, that people not be so involved and so wrapped up in their fears that they resort to stereotypes just because somebody looks different or somebody comes from a different family heritage.

I think that the challenge that you'll find for, a Jew living in South Carolina would be somewhat different.

I think the greatest challenge is in maintaining our own identity.

You see, Jewish people coming, different nationalities, I mean, different ethnic backgrounds, for example, from different parts of the world.

We have different customs, but, but all of us are integrated, quite well integrated into society.

And in fact, here, very many of us don't even have a Jewish neighbor for blocks, let alone next door.

We have friends that we depend on that are of other faiths and other cultures and other races and, so that this really draws on us, this presents an unusual challenge to maintain our own sense of who we are religiously, our religious identity.

Of course, the American identity we have because we're Americans and the regional identities as well.

So that's, our greatest challenge.

Our practices are really unique.

And that our community is not united by common beliefs.

We're united by common principles that we all agree to in covenant to follow.

But we have people of several faiths who belong to our congregation.

They've either come from other faiths or they still practice another faith.

In fact, we often refer to ourselves as hyphenated religious practices.

We have Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist.

We have, pagan, Unitarian Universalist.

So our real difficulty, I guess, is in providing some kind of forum for all these people to come together in some kind of unified way, even though I have traditions that go back several hundred years, Unitarian Universalism actually originated in Europe.

At least the Unitarian portion of it, and actually grew out of Calvinism.

So there's a strong Christian roots to our practice as well, but we draw on a lot of other areas.

So in some ways we face the dilemma that this whole panel has been discussing.

You know, how how do you bring people from so many different traditions together in one environment?

Other people started coming to this country, maybe in the 60s, more than 70s.

There were very few here before.

So we are fairly a very new community to this country.

In the beginning, we were busy building the community, getting together and finding our people, practicing what we need to practice together in a new, with new settlement, new country and cultural shock.

All these things.

Then we were busy in building temples, which was also important.

Now I think we have done those two things and that will go on all the time.

Community building and temple buildings.

But it's about time that we should try to merge with the community at large, because as Hindus, we have no problem merging with others.

If I go and sit in a mosque or going to a Christian church or anywhere, it's fine with me.

It's fine according to my faith because it's very universal and actually it's allowed and it is encouraged to do so.

So right now it's time for us to merge more with the community at large, like we are doing right now.

And I'm so happy to see some people from my temple sitting here and being here with me.

And youth, our youth and our younger generation is a very big challenge for us.

Since we are new, we are still trying to find ways how to handle them, to teach them how to receive the best of both worlds, their values and their heritage, which they have brought from India and also the Western values, the Western heritage which they have also inherited.

So our greatest challenge with the youth right now is how to teach them to gain the best of both worlds, and I think we are all struggling towards that right now.

Our respect for religious differences is a common ground for us all.

Acts of terror are not indicative of any one religion.

The acts must be prevented.

Our freedoms, however, shall be preserved by our tolerance for our neighbors.

We share far much more than the sum of our differences.

If this hour is meaningful for you, start a dialogue where you live.

In these times, we look back in grief.

Let's also remember the light which call so many here, the freedom to worship and live in peace with our diversity.

If you found this meaningful and we hope you did, you can begin dialogue in your individual communities tonight.

For Jesse Washington, I'm Tom Fowler.

Thank you for joining us.

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