{"id":50315,"date":"2011-10-31T17:18:03","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T17:18:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=50315"},"modified":"2024-07-01T16:36:31","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T20:36:31","slug":"ottw-interfaith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2011\/10\/31\/ottw-interfaith\/","title":{"rendered":"Open to the World: Differences do transform, students of faith agree"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shown during the Oct. 24, 2011, student interfaith conversation are panelists Rose Levy-Rubinett ’12, Cristal Martin ’13 and Amna Ilyas ’13. Photograph by Rene Minnis.<\/p><\/div>\n

In Austin, Texas, Rose Levy-Rubinett ’12 grew up in a household where family history and Judaism were fused into a culture shared and unquestioned, more or less, by everyone.<\/p>\n

But at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, “I’ve had to define for myself what it means being Jewish,” she said.<\/p>\n

If the rigorous ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ education demands that assumptions be challenged and differences explored, the breadth of faiths here affords plenty of assumptions and differences to work on. That gives students like Levy-Rubinett a means to forge whole new perspectives on their beliefs and others’.<\/p>\n

She and six other students discussed those expanded perspectives in an interfaith conversation Monday afternoon, Oct. 24, the first day of the weeklong Open to the World: ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Celebrates Unbounded Learning<\/a><\/em> programming.<\/p>\n

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Aung Myint ’13 was a participant in the Oct. 24, 2011, student interfaith conversation. Photograph by Rene Minnis.<\/p><\/div>\n

And if you ever wondered what the college’s mission statement means when it says “we engage the transformative power of our differences,” the discussion was a perfect demonstration.<\/p>\n

Exploring the differences among faiths, the students agreed, was key to clarifying their own beliefs. This examination hasn’t shaken her faith, said junior Cristal Martin, a Christian from Wichita Falls, Texas, but it has “caused me to look deeper into what I what I believe.”<\/p>\n

The Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace, multifaith chaplain, welcomed about 30 students, staff and faculty to a Pettengill Hall classroom for the encounter. In lieu of a typical panel discussion (which can resemble doubles tennis but with all four players on the same side of the net), the interfaith conversation took a “reflecting team” format, designed to produce a more searching and meaningful dialogue.<\/p>\n

The discussion began with Shachi Phene of Lexington, Mass., interviewing Shlesma Chhetri of Kathmandu, Nepal. Both are seniors and both Hindu, but from cultures half a world apart. They discussed the role of stories in their faith; dating outside the faith; and the awkwardness — the “double thinking,” in Chhetri’s words — of bringing one’s newly expanding conscious back to the old homestead.<\/p>\n

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Phillips Professor of Religious Studies Tom Tracy makes a point during the Oct. 24, 2011, student interfaith conversation as Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies John Strong listens on. Photograph by Rene Minnis.<\/p><\/div>\n

Then the other participants reflected and expanded on these themes. Along with Martin and Levy-Rubinett, they were Aung Myint ’13, a Buddhist from Yangon, Myanmar; Brett Emmons ’15, a Baha’i from Dover, Del.; and Amna Ilyas of Faisalabad, Pakistan, a Muslim.<\/p>\n

If the transformative power of difference was a leading cause for agreement, the participants also expressed the comfort they’ve found in discovering fundamental similarities among beliefs and among people, regardless of belief.<\/p>\n

In every religion, there will be those convinced that only the true believers — that is, themselves — will find salvation. But, said Ilyas, “meeting people [of diverse faiths] who are such great human beings, how can that ever be true?”<\/p>\n

She said, “I don’t think God will judge people on whether they are good Muslims or good Jews — just on whether they are good people.”<\/p>\n

“Just sitting here conversing with open receptive hearts,” Emmons added, “it’s something the world could use more of.”<\/p>\n

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Shachi Phene ’12 and Shlesma Chhetri ’12 exchange views during the Oct. 24, 2011, interfaith conversation. Photograph by Rene Minnis.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Austin, Texas, Rose Levy-Rubinett ’12 grew up in a household where…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":50312,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"","_estimated-read-time":"","_post-template":"","_header-color":"#000000","_photo-credit":"","_header-effect":"parallax","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[130,11012],"tags":[1523,6111,6650],"class_list":["post-50315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-collaboration","category-student-life","tag-bates-unbounded","tag-multifaith-chaplaincy","tag-open-to-the-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50315"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":118904,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50315\/revisions\/118904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}