Finding a Place for Faith(s)
April 18, 2008
In recent months, the university chaplaincy has faced some decidedly down-to-earth issues, including a lawsuit by one of its former members and a difference of opinion over chaplain pay. A new initiative to promote interfaith dialogue and prevent religious conflict has grown and evolved, though it remains unclear how effective it will be. Finally, a lecture under a contentious heading led to protests over a perceived insult to Islam.
It’s All About the Abrahams
In March, Tufts’ former Muslim chaplain, Imam Noureddine Hawat, gave an interview to the Tufts Daily in which he claimed that he had been fired, contradicting the account of the university chaplain, Father David O’Leary, who said he had left voluntarily to work at a Vermont mosque. Imam Hawat also said he planned to sue the university for thousands of dollars, alleging that Tufts had failed to reimburse him for money he had spent on an aborted renovation of the Islamic Center.Most of the people The Observer interviewed declined to comment on the lawsuit, but Kim Thurler, Tufts’ director of public relations, wrote in an e-mail, “The university believes that Imam Noureddine Hawat’s complaint is without merit, and we are confident that the facts that we will present in court will demonstrate this.” She also criticized Imam Hawat for his comments to the Daily, writing, “We do not intend to try this matter in the press.”
Another topic of disagreement among the university’s chaplains has been the source of their salaries. Currently, only Reverend O’Leary is paid by Tufts for his chaplaincy work, whereas the Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish chaplains are funded by outside religious groups.
Shareda Hosein, Tufts’ new Muslim chaplain, noted, “I personally think that the system that would be helpful is if everybody was paid by the university,” noting that a similar system had been put into place at other universities, such as Brandeis. She argued that chaplains should not be forced to raise funds on their own from outside organizations, particularly since “the university’s going to get the benefit, not the organization.” She added that not all chaplains are cut out to be fundraisers, and said she felt “that with the amount of training and education that we have, for us to work for next to nothing to have to go fundraise is really unfortunate.”
Ann Penick, the university’s Catholic chaplain, shared similar concerns. “I was full-time until two years ago, and then the archdiocese cut my position to part time, and that’s been a real challenge,” she said, adding that the length of her tenure at the university is “unpredictable.” Penick could find out on June 28 that her position had been eliminated, “and I would like to see the kind of funding where there’s more stability to it. Now whether that be Tufts itself or a foundation that would fund our positions, I would like to see that.”
Tufts’ other denominational chaplains disagreed. Protestant chaplain Jeff VonWald said in an e-mail, “Getting funding from multiple sources may not be ideal for anyone; but perhaps it is a necessary part of having a chaplaincy today.” Rabbi Jeffrey Summit, the Jewish chaplain, said that it was “silly” to think the university would abandon the structure that has evolved here, saying, “Things are working fine as they are.”
Reverend O’Leary also defended the current system, saying, “That’s just the makeup of the Tufts charter that the university chaplain is the only one that’s a full-time person.” He also said that the fact that the other chaplains were not paid by Tufts did not affect its control over its religious employees. However, in November, he told the Daily that he regretted Tufts’ inability to influence shifts in the roles of the chaplains, saying, “We can write letters, but there’s not really too much you can bring to the table when [an outside source] is paying our chaplains — there’s a missing principle of leverage.”
Homeland Security Comes to the Hill
In the past two years, Tufts’ religious community has also witnessed the development of a new interfaith initiative, Pathways, headed by two consultants, Shai Fuxman and Najiba Akbar. The initiative was launched as part of a five-campus grant by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) intended to experiment with models for interfaith dialogue at colleges and universities.Pathways sponsors two classes at the Ex College, as well as retreats and other events dealing with the personal aspects of religion and with the connection between religion and political conflict. Originally, said Fuxman, the program centered on the three Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It soon expanded, however, to include representatives from all the religions on campus, and even atheists, in its Multifaith Council.
According to Fuxman, the goal of the project is to “promote tolerance between people of different religions and to reduce prejudice.” More specifically, he said, “the idea also is whenever tensions arise between people of different religions, to address them, or even, to take a step back, to have these conversations so that these types of tensions don’t start in the first place.”
Rabbi Summit, who has received research grants from the DHS, explained that the program might have been motivated partly in response to a number of terrorist plots, including the 2005 London bombings, arising out of universities. “And I think why we got Homeland Security involved, was because they wanted to see that there were different ways to build a civil society where certain groups did not feel like their only recourse was a violent recourse,” he said.
However, Pathways does not specifically aim to reduce terrorism, noted Fuxman and Akbar. “We don’t come into Tufts’ campus every day thinking that there might be a terrorist among us that we need to prevent,” said Fuxman. “I think the idea is more to promote a certain culture in which people are talking to each other and understand each other, which would prevent any kind of violence.”
Shirwac Mohamed, co-chair of the Muslim Student Association, said he was concerned that much of what Pathways was doing might be preaching to the choir. “It’s difficult because all the people who are involved in interfaith work already want to reach peaceful coexistence,” he explained. While many of the organization’s activities have been productive, he said, “When you talk to someone, like…everyone who’s in interfaith work, or anyone who’s in the religious departments, you talk about these things, and very quickly you reach, ‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. OK, we agree.’ But the main issue is the people who are not involved in these type of works.”
Fuxman and Akbar, as well as others involved in the work, acknowledged that this was a real issue. “It is a challenge,” said Fuxman, “but it’s a challenge we can overcome and that we have been trying to overcome.” He said that by creating more diverse and engaging programming, and by enlisting active students to convince their co-religionists to become involved, he and Akbar hoped to reach a wider segment of campus in order to more effectively fulfill their objectives.
Terms of Debate
Still, despite the optimism of campus religious leaders, the university has faced a number of episodes highlighting religious tension over the years. Rabbi Summit recalled the press wars waged by student groups after the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada. According to Celeste Codington-Lacerte from the Protestant Student Fellowship, “A couple years ago, specific holiday greetings on the cannon were defaced and there was evidence that it had been done by members of another faith.”More recently, the Primary Source drew controversy in October when it sponsored an event featuring Dr. Daniel Pipes, an author, columnist, and commentator on Middle Eastern affairs (full disclosure: this reporter also serves as managing editor for international affairs at the Source). This event was part of Islamofascism Awareness Week, a series of lectures and protests launched by conservative activist David Horowitz.
In response to concerns about the event, and especially the term “Islamofascism,” which critics charge is offensive because they say it associates the religion of Islam with fascism, Pathways held a discussion with students in order to “come up with ideas with how they can express their concerns, you know, in a civilized manner, as should happen at an academic institution.” They decided to “set the tone” for the talk by holding up signs that read, “This is a hate-free campus” at the beginning of the event. All of the chaplains and religious organizations, as well as several other student groups, endorsed the signs.
Fuxman insisted that the signs, unlike a caustic flyer widely disseminated by the Tufts Coalition Opposed to the War in Iraq and the Faculty Progressive Alliance, did not represent a protest against Dr. Pipes, but merely an expression of solidarity with the Muslim Student Association, which strongly objected to the use of the word “Islamofascism.”
However, not all those involved in the demonstration limited their disapproval to the label of the event. Reverend O’Leary, who was photographed outside the lecture with a sign reading “Hate debases people, love embraces,” said, “Knowing who [Dr. Pipes] was and what he said before, I know I didn’t want to hear it…I didn’t think that was a message that needed to be spread.” Shirwac Mohamed claimed Dr. Pipes considered non-religious Muslims the only progressive, moderate Muslims. “That’s very divisive, and that’s basically creating more problems than it’s solving,” he said.
Amy Spitalnick, the student president of Tufts Hillel, though, called Dr. Pipes “a really well-respected academic that has really important things to contribute to the conversation.” She said she was “really excited to hear what he had to say, whether or not I agreed with it,” despite her view that the “Islamofascism” label “inhibited dialogue, and really was not a way to foster an equal, fair dialogue on campus.”
Rabbi Summit said he had spoken to Dr. Pipes before the event to assure him that the demonstration was not targeted at him. He even said that Hillel could have brought Dr. Pipes to speak. He also noted that unlike other events during Islamofascism Awareness Week, there were no disruptions or heckling. “I mean, I come from the 1960s,” he said. “That’s a pretty tame protest.”
Unfortunately, as Hosein, the Muslim chaplain, observed, “I felt people came there with their positions already made, and I don’t think anybody left there enlightened one way or another, to see his point of view or to see the other point of view of Muslims.” Whether or not this closed-mindedness was the fault of Dr. Pipes, the event’s organizers, or its protesters remains itself a point of contention.
Faith and Consequences
No article about religion on the Hill would be complete without a mention of atheism, which has enjoyed a revival in recent years led by the likes of biologist Richard Dawkins, polemicist Christopher Hitchens, and Tufts’ own professor of philosophy Dan Dennett. In November, the Freethought Society (formerly known as the Secular Student Association) sponsored a debate between Professor Dennett and Christian author Dinesh D’Souza, which was attended by almost 600 people. According to the group’s president, Patrick Andriola, “Thirty percent of Tufts students describe themselves as ‘non-religious,’ and really, they need to come out and be heard more.”For the moment, though, students and faculty in the more traditional religious community still have plenty to talk about. The question is whether that talk will be meaningful. Already, speech on religion is somewhat restricted. As Reverend O’Leary pointed out, all student religious organizations are required not to “attempt to convert and engage in the act of ‘winning people over’ or challenging the belief or lack thereof of any member of the Tufts University family.” He also said that in the university’s efforts to determine the limits it would impose on the freedom of expression in the wake of last year’s debate over the Source’s Christmas carol on affirmative action and feature on radical Islam, his position was that “we should be paying more attention to people’s feelings instead of asking if it’s lawful or not.”
But in an open society, should people not be able to argue about what they believe is true and what they believe is false, even on subjects as weighty as the existence of God and as taboo as the violent content of scripture? Religion is something of a sacred cow at Tufts, and perhaps a healthy sensitivity is necessary for such a divisive topic. A fear of hurt feelings, though, must not prevent a free flow of ideas.
If the university does not quickly resolve the legal and financial quarrels of its chaplains, they will not be able to remain effective not only in serving their constituencies, but in helping them to engage with one another. If the interfaith work underway is to achieve success in tackling the vital issues of religious conflict, it cannot shy away from the politically incorrect. And if students are serious about dialogue, they should not close their ears and their minds to a respected speaker on the grounds of opposing “hate.”
An honest discussion, whether on religion or anything else, requires just two things: the ability to speak, and the willingness to listen.