Eboo Patel’s Acts of Faith and Pluralism

The United States, being the most religiously diverse country in the world, gives way to pluralism. Due to the fact that so many religions have existed in the United States through a long period of time, has made it possible for there to exist different types of ethnicities. Religion can be considered an aspect of ethnicity and by being so religion plays a different role with each different type of ethnicity. There is the hidden ethnicity which is when people in America believe they have no ethnicity, situational ethnicity which is found mostly in second generation immigrants who retain an ethnic fluency with parents, but are also fluent in the new place they find themselves in. Also, there is symbolic identity, with targets fourth generation immigrants who can’t necessarily recall where their ancestors came from. With all of these different ethnicities and religions many times bring conflicts rise which is why the idea and act of disestablishment came to be.
In Acts of Faith, by Eboo Patel, Patel writes about his journey through life as a Muslim in America with the vision in creating an interfaith youth movement. According to Eck, “pluralism is when people of different backgrounds seek mutual understanding and positive cooperation with one another” (Hartman 26). It is pluralism that Patel is in search of throughout his journey. Patel speaks about the different relationships that he holds with different people in different periods of his life who come from many different religious backgrounds. He states that when he was young, his family was a devout Islam family who prayed as it was expected of them from the religion, but with time, his parents became more attained to their jobs and slowly let go of the ritualistic prayers. He remembers that the prayer told from his mom before going to bed was one that never disappeared.
Patel can probably fit in the situational ethnicity because as an immigrant who was raised in the United States, he retains the ethnic fluency with his parents, who constantly remind him that he is Muslim, but is also fluent with the new place that he finds himself in, the United States. In the beginning of the story he begins by introducing a suicide bombing that takes place in London and carefully compares himself with the young men that commit the bombing. Identity is a very significant theme in this story and also the way that identity revolves around religion.
In the article, Religious Pluralism Civil Society’s Hope in a Diverse community, the author Becca Hartman states that there is a division between “inner” and “faith. She states that there are places where people from diverse religious communities gather like public schools, shopping malls, ect, and that these places are considered spaces of “inner” (Hartman 26). The spaces of “faith” are those places where people from particular religious communities gather to speak about religion and these places are churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other such places (Hartman 26). With this she states that there are very few places where people from diverse religions come together to speak about matters of religion. This is what Patel encounters throughout his journey. He finds places like the Catholic Worker house and is involved in many projects, but cannot find the pluralism that he is searching for.
It is Patel’s vision to create an interface community where people of different faith can come together and make changes in society. He, along with a group of friends come together to organize Stone Soup, a place where activists and leaders can come together and make positive changes. Throughout Patel’s journey, he makes many positive changes as he learns about different people and their religious backgrounds, although he mentions to others that he really is not religious himself. Religious pluralism is a great challenge and Patel does not give up hope in creating an interfaith community in order to have pluralism. This shows how religion plays an important role in society because Patel is not satisfied with only having a diverse group of people speak about projects, he wants to involve religion as well. To have this, people of different ethnicities must come together which is something as Hartman states, “can only happen if “inner” and “faith” come together (Hartman 27).

Patel, Eboo "Act of Faith". Beacon Press, Boston, MA. (2007): 1-76. Print

Hartman, Becca. "Religious Pluralism Civil Society’s Hope in a Diverse Community" National Civic Review. (2009):25-30. Print