Interfaith Leadership and How it Relates to Social Justice

Abstract

This paper seeks to answer the questions: Why is interfaith leadership important in today’s society and Is interfaith leadership in fact an ideal way of promoting social justice. This is done by specifically analyzing Eboo Patel's organization the Interfaith Youth Core which seeks to mobilize individuals from different religious backgrounds in order to promote interfaith cooperation between them towards common goals. Although the organization itself strongly refrains from being labeled a social justice organization this paper seeks to make the argument that interfaith leadership’s goal of achieving pluralism, which is done by promoting interfaith literacy through specific techniques such as using the interfaith triangle, also in turn achieves social justice. This specific social justice leads to recognizing and understanding the common themes in most religions which allows for bridging the gaps with something as commonly divisive as religion.