Interfaith Leadership

Book excerpt: A guide for students, groups, and organizations seeking to foster interfaith dialogue and promote understanding across religious lines In this book, renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel offers a clear, detailed, and practical guide to interfaith leadership, illustrated with compelling examples. Patel explains what interfaith leadership is and explores the core competencies and skills of interfaith leadership, before turning to the issues interfaith leaders face and how they can prepare to solve them. Interfaith leaders seek points of connection and commonality—in their neighborhoods, schools, college campuses, companies, organizations, hospitals, and other spaces where people of different faiths interact with one another. While it can be challenging to navigate the differences and disagreements that can arise from these interactions, skilled interfaith leaders are vital if we are to have a strong, religiously diverse democracy. This primer presents readers with the philosophical underpinnings of interfaith theory and outlines the skills necessary to practice interfaith leadership today.