Interfaith Week honors the diversity of religion

By Sana Yaklur     3/7/13 6:00pm

 

Many faiths fill the world, and the similarities between them are the theme of Rice Interfaith Week from March 4-10, according to Rice Interfaith Week coordinator Dandan Liu. 

Liu, a Brown College junior, said she came up with the idea while meditating at a Zen Buddhist temple. 

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"I knew there were different religious student clubs at Rice, and I thought it would be awesome for them to talk about and share their beliefs so that we not only learn about other religions, but also show [that] they intersect," Liu said. 

Interfaith Week is also a celebration of religious diversity, said Liu. 

"When we talk about our identity, we talk about our major or our residential college," Liu said. "But religion is a big part of our identity, too. I wanted to bring attention to that through Interfaith Week." 

According to Liu, Interfaith Week celebrates not only Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but also beliefs and philosophies such as Sikhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Jainism, and even atheism and agnosticism. 

To accommodate this variety of religious identities, Interfaith Week consisted of a large number of activities, according to Liu. Among the various activities during the week were a Kundalini yoga session and talk on Sikhism by Guru Giankaur Khalsa, a one-hour Zen Buddhist meditation session and an introductory Tai Chi session hosted by the Shaolin Academy. Additionally, there were interfaith lunch tables and an Interfaith Cupcake Night where there were musical performances by students expressing their worldviews. 

The week also featured various Open Days of Worship hosted by the Muslim Student Association, Rice Hillel and the Catholic Student Association, according to Max Katner, a co-coordinator of Interfaith Week. 

The culminating event for the week is the Speed Faithing Dinner Saturday, March 9, according to Liu. 

"In this dinner, we'll bring representatives of Judaism; Christianity, including Mormonism; atheism; Hinduism; Tibetan Buddhism; and Islam," Liu said. "They'll have 15 minutes to present the main tenets of their worldview. Afterward, we will have a dinner and engage in interfaith conversations." 

In order to make this week possible, Liu said she reached out to Brown senior Lara Wik, who had been involved with the Boniuk Center for Religious Tolerance for a year and a half, and Katner, a Will Rice College sophomore, as well as Boniuk Center Director Mike Pardee and various religious student organizations. 

Pardee said he became involved with Interfaith Week because he believed its goals and the Boniuk Center's goals aligned very well. 

"I think at some level, the mission of Rice Interfaith Week is the same as that of the Boniuk Center," Pardee said. "I think they have the same two goals. One is to build relations among and between people of different faiths or no faith, and the other is to build interreligious literacy. In other words, we want people to know other people from other religions and also about those religions." 

Wik said she believes an Interfaith Week will start a much-needed discussion on religious life. 

"I think, right now, religious life is very underrepresented," Wik said. "It's important to get religious life out into the open at Rice and get a discussion going about it. It's also important to get different people of different religions who wouldn't normally interact to participate in these discussions." 

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