Meet Eboo Patel, Founder of Interfaith Youth Core

Eboo Patel

Eboo Patel is a leading voice in the movement for interfaith cooperation and the Founder and President of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC), a national nonprofit working to make interfaith cooperation a social norm. He is the author of ACTS OF FAITH, SACRED GROUND, INTERFAITH LEADERSHIP and OUT OF MANY FAITHS. Named by US News & World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders of 2009, Eboo served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. He is a regular contributor to the public conversation around religion in America and a frequent speaker on the topic of religious pluralism. He holds a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University, where he studied on a Rhodes scholarship. For over fifteen years, Eboo has worked with governments, social sector organizations, and college and university campuses to help realize a future where religion is a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division.



Maybe we can start with your own religious development. What’s your faith background and how did it influence you?
I wrote about this in my first book, ACTS OF FAITH. I grew up in an Ismaili Muslim household but basically had little to do with religion during my teenage years. It was in college, during my years as a hair-on-fire activist, that I first heard the name Dorothy Day and got a window into faith-based social action. After a summer in Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality – which are remarkable social justice communities – I started to get curious about the theologies of social action in other religious traditions. In my exploration, I rediscovered the beauty of my home tradition. I’m now a proud Ismaili Muslim who does interfaith work!



You are the founder and director of Interfaith Youth Center. What’s the mission of the IFYC and what motivated you to start this organization?
We hope to help interfaith cooperation become a social norm by helping American higher education become a laboratory and launching pad for interfaith excellence.

In your book ACTS OF FAITH you define pluralism as “to see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition, but because of it, is the heart of pluralism.” Can you go a bit deeper, or offer an example?
I have a three-part definition of pluralism: respect for identity, relationships between diverse people and communities, and some kind of common action for the common good.


In your book OUT OF MANY FAITHS, you make the point that “people whose nation gives them dignity will build up that society.” It seems like such an obvious idea, but why is this so difficult to achieve, particularly in the US?
I think these things are always easier said than done. I think humans find it challenging to immediately dignify patterns of belief and behavior that are different. It’s a challenge for all of us to remember how important it is to dignify the patterns of others.  


I love this thought from OUT OF MANY FAITHS: “When we say that we are an immigrant nation, we mean more than just that various religious and ethnic groups settled here in America… We are recognizing the fact that the institutions they built benefitted not just their own communities but also the common good of this country. The space between Jewish and American or Christian and American is not a barrier; it’s a bridge.” Can you tell us more about the “space” being a bridge, not a barrier?
One of the remarkable facts about American civil society is that so many of the civic institutions that serve the public good – schools, colleges, hospitals, etc. – were founded by faith communities. For me that’s an excellent illustration of the maxim: what makes me a better Muslim (or Jew, Christian, etc.) makes me a better American.

Eboo Patel

In OUT OF MANY FAITHS you offer an interesting perspective on the development of the phrase “Judeo-Christian.” Why is the history of that term so important to understand?
I think most people are so accustomed to hearing the idea that we are a Judeo-Christian nation that we don’t stop to wonder about the history of that term. When I found out that it was literally invented in the 1930s to serve a civic purpose – specifically, to help make Jews and Catholics feel more welcome in the United States – it occurred to me that we are in a moment that requires us to write the next chapter. Knowing that it was a set of interfaith leaders who wrote the ‘Judeo-Christian America’ chapter inspires us to believe that we can be similar authors in our own time.



How about the phrase “E Pluribus Unum” on the US Great Seal? What are your thoughts on how this came to be?

I love Danielle Allen’s (she’s a political philosopher at Harvard) take on this – that America, being diverse, should not aspire for oneness but rather for wholeness.

What do you see as the most significant stumbling block to achieving pluralism in the US?

The view that someone else’s identity takes something away from mine rather than contributes something essential to the common good.

What is the most important take-away you wish that readers would receive from OUT OF MANY FAITHS?
The idea ‘Judeo-Christian America’ did good work for eighty some years. It’s time to write the next chapter.

At the end of the day, what consistently gives you hope to continue your work?

So many exceptional young interfaith leaders today, so many remarkable interfaith leaders in America’s past.

Is there anything else you’d like to mention?
America is not best understood as a melting pot but rather as a potluck supper – we need every community to contribute, that’s the only way the nation feasts. 

To learn more about Interfaith Youth Core, click here. 

To learn more about Eboo Patel, click here.