One of the most interesting moments for me at the Interfaith Youth Core Conference in Chicago was hearing a high school student, Levi Petrone, raise a question from the audience for a speaker, Rabbi David Saperstein. Levi said (as I recall), “I am a Fundamental(sic) Christian. Is there room for me in the interfaith movement?” He was responding to Rabbi Saperstein having said(again, according to my recollection), “All of us need to delegitimize the extreme elements in our religious traditions.”
I was not the only one moved and challenged by this exchange. I noted Levi’s name, and found this interview on You Tube with him. Levi is planning to go to Bob Jones University where he hopes to be an “interfaith warrior.”
Listen to the interview from 2:25 to 4:08 if you want to hear a fascinating story of how transformation occurs, twentyfirst century style.
Nancy,
Levi Petrone gives a hope-inspiring interview. Most of all, I hope that he and other Christians who rely upon even the most generous interpretation of Matthew 7:6 (“do not throw your pearls before swine”) come to recognize the teaching’s inherent degradation of whomever the swine comes to represent. The challenge he poses (and seems to be approaching courageously) is how a Fundamentalist Christian could transcend a sense of theological superiority and still cleave strongly to his/her faith tradition and its particularistic elements. The question seems particularly difficult to answer from within a religious world view that puts so much emphasis on proselytizing. It makes me wonder what a Fundamentalist Christian’s version of “The Dignity of Difference” a la Rabbi Jonathan Saks might look like. Thanks for sharing this!
Hi Nancy! My comment never showed up on the blog. If you still have it, maybe you can post it publicly.
Thanks!
Jarah