Since 9/11, powerful voices warn us that a radical Islam threatens our very way of life in America and the West. The fate of our democratic values — freedom of speech, security and terrorism, women’s rights and more – are all said to be bound up in “the Muslim Question.” Yet there are also those who deny there is an inevitable “clash of civilizations” between the West and Islam. What is really in question, they argue, is the West’s commitment to its own ideals: to liberty and democracy, equality and inclusion. Perhaps “the Muslim Question” – like “the Jewish Question” of the previous two centuries – also tests our allegiance to the core values of Western civilization.

To this end, we are producing in collaboration with Duke University’s Islamic Studies Center and Jewish Studies Center, a film we call Beyond Tolerance. Highlighting the work of Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim Chaplain at Duke University, the film provides a window on our struggle to achieve honest interfaith dialogue and appreciate “the Other” in all its depth and richness. Through the prism of his position there as the nation’s second campus Imam — and his creative dialogue with colleagues such as Dr. Eric Meyers, founding Director of Duke’s Center for Jewish Studies, Dr. Omid Safi, Director-Elect of the Duke Islamic Studies Center, members of the University’s distinguished Divinity School faculty, and other scholars, students and community leaders — we will explore the challenge of growing America’s unique commitment to pluralism and a just society.

2015-10-08
Civil Rights & Social Justice|History & Biography

Director

Steve Channing