The Stanford student group Faiths Acting in Togetherness and Hope (FAITH), along with the Office for Religious Life, hosted the annual Multi-Faith Celebration on Sunday in honor of the work and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.<\/p>\n
The service, held in Memorial Church, acknowledged the importance of engaging religious diversity in the Stanford community, and included a Buddhist chant, a reading from the Quran, a biblical prayer and performances by Talisman and the Memorial Church Choir.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that as Muslims we get few opportunities to share our faith with other people, and it is nice to have this ability to collaborate around the universal teachings of King,\u201d said graduate student in civil and environmental engineering Teizeen Mohamedali.<\/p>\n
The service included a speech by FAITH President Anand Venkatkrishnan \u201910, who spoke about King\u2019s sense of religious diversity and the heavy influence on his thought from leaders like Mahatma Gandhi.<\/p>\n
Venkatkrishnan also discussed the perception of religious groups, which is often one of violence and incomprehensibility. He disagreed with the common religious group mentality of \u201conly my group dominates; others suffocate.\u201d<\/p>\n
He saw religious identity as the extent to which one can sympathize with a sufferer separated by a border like religion. \u201cThere comes a time when silence is betrayal,\u201d Venkatkrishnan said. \u201cWe, the relatively conscious, must insist on creating conscience for others.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later in the service, Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann, the administrative dean for the Office of Religious Life, led the audience in reciting a piece of litany that centered on the idea that everyone is tied together in a \u201csingle garment of destiny.\u201d The silk screen of leaves and blossoms that adorned the podium in the center of the stage was the physical representation of this destiny, a garment made just for the service.<\/p>\n
Stanford a cappella group Talisman ended the service with a rendition of \u201cLift Every Voice and Sing,\u201d the Black National Anthem of the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe engage constantly with this song \u2013 despite our race, we can all relate to the oppression in this country,\u201d announced a Talisman member before their performance.<\/p>\n
Attendee Jessica Galant \u201910 hoped the different religious groups could come together by recognizing shared objectives. \u201cThe main purpose was to awaken people to the common goal of social justice that lies at the root of every religion, by remembering a great leader who really defined what it means to stand for what you believe in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Venkatkrishnan said he was overwhelmed with the audience\u2019s response. \u201cI never expected that so many people would come \u2013 whether from the outside community or the student population,\u201d he said. \u201cBased on the response that I received from professors, religious leaders and students who came up to me after the event and at the talk-back, I consider the event a great success.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there’s going to be a lot of new energy generated in many different communities around the topic of engaging religious diversity on campus,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Stanford student group Faiths Acting in Togetherness and Hope (FAITH), along with the Office for Religious Life, hosted the annual Multi-Faith Celebration on Sunday in honor of the work and life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The service, held in Memorial Church, acknowledged the importance of engaging religious diversity in the Stanford community, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4617,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4617"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}