On the eve of February 20th, Pacifica Institute of Utah was pleased to host its special guest, Turan Kayaoglu, Ph.D., a native of Istanbul, Turkey,and currently Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Washington in Tacoma.
Dr. Kayaoglu spoke with great warmth and humor as he shared his hopes that the popularity and transformative experience of Inter-faith Dialogue would eventually involve the prospects of Inter-faith Community Service. He called such endeavors,“Dialogue 2.0”, and described ways in which members of the Inter-faith Community could come and work together onany number of humanitarian projects. Such communal endeavors for the greater good, he noted, would also enhance our experience of friendship and bonding.
Turan cited the example of a group of high school students at a summer camp. These adolescent boys were divided into two groups and resided in two separate living quarters. Inevitably each group created a sense of its own special identity and expressed this through such things as name calling and verbally diminishing the other rival group. This air of superiority and exclusivity continued until both groups had to come together to work on a broken water system. The shared experience of working together for a common good, created a bond between the two groups of boys who stopped calling each other names and began to form bonds of friendships like the ones in their initial group.
Dr. Kayaoglu suggested that we of the Inter-faith Community goes beyond Inter-faith Dialogue and consider ways we may participate in service for the common good of our Salt Lake Community. Such grass roots service groups would potentially allow for many more people to become involved who may otherwise feel hesitant to participate in the more “theological” kind of sharing which Inter-faith Dialogue usually encourages.
