By Christina Smith
In an attempt to understand political participation by expanding religious horizons at the University, the Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) presented its first Interfaith Dinner on the 10th floor of the Axinn Library Wednesday night. Forty members from the Newman Club, a Catholic student organization, Hofstra Hillel, the Jewish club, the University’s chapter of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) attended.
The dinner was the brainchild of Anthony Lucci, a sophomore at the University. Lucci, who works for the CCE, said that the while the center’s role is to promote civic dialogue and engagement, it rarely focuses on the role faith plays in those decisions.
“I think faith is a huge part of how people in the world get involved socially [and civically],” Lucci said.
With this idea in mind, Lucci met with the leaders from the faith-based student clubs to plan the dinner as a way for members of the four organizations to come out together and share ideas about their faiths.
“Interfaith discussion is important in such a diverse campus,” Lucci said. “It lets people learn about their own faith by discussing others.”
Together the representatives decided to have multiple interfaith dinners, with different themes for each one. Wednesday’s theme was charity and faith, and how they play a role in people’s lives.
“The way we look at it, charity leads to social activity, and social activity eventually leads to civic engagement,” said Lucci.
Because it was the first interfaith dinner, Lucci and the CCE relied on the religious clubs to bring their members to participate. Club members were split into four groups maintain an even balance in each group, and groups were seated at various tables around the room.
“For the future, we plan on promoting [the events] to the entire student body,” Lucci said. “We need to build a base first.”
Each group also had a moderator to guide discussions. The moderators included campus chaplains, such as Rabbi Meir Mitelman, Father James Crawford, the Catholic priest, Dan Brady, Area Director for InterVarsity on Long Island and Saeed Islam from the MSA.
“I loved [being a moderator],” Rabbi Mitelman said. “It was very inspiring and exciting to learn about other religions and hear other perspectives. It’s wonderful in terms of broadening our mindsets.”
Ultimately, Lucci plans on expanding the interfaith dinners to form a cohesive religious unit on campus. He said that the groups are not concerned about focusing on differences only.
“We have to learn how different we are, but it turns out there are similarities in those differences,” Lucci said.
Members of all four religious clubs agreed that the dinner was an enlightening experience.
“I loved the interfaith discussions because it really opened people’s minds and makes them more open minded. They become more aware of other people’s beliefs of people beyond their own,” said Julia Matias, a senior psychology and political science major who is a member of the Newman Club.
“We learned that we’re all eager to be supportive in charity work and our views about charity are similar,” said Sarah Chamberland, a sophomore mechanical engineering major who is also a member of the Newman Club.
Kiera Regan, a freshman film production major who is a member of Hofstra Hillel, said it best when she said that speaking about charity as a global act helped her realized that religions have things in common. “It’s a part of human nature.”