Diversity Event: Religious Freedom for All

     Last night, I attended the Veritas Forum event Religious Freedom for All: Living Together with our Deepest Differences led by Os Guinness. Os Guinness is a world renown author and lecturer as he was born in China, studied in England, and now travels the world speaking about religious freedom. Although parts of the lecture were kind of confusing and a little bit over my head, I enjoyed the parts that I did understand and agreed with what he said about having tolerance and caring for all people despite what their religious beliefs are.
      Os started the lecture out by talking about how diversity is everywhere these days due to the accessibility and ease of travel, media, and mass communication. This is a good thing, but it does cause some problems in terms of religious freedom. A second issue is that people aren't willing to change some of the old time traditions that may be outdated. In this area, he specifically pointed out the separation of church and state. In the older days, a public square was defined as an area where everyone would gather to discuss issues of common public life. Some examples of public squares around the world include Capitol Hill in America and Buckingham Palace in England. Public squares have since turned from these set places to newspapers and radio shows and today, they are now viral because of social media. That sets up the third issue of today's world where people are now degrading others more easily because of the ability to remain anonymous whereas in past times, you had to brave enough to say something yourself in front of hundreds of people and not behind a computer screen.
       Os then shifted and discussed the differences between religious freedom, freedom of worship, and freedom of conscience. Basically, he said religious freedom isn't the same as freedom of worship and everyone has freedom of conscience because there are no mind readers. Finally, he started to discuss some of the solutions to this big problem. The first solution was to have a civil public square where everyone can talk about their religion. He defined civility as a virtue and duty of all citizens to care for others and tolerate indifference.
        This lecture was a great extension to what I read in chapter 3 in our book and what we discussed a couple of weeks ago in lecture. I do not expect to have students in my group next fall that will all be of the same religion. In fact, some may not be religious at all and that's okay. This lecture helped me remember that my religion, beliefs, and values are mine and no one else's and that there is no need for me to push them onto someone else who has their own. It also helped me learn that my generation, or what Os called the "Crunch Generation" is going to have the most impact on how religious freedom grows through the next few years.
        Overall, it was an interesting lecture that challenged me to think about my own religious beliefs and how different they are from all people across the world and how it is possible to all live together in peace if we can open up a few more minds.