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Eureka College will be participating in President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge.
The challenge is being presented to more than 300 colleges across the nation, all of whom share the common goal of transcending religious and cultural divides in order to better their communities.
When J. David Arnold, president of Eureka College, received an email from the White House inviting the college to enter the challenge, he asked the college chaplain, Bruce Fowlkes, to lead the program.
Fowlkes liked the goal of the interfaith challenge and saw it as an opportunity to unite the various religious groups at Eureka College.
“It is going to be a great way to throw an umbrella over all the programs,” Fowlkes said, alluding to the ideal end result of the challenge.
“The real goal is to get people that come from different backgrounds to be in proximity, have conversations and to do service together.”
Students, faculty and staff of Eureka College are all welcome to join the service projects that will be conducted throughout the year.
Fowlkes said that they have contacted the Peoria chapter of the Jewish Federation and, together, they will run two events, each called Mitzvah Day — one on Sept. 18 and another on April 15 — both of which will be community service oriented events.
Despite being in early stages of developing an agenda for the year, Fowlkes said he expects to participate in other community service events during the course of the challenge, including one with the Muslim community of Bloomington-Normal.
Events such as 9/11 and the recent tragedy in Norway have accentuated the relevancy that this project has for Fowlkes, who said that much of the violence in the world today indicates poor communication between different faiths.
“To me, it illustrates the need for interfaith dialogue and mutual respect across and within religions,” he said. “Peace is made through relationships.”
Forming relationships between people of different faiths is something Fowlkes believes is attainable if one rule is followed: Let people tell you who they are.
Fowlkes said that many people who encounter another faith begin to form assumptions before any genuine interaction occurs.
“It can bias the experience. So what we need to do is, let them be who they are, tell us who they are and show us who they are,” Fowlkes said. “We’re not bringing an agenda to change someone else’s view of the world. We are there to learn.”
Eureka College will be participating in President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge.
The challenge is being presented to more than 300 colleges across the nation, all of whom share the common goal of transcending religious and cultural divides in order to better their communities.
When J. David Arnold, president of Eureka College, received an email from the White House inviting the college to enter the challenge, he asked the college chaplain, Bruce Fowlkes, to lead the program.
Fowlkes liked the goal of the interfaith challenge and saw it as an opportunity to unite the various religious groups at Eureka College.
“It is going to be a great way to throw an umbrella over all the programs,” Fowlkes said, alluding to the ideal end result of the challenge.
“The real goal is to get people that come from different backgrounds to be in proximity, have conversations and to do service together.”
Students, faculty and staff of Eureka College are all welcome to join the service projects that will be conducted throughout the year.
Fowlkes said that they have contacted the Peoria chapter of the Jewish Federation and, together, they will run two events, each called Mitzvah Day — one on Sept. 18 and another on April 15 — both of which will be community service oriented events.
Despite being in early stages of developing an agenda for the year, Fowlkes said he expects to participate in other community service events during the course of the challenge, including one with the Muslim community of Bloomington-Normal.
Events such as 9/11 and the recent tragedy in Norway have accentuated the relevancy that this project has for Fowlkes, who said that much of the violence in the world today indicates poor communication between different faiths.
“To me, it illustrates the need for interfaith dialogue and mutual respect across and within religions,” he said. “Peace is made through relationships.”
Forming relationships between people of different faiths is something Fowlkes believes is attainable if one rule is followed: Let people tell you who they are.
Fowlkes said that many people who encounter another faith begin to form assumptions before any genuine interaction occurs.
“It can bias the experience. So what we need to do is, let them be who they are, tell us who they are and show us who they are,” Fowlkes said. “We’re not bringing an agenda to change someone else’s view of the world. We are there to learn.”
The service projects are designed to promote interfaith dialogue and expand knowledge of other human experiences.
Fowlkes said he hopes the interaction will have a profound and lasting impact on the participating students of Eureka College.
“The students need to process that experience and use it as a lens to look at their own faith,” he said.
The process of discovering people of a different faith is something that Fowlkes says can help us look beyond religion and recognize the common denominator that we all share: humanity.
“It’s a matter of when does the lightbulb go on in someone’s mind and they realize that: my religious experience is not that much different than someone else’s of a different tradition,” Fowlkes said.
“We have common traditions, common values, common beliefs.”
Eureka College’s quest to unveil these common traditions, values and beliefs is led by five Ministry Fellowship students: Judith Guy, Doug Collins, Colton Lott, Zane Ridings and Rachel Tapp. Along with Fowlkes, these five students will help facilitate the projects during the year.
The commencement of President Obama’s Interfaith and Community Service Challenge took place at the White House on Aug. 3.
Fowlkes, Guy, and Arnold traveled to the White House for the kickoff of the challenge. It will be the first step that over 300 colleges will take to create interfaith relationships around the nation.
Fowlkes said once this process begins—when people start to work together as humans, not religious affiliates— then peace will no longer be an abstract idea.
