A Second Invitation to the White House

by August E. Brunsman

It's not every year that I get invited to two White House meetings because of my atheism, but 2010 is already that kind of a year. Last February, the Secular Coalition for America (and its ten member organizations, one of which is the Secular Student Alliance) got a historic invitation to the White House for a policy briefing. Well, on June 7th I was invited back to participate in a 125-person meeting organized through the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (WHOFBNP). The title of the meeting was "Advancing Interfaith and Community Service on College and University Campuses."

Just like SCA's February visit, the meeting occurred in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Unlike our February visit, Greg Epstein (Humanist Chaplain at Harvard) and I were the only two 'out' atheists. The other attendees were representatives of religious organizations, charitable foundations, and leaders of religious life on several campuses and universities. Curiously, only one public school (University of Maryland, College Park) had anyone at this event.

While the meeting happened under the banner of the WHOFBNP, the Interfaith Youth Core was responsible for orchestrating the event. The longest speech at the event was given by Eboo Patel (the founding executive director of IFYC). His main thrust was that he wants "interfaith awareness" to be seen as a required part of being an educated person. It's difficult to get a four-year degree from a university today without a basic understanding of non-western cultures, feminism, environmentalism, or GLBT issues. Mr. Patel wants to make it similarly difficult to get out of college without an understanding of the basic beliefs of a wide array of the world's religions and lack of religion. He expressed how important it is to have friends whose religious identities differ from your own.

The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (WHOFBNP) had a different, if highly related, goal in mind. They want interfaith service programs at 500 colleges and universities. I think Eboo Patel sees the goal of 500 interfaith service programs as a stepping stone to building up more interfaith education and cooperation.

With my establishment clause senses highly tuned, I kept a keen ear out for noise of government money being spent towards the goal of 500 interfaith service programs. No one talked about the government spending money to make this happen, but the guest list suggested that the foundations, universities, and other non-profits were expected to foot the bill. The foundations represented tended to have supported interfaith work in the past.

So what does it mean for secular folks like Greg Epstein and me to be at a meeting about interfaith education and service? Mr. Patel and Josh DuBois, director of WHOFBNP, and many others frequently made the point of secularists being part of this "interfaith" education and service program. Both a director from Hillel and I brought up that "interfaith" might not be the right word for the kind of inclusivity that Mr. Patel and WHOFBNP are trying to promote. I suggested "inter-traditional" but I actually prefer the director from Hillel's idea of "inter-identity". Alas, I don't see either of our suggestions catching on.

Naming notwithstanding, I see quite a lot of potential for good to come of interfaith work. Since at least 2008, Secular Student Alliance groups have been involved in interfaith service by taking spring break service trips down to New Orleans with Christian groups. While Ohio State, University of Illinois and Harvard are the only groups to have taken service trips down to the Big Easy so far, the results seem excellent (2008, 2009, 2010).

Josh DuBois and Mara Vanderslice, deputy director under Mr. DuBois, both stressed how sensitive they are to not establishing religion. They at least gave lip service to keeping church and state separate. It's possible that the simple existence of this program is too much for our church-state-separation-loving selves, but we unambiguously have a welcome seat at this table.

Of course, just because we're at the table doesn't mean we can't raise concerns. Here are three concerns that have come to my mind regarding establishment clause issues:

1. By stressing community service within an interfaith setting, a reasonable observer could take away the impression that community service comes from faith. If atheists are prominently part of that "interfaith" identity, then I'm not so worried about this. A new name would go a long way to fixing this.
2. Teaching about religion in schools (even at the university level) could be too gentle on religion to be objective, even if the mandate required objectivity. I actually really like Daniel Dennett's idea of teaching comparative religion in schools and that seems to be exactly what is being suggested. I think this is good in theory, but if executed poorly it could end up with government funding of religious education (as opposed to education about religion).
3. Religious conservatives were few and far between at this event. There are some lefty-leaning assumptions that go into the whole interfaith undertaking. I think the interfaith agenda is fairly corrosive to the most disguising manifestations of religion. I think that becoming very familiar with all kinds of religious faith makes it difficult to continue to be a fundamentalist. I'm all for complicating the world views of fundamentalists, but I can imagine lots of religious Americans who wouldn't be. I feel like maybe I should go to bat for them just on principle.

We were invited back in a year to tell the WHOFBNP what we've done. How exciting would it be for me to be able to bring news next year of Secular Student Alliance affiliate groups leading the interfaith, you could even call them inter-identity if you led them, service initiatives on their campuses? Get busy.

August E. Brunsman has served as the executive director of the Secular Student Alliance since 2001, and has served as the Secretary of the Board of the Secular Coalition for America since 2006. He is also the camp director of Camp Quest Ohio where he has volunteered since 1999.