Eboo Patel
Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith America, a nonprofit that works with institutions to strengthen religious pluralism and cooperation across differences. A civic leader, author, and educator, he focuses on interfaith leadership, diversity, and democracy.
The Utah Compromise Shows How Negotiation Can Protect Competing Convictions
Journalist Jonathan Rauch argues that religious pluralism depends not on setting aside deep disagreements but on negotiating ways to live with them. He points to the Utah agreement between the Latter-day Saint Church, Equality Utah and conservative lawmakers as an example: it paired protections for LGBT people with religious exemptions, a deal Rauch says created room for both sides without requiring either to abandon core commitments. Moderator Eboo Patel and conflict specialist Amanda Ripley extend the discussion to the institutions and practices that can make difficult engagement possible, while recognizing that an invitation to talk does not obligate anyone to accept it.
Religious Pluralism Depends on Institutions That Sustain Disagreement
John Inazu argues that religious liberty depends not on resolving disagreement but on preserving the procedures and institutions that let people continue to contest it. In this Aspen Institute panel, Inazu, Bryn Mawr College president Wendy Cadge and Interfaith America founder Eboo Patel examine how campuses, local organizations and shared public spaces can sustain that work. They differ over how well colleges are doing it and what story should bind a diverse country, but emphasize that pluralism requires both room for distinct beliefs and practical cooperation across them.
The Declaration’s Promise Outran the Founders’ Narrow Vision
Ken Burns argues that the founding’s importance lies not in a settled promise of freedom but in language of liberty and equality that later generations could use to challenge its exclusions. In a conversation with David Brooks, Burns describes a republic built to check human ambition and a commitment to religious toleration shaped by practical need and the risks of sectarian conflict. Both speakers present the founding as unfinished: its principles can guide efforts to repair the country, but do not resolve its present divisions.