Source: Abpnews.com
Interfaith Alliance head Welton Gaddy separates reason from rhetoric in radio show.
By Bob Allen
A Baptist minister and interfaith leader says it is time for Americans to get over their fear of Islam and get on with the assimilation of Muslims into their neighborhoods.
“As a society we simply have to stop judging all Muslims by extremists and allowing extremists to manipulate Islam for their political purposes when that’s not what Islam is about,” Welton Gaddy, head of the Interfaith Alliance, said July 7 on his weekly State of Belief radio program.
Gaddy, pastor for preaching and worship at Northminster (Baptist) Church in Monroe, La., devoted most of the July 7 broadcast to audio clips from a daylong symposium June 28 in Washington titled “Reason vs. Rhetoric: Understanding American Muslims.”
The conference, sponsored by the Interfaith Alliance along with Our Shared Future, the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and the Newseum, featured panel discussions about religious freedom, false stereotypes of Muslims, mosque controversies and the significance of Sharia law.
Mohamed Elibiary, a Muslim organizer who lived a long time in Texas and now is an adviser for the Department of Homeland Security, said opposition to Muslims is strongest in communities where good interfaith relationships don’t already exist. When he moved to Texas, Elibiary said he followed advice from a leader in the Jewish community to “make your friends before you need them, on the first legislative day.”
Categories: Americas, Interfaith tolerance, United States