Christians, Jews and Muslims can also work together for the good of our communities.

Source: usatoday.com

To honor the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community began organizing blood drives across the U.S. in 2011. Its members did this to affirm their belief that life is sacred. In three years, they have organized more than 900 blood drives, helping to save potentially more than 100,000 lives. In this effort, they partnered with the American Red Cross and a number of churches and synagogues.

http://muslimsforlife.org/

Members of different faiths can also organize food collections for the hungry, blanket drives for refugees and home-building projects in conjunction with groups such as Habitat for Humanity. Not every positive interfaith relationship develops face-to-face; sometimes, the strongest bonds develop when people work shoulder-to-shoulder.

Showing hospitality to strangers is a powerful way to counter extremism because people who eat, pray and work together are far less likely to demonize one another. It can guide our communities to a middle path without sacrificing core convictions because hospitality is already a practice that is deeply rooted in the three Abrahamic traditions.

We need this today, more than ever, as youths attack U.S. sailors in Istanbul and as leaders in America, such as Oklahoma Republican state Rep. John Bennett, make anti-Islam comments. The cure for such extremism is not the subtraction of free speech, but the addition of events that get people of different faiths eating, drinking and talking together.