Religious Literacy for Social Justice: Greg Khalil

Religious literacy is one of the “most urgent issues that anyone serious about social justice can undertake.” An RPL fellowship gave Greg Khalil the space to critically think about his work. Khalil is the co-founder and president of Telos Group. Interview Transcript: I do a lot of work in building social movement, including communities of faith, across lines of difference. And this work is complicated because, to build movement, you have to invite people on a journey that's theirs. That's not yours. And I think, through RLP, it gave some affirmation. But it also challenged me to think more critically about that ethical dilemma, which you feel on a day-to-day basis when you're in the trenches but you don't really examine. And so learning literacy with regards to religion is one of the most urgent issues that anyone who is serious about social justice, peacemaking, political change can undertake. There is not just a blind spot among academia and among many liberals. There is a willful disdain for religion, faith, and theology. And yet these are essential parts of the human experience that drive us as individuals, as communities, and as a body politic. What I walk away with is a great sense of hope that there are serious people doing this work and an even greater sense of drive to say, hey, so many of our friends need to be involved in this conversation. It's not a question of whether religion, faith will shape our world. It's a question of how. And if we sit back on the sidelines and if we don't learn to be literate and how to engage honestly as peers, unfortunately, fundamentalist, supremacist, extremist religious narratives will continue to gain prominence and shape our world.