Just a couple of weeks ago, I was involved in an interfaith event in Poway, California, near San Diego, that was organized under the auspices of the Poway California Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in connection with its fortieth birthday:
“11-13 April in Poway, California”
The event was extremely well done. Christians, Muslims, and Jews participated in it. For the full-size replica of the Tabernacle of Moses, which temporarily stood adjacent to the stake center, there were even distinct brochures prepared for adherents of the three faiths, prepared in each case with the assistance of one or more experts from each faith.
So the shock that I felt in hearing about today’s shooting at the Chabad Jewish congregation of Poway was quite a bit sharper and more personal than it would otherwise have been for me. I think that we must have passed by the synagogue where the fatal attack took place at least a dozen times during the several days that we were there. It was perhaps five minutes from where we were staying.
The nineteen-year-old shooter, John T. Earnest, also claims to have been the arsonist responsible for a deliberately-set fire that occurred at the Islamic Center of Escondido on 24 March 2019, about a month ago. He seems to be an equal-opportunity hater.
“Arsonist strikes mosque in Escondido, refers to New Zealand massacre in note”
“San Diego synagogue shooting: What we know about suspect John Earnest”
Yusef Miller, a spokesman for the Islamic community in Escondido — shown in the photograph accompanying the Los Angeles Times article above wearing a red jacket and a black and white cap — was, with me, one of the four members of our interfaith panel on Thursday, 11 April 2019.
Steve Vaus, the mayor of Poway, happens also to be a Grammy award-winning singer and songwriter, and he sang the opening song for our interfaith panel on that same evening.
I’ve listened to a couple of national news interviews with Mayor Vaus today, and in both of them he’s said that the synagogue shooting emphatically doesn’t represent Poway. Instead, as an example of what does represent Poway, he has mentioned our interfaith event — as in this clip from CNN. I’m told that he’s now asked one of the principal Latter-day Saint organizers of that event, Kelly Burt, to see to it that a recording of the evening’s panel go up on YouTube as an example of friendly interfaith relationships in Poway. I’ve given my permission for it to be posted, and I expect that the other participants will do so, as well.
Sadly, I have no illusions that interfaith panels and other such activities will prevent evil men like John Earnest from committing hate-motivated murders. Still, I think that the need for dialogue and relationship between various religious (and irreligious) traditions is obvious, urgent, significant, and deep.
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