A trio of religious leaders visited AFS to answer a series of thoughtful questions created by seventh graders who were finishing a Social Studies unit on Comparative Religions.
Invited to participate in the panel discussion on October 14 were Isaac Saposnik, a Reconstructionist rabbi; Kent Matthies, a Unitarian Universalist minister, and Malik Mubashshir, a Muslim imam.
Among the questions the students posed were these: “Do you have doubts about the existence of God?” “How do you feel when people do horrible things in the name of religion?” “Is it possible to be an atheist and a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew?”
The clergy members answered at length, sometimes explaining similarities among the three religions and at other times pointing out differences. Their answers came from the heart, citing religious texts and doctrines as well as their own life experiences.
At one point, Malik, who visited campus last May as the Rudin lecturer, said, “I am really impressed with the depth of these questions.”
Malik, who teaches history and social studies at C.B. Community School in Roxborough, brought three students from the school, who joined the AFS students in asking questions.
It was the fourth year that Middle School Social Studies Teacher Diana Gru had organized the panel of religious leaders as a capstone to the unit. Since the beginning of the school year, she said, the class had studied the origins and belief systems of three major religions — Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
Each student also chose a religion to study more deeply individually. Among the religions they chose were Jainism, Baptist Christianity, Buddhism and even Jediism, whose creed originated with the movie “Star Wars.”
The students focused their work on such questions as “Who decides if a belief system is legitimate?” “Does religion serve a purpose in the modern world? What do religions have in common? Where do our differences come from?”
Isaac, who runs a Jewish camp in the Poconos and is married to Lower School Math Specialist Jeanne Calloway, lauded the students for their study.
“It is awesome that you are talking and learning about this,” he said. “It will serve you well long into the future.”
