 I'm Tom Friedman. I'm the Foreign Affairs columnist for the New York Times. And with me here at center stage are Frank Fredericks, who is from the World Faith, a global movement of interfaith youth tackling global poverty and other issues. Vibhani Dougal from the Baha'i community. We have Ali Brahim from Pakistan and Mussel Faith. And Mati Ricard from Buddhist Monk. We're living in France. And of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury. So it's a treat to be with you all. I represent the Minnesota Jewish community, also known as the frozen chosen. So I'll do my best to keep this flowing. Now, if you've done any panels that I've moderated, you know it's nothing about you. It's all about me. So that is, you are just props here to serve my next column. So this is not strictly off the record. This is not. No, there's no chat-a-mouse. There's nothing here. Not really. But there's a story that I want to begin with a question posed to all of you. But it really is a story I found myself retelling 20 years later, lately. And it really goes to the. I've been writing books since 1988. And so I've been on book tour on and off for 30 years. And in 1999, I got the best question I have ever gotten, then or since, on book tour. And it was in Portland, Oregon. I was out. I'd read a book called Lexus Nealtree. The young man stood up in the balcony during question time. He said, Mr. Friedman, I have a question for you. Is God in cyberspace? And I thought, wow. Is God in cyberspace? Is God in cyberspace? Yeah. And I said, wow. I've never been asked that question before. Is God in cyberspace? I said, I don't know. I really hate being asked the question. I don't know. So I got home. I called my spiritual leader. His name is Rabbi Tzvi Marks. He lives in Amsterdam. I said, Tzvi, I was out on book tour. Young man stood up and said, is God in cyberspace? What should I have said? And he said, well, Tommy, in our faith tradition, we have actually two concepts of the Almighty. One is that he is the Almighty. So he smites evil and rewards good. And if that's your view of God, he sure isn't in cyberspace because it's full of pornography, gambling, bad talk, people trashing one another. But he said, we actually have a competing view of the Almighty. And that is that God manifests himself by how we behave. And so if we want God to be in cyberspace, we have to bring him there by how we behave there. And God will only be in cyberspace, depending on how we behave. So I want to begin with that question. How would, and I called any of the five of you from your different faiths, start with you, Mr. Frederick, just go around. What would you have said? Is God in cyberspace? Well, if God is in cyberspace, then I really need to clear my search history. Sorry. What I would say is this is not really in the realm of my work on trying to in-religious space funds. But what I think is it's really interesting to see how people bring the preconceived ideas and notions of what they believe their faith caused them to into this space. And sometimes it's beautiful. I've seen more examples of different practices from around the world that I don't have access to in New York through, let's say, YouTube and these different channels. But many times, people are using this technology to engage and recruit young people to do terrible things. And not every terrible thing is extreme violence. We have those examples. But sometimes it's as simple as just writing things that are diminutive to people based on the race or on gender. And so, as you said, I think it's up to what we bring into it. What I would say is that we sort of live in Marsh McLoone's dream. Even though Marsh McLoone died in 83, he sort of created a framework of us to understand that we're more greatly impacted by the media we consume and how it works in our brains. But that kind of ends now with my generation and the generation after us. Because we're the first generation to be more greatly impacted by being media producers, the media consumers. Interesting. So I think that it's no longer the medium as the message, but the message is the medium. And I hope we can bring in a good side of God's message through this new world we live in. That's very good. I'm gonna steal that. That's very good. I like that. Professor Ibrahim, what would you say? I think I would have said God is where we are and God is where we are not. So I think cyberspace is pretty well captured there. And at the same time, what we see is, in our faith particularly, God's attributes are manifested in us, some of them. So in Quran we know that there are 99 attributes which are identified to us and there are so many others which are not identified to us. And perhaps those are the ones that perhaps our human consciousness cannot comprehend. So at the same time, every attribute of God that is manifested in us that has an anti to that as well. So that as you alluded to that, the negative part. So obviously wherever we are, those 99 attributes of God which are manifested, which are present in the same time, the other ones as well. So I think I would have said pretty much what you actually answered. Interesting, that's great. Let's do go. So I think of God as a prayer answering loving God and he's everywhere, he's a munitiant. In terms of cyberspace, I mean mankind is created to carry forward an ever advancing civilization and if cyberspace is going to be a means to that, then yes, I think he's there too. Hopefully not in the negative aspects of cyberspace. Still short. Why I must say that's not the kind of first question that comes to me in mind when I wake up in the morning and for several reasons. First it seems a bit odd, you could ask is God in the atomic bomb or in the holocaust or whatever. And also in Buddhism we don't have the same view of the first cause on the creator. But you get confronted with this odd question. Yesterday in one of our meetings there was someone from Beijing who said now we have a Buddhist monk that delivers a robot that delivers teachings. I said great, I'll go back to the hermitage, we don't need to do anything anymore. But then I was thinking what are you looking into God or spirituality or Buddhahood? Isn't it like even that monk robot doesn't help others? Can you speak of love and compassion? Even that robot doesn't display jealousy or greed. Can you speak of inner freedom? Even that robot doesn't harm and all that. So this is all about the most deepest experience that we seek in spirituality or religion. So in a way cyberspace is like a tool like any other can be used to harm or to do good, to destroy or to build. So that's all. Sounds good. I'm tempted to say every time I'm around on the underground in London or on a bus or in an office I hear someone looking at their computer or their phone and saying oh God, why is this not working? Oh that's so good, that was worth coming here for. That was good. So that would indicate yes? Yes. I think from a strictly Christian point of view, we start as Christians with, and we just celebrated, the idea that Jesus Christ is God and that he was born in a manger in poverty as a refugee in suffering. And that he died on a cross in suffering. And if that's where you start in your faith, then you say that God is in the midst of all this. And you say that God is in the midst of all this. You say that God is in the midst of all things good and bad that he's involved in one way or another. So yes. Great, thank you very much. So one of the things I hear when I come to Europe is churches are empty. One thing I hear from all faith leaders when I go around America today is young people don't wanna join anything. Don't wanna join church, synagogue, mosque, they don't wanna pay dues. They want everything a la carte. I refer to my own rabbi as rabbi, Airbnb. Because everybody just wants it when they want it, how they want it, but the tradition of my parents' generation which you affiliate with the local church, whatever your faith is, or mosque, or synagogue, or temple, whatever, you pay dues, you sustain the congregation, that's not happening. How is that affecting all of you? What is the status of your ability to bring in a new generation? How is this millennial generation different? I see signs all over here about what millennials do. I don't know where religion fits into that. Mr. Fredris, start us off. Sure, as maybe the only millennial, I don't wanna age anyone. I can say it's really interesting to be in these conversations working in a faith space and engaging with religious institutions. When we founded World Faith and we were pushing out to see how we could create models to in religious-based violence, we started by engaging with religious leaders as a method. And what we found is it wasn't as effective to reach young people for two reasons. Number one, because many times religious leaders and institutions were so concerned about they're barely being able to keep together their own faith, why are we gonna introduce them to people from other faiths? And this is, I understand, research shows otherwise that actually your faith deepens when you meet people different than yourself. But this fear was there. But secondly, also, that young people are not really engaging with religious institutions anymore, the way that they used to. And part of this, I think, comes from this issue, once again, very McLuhan-like neuroplasticity that our brains are rewired by the way we consume media. And our current iteration, at least I can talk, as a Christian in the evangelical tradition, that our churches still function as they did in the Industrial Revolution. You dress up, you go to a building, you do these things with these people, you are a media consumer in that world. There's a sage on the stage. Just like a movie theater was back and maybe in the 1940s or something. We went from the movie theater to Netflix, and yet we're still trying to use the same model in religious institutions. So I think that's one big problem. I think the second problem is, look, religion isn't inherently democracy for most traditions. Bahá'í, a tradition aside, because I really actually love the structure of the Bahá'í international community. But it's not a democracy in the sense that you, if people vote, you know, so I understand that there's this issue of moral authority in saying what is or isn't right. On the same token, I also vote with my butt on what I will or will not accept to be related with. My wife's Muslim. We had a rabbi who actually did the ceremony. Her stepfather is Bahá'í, and she grew up in an interfaith family. You could have done the whole panel, actually. It takes it. It takes it. I mean, Christmas gets real interesting. My wife actually likes the most of the, I like the religious tradition, that she likes the songs and the tree. The whole thing just gets confusing. A Muslim who loves it, yeah, anyway. So that's the reality I live in. My team of people working in interfaith issues, about half my team is LGBT of some kind. Now, how can I go to a building and, as an evangelical, I'll still call myself that, but go into a community where that is not my theology. Now, I'm not saying they can't have that theology. That's, they're welcome to that. That's part of their moral authority. But as a millennial, who also feels sovereign and ability to make my own framework, I really believe I cannot do that in good conscience. I cannot give my money, I cannot spend my time at a community that is diminutive to my family, to my closest friends, to my staff. That's, I just, I can't do that. What we can do, though, where millennials are still engaged in America, this is quite fascinating, one in every three millennial is non-religious. And only 22% of millennials are attending weekly religious services. That means the majority of millennials are religiously identifying, but not participating with an institution. And I think the opportunity there is what can we accomplish together? Because when we're doing volunteer projects, whether in Nigeria or whether we're working in schools in India, and this is all happening locally, or even in the United States, working with the homeless population, people from different religions will come together to do this work through the shared value service. Also atheists and humanistic and agnostic people will come and participate in this. Because ultimately, as the world becomes more diverse, like my own life is shown that this is happening, we cannot solve any of our problems if we can't work across faith communities and not just tolerate each other. I tolerate back pain. You can't tolerate somebody from another faith. Not just tolerate or coexist, but collaborate and achieve something that we uniquely couldn't do otherwise. That's what I believe this generation and faith is gonna be about. Thank you. Oh, how would you answer that? I would think, let's say, I don't have the exact numbers at how many millennials are Muslims, but going by 2.5 billion millennials today, as we see, which is one-third of the population. So if we take that 1.7 billion Muslims and one-third of that, it's a phenomenal size. By the same time, what we see in the Muslim world, the mosques are not really empty. They're always overfilled. And, but that also raises a point that faith is relevant in their life, yes, absolutely. But whether faith is requiring them to do something in life or not, I think there's a big question mark. And I would think faith is not, perhaps, able to inspire them to do much with their life. Although, being Muslim, everything I do in life has a direct connection with my faith, that whether I am a shopkeeper, why I'm a school teacher, why I'm a banker, it's part of my worship. Because the part of worship is that if I do it good, it's part of worship. If I don't do it good, it's not worship. So somehow or the other, there is a big disconnect. And I see that perhaps happening pretty recently. And previously, there were more inspirations, like, let me give you an example of Pope Francis. He has inspired and touched so many people in every age and also millennials. And I'm not saying that I'm a millennial. When I met with him and had the honor to meet with him, the first thing I told him that I'm a devote Muslim and I'm deeply inspired by his message of poverty alleviation and against the human suffering. And that is something that he has been trying to actually perhaps redevelop the narrative that how religious leaders or faith leaders need to engage with, because the real issues of the society. So the countries where I live in or I come from, the context is absolutely different. The context is, at most times, survival. So look at Southeast Asia and South Asia. The extreme poverty is absolutely manifested there. So the survival is the most important thing. The economic development is the most critical challenge. Whether faith has done enough on that, yes and no. Because if you see Muslims, Muslims are obliged to give 2.5% of their wealth every year. And that makes it a humongous amount. But that has just not been institutionalized. And perhaps that is the reason that lack of institutionalization of giving is not creating much impact. Let me go back to that point. You began with a very interesting dichotomy, masterful, but young people don't seem to be inspired. How do you explain that? I think the role models are missing. And let me go back to South Asia again, because that's where my most of the history is. So in the subcontinent, the people like 700 years ago, 800 years ago when Islam made its way, I'll give you an example of one Ali Hajweri. He was a saint, Sufi saint. People have a different version of Sufis, but people have a different opinion about them. But he, as it may, he was one person that who came and inspired so many people in the whole region that even after he passed away, now 700 or 800 years after that, there was something that he did for the people who used to sell milk. And in those agricultural societies, how deeply entrenched milk is, it's a survival tool. And he helped some milk owners, and then now what happens is the date of his anniversary when he passed away, there is no milk available in the entire region. All the milk comes to his shrine and that is distributed for charity. And that has been happening for the last 700 years. And that is not the only example. There is a Khwaja Gharib Nawaz of India. And his shrine, he has been there for 700 years as well. And guess who? Muslims are not the only one who go there. Hindus go there, Sikhs go there. So you're saying there's these people in the past who are inspiring. Exactly. But there aren't current models. They are not current models. Why not? And I've seen some current models as well, where I grew up in Kashmir. I've seen some people, particularly a person who started a whole educational system with the mosque. He created single-handedly 700 mosques. He changed the entire surface of that area in Kashmir that I came up from. But he was doing it on himself. But those examples are not really enough. So I think now the time is that perhaps religion is being perceived as a symbol of identification, which actually implies that we are separate. So as long as religion is not being perceived as a symbol of unity, I think the impact of scale that is really needed today is not likely to happen. I mean, what's happening in the Bahá'í world? Well, I think young people all over in all faiths are a lot more inspired by the possibility of contributing to the spiritual and material well-being of their communities rather than sitting in a congregation as it were. They see themselves as having a role to play. And we believe that the purpose of religion is to unleash this capacity, this human capacity for justice and for making a contribution. And young people see themselves as protagonists in their own development and that of other people, be they young or old. And the Bahá'í community has been engaged in this process of learning together, young and old. And... How many Bahá'í followers are there in the world? How big is the community? Between six and seven million. But it's a widespread religion in all countries, small groups, but an active community. So we find, you know... You're appealing to a different aspiration. I mean, it's really what Mr. Frederick said. We don't want to just come and sit in our house of worship. We want to be engaged in a higher purpose. Making a difference, exactly. Making a difference in the world. Interesting, interesting. And contributing to an ever advancing civilization. However they perceive that and where the need is. And recognizing the need and making a difference. And that every human being has the potential to do that. We don't believe that, you know, a small group of people are responsible for the well-being of the seven billion people on this earth. That's it. Yeah, there was a few points about the religion Al-Aqqat. You know, when I was doing the research for the book on altruism, I look at the contrary forces. One of them is, you know, the narcissistic epidemic. So individualism, I think, is really a drive for religion Al-Aqqat. And while doing the research, I came on the extreme case, which is shellizing. So there's a lady called Shaila. She started that. And when you ask her what religion is about, she says, it's about me. So that's the ultimate Al-Aqqat religion, the only one, and it's about me. Sounds like something I would start. So that's the top of the individualism. Now about crisis of faith and attending. Again, we're a little bit different in the East. We have a monastery which has 600 monks and it's a small one. And every year we refuse plenty of young people. And it's paradoxical because Buddhism doesn't try to convert people into proselytism. I was there in December with the Dalai Lama in South India where I'm meeting with scientists in a place where within 10 kilometers you have 20 monasteries, 10,000 monks and nuns. So in the street it's a different sort of atmosphere. So, and then the more important question I think of role models. You know, in my life, half a century in the Himalayas was all inspired by people who are actually embody what lies at the end of the path. You know, whatever I can imagine of human perfection or spiritual perfection. I could not see any, you know, after many years, you know, okay, it looks good but there's some big problem behind. With the Dalai Lama I've been happy to be his interpreter for 20 years. It's exactly the same with the lady who cleans the room in the hotel and with the president. It's a human being, no difference, private, public. So that's highly encouraging when the messengers become the message. Then you say, okay, if I do, with a determined effort to try to become a better human being through the means of spirituality, transforming myself to better serve others. You know, there's something that works because I sit in front of my eyes and it's a constant inspiration. Like, you know, in the North Pole for the needle of the compass, it always brings you back to what is right. So I think the role model is so important. And when that's lost, people say, no, look at that. And the fact that religion sometime has been used as flags for, you know, separating people instead of uniting them, I think that's, you know, sometime bringing more harm than good. That's also a message or something that young people might feel, you know, they don't turn to religion to solve the problem of bringing peace and so forth. They say, you are making the problem. Why should we turn to you for looking for peace? Do people at the forum here come up and engage you? You're obviously of Buddhist faith. Well, I guess they like the colors, you know. Exactly, but I'm curious if people come and ask you things or are they... Plenty, but you know, I guess it's the same with everyone. And well, yes, you know, I'm trying to just be open and ready and have readiness is one thing which you can be as a simple Buddhist monk, you know, be at the service and whatever. Archbishop, anybody come into church these days? Depends where you are. In the Church of England, in England, since 1945, we've gone down on average by just over 1% every year in church attendance. I think you probably say that wasn't entirely successful. Well, that brings it to about 70%. Yeah, that's not far off that. By contrast, if you look at our churches in Sub-Saharan Africa and in England, the average age of church attendance in the Church of England is in the early 60s. If you go to Sub-Saharan Africa, you get the average Anglican, which is a woman in her 30s, living on less than $4 a day. That's the average Anglican globally. Why that cohort? What's going on there? If I knew that, we'd probably be doing better in it. I think there are a number of things there. There is a very strong sense of community and I think it comes back. I'm very struck by what Mathew and Frank have said that there are a number of things in the pervasive sense of individualism which takes away from people the commitment to serving and belonging with one another, which perhaps that sense of community has been retained. I think I'd say two other things that seem to me to be very important. One is less boundaries. We need less boundaries. Religions, most of the classic religions spend most of their time telling people what they shouldn't, shouldn't do. We need much more of a sort of open hospitality, a sense of welcome and allowing people to be who they are, but to be conformed by the spirit of God whom we worship. So rather than us telling them, this is what your life should be shaped by, we bring them face to face with God and the spirit of God changes them. And when you see that, I've seen it in churches in which I've ministered and then when that happens, you see the church grows even in England quite significantly and very rapidly. The second thing is more challenge. You know, there's no story of a guy sharing his, a dad sharing his son around an Anglican church and there's the list of people who were killed in the Second World War and the father says, ah, yes, Jack, those are the people who died in the services. And he says, do you mean the morning service or the evening service? And there is, you know, there's someone else, I think it was an American, actually it was one of your great authors said, if you laid all the people down end to end who fell asleep in services, they'd be a lot more comfortable. You know, it's, there is that sense that we bring in people in and we don't challenge them, we just put them in rows and tell them what to do. We started 18 months ago, we advertised for 16 people to come and live in a quasi monastic discipline for a year at Lambeth Palace where I live and work and to come and it would be rigorous, it'd be immensely demanding, they'd work with the poor, they would find it tiring, difficult, challenging and we had 500 applications for the 16 places. Interesting, that really is a common thing here about how people really wanna be engaged. Let me just go back the other way and start with you. You know, Barack Obama ran for president on the platform that marriage was a union between a man and a woman. He will finish his term having advocated and help usher into American law that as he said in the State of the Union just last week that marriage is the union between any two human beings who love each other and he will be doing that following Ireland who beat him and America to that punch. How does the embrace of the LGBT movement challenge your fates? Thanks for that question. Yeah. Nice weather we've been having, would you say? Would you like to hear my sermons on Leviticus? I think I'd say it's a massive challenge and last week we had a gathering of the 38 senior archbishops of the 38 Anglican provinces from around the world who oversee between them have responsibility for about 88 million Christians and you had every view from those strongly in favor of same-sex marriage to those who felt it should be a crime. So I sat for a week, we sat for a week working together on this, two things came out. One, depending on where you are in the world, you will take a totally different view. This is what you've described as the view in Europe, North America, but not in many other places. Secondly, it sees the historic Christian teaching which personally I've held to is that is that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and a woman. That doesn't answer your question because then what you do with people who find themselves attracted to people with their own gender. And attracted to your church? And attracted to your church. And what we're saying is, A, you don't tell them to push off. B, you absolutely don't say that they should be criminalized. C, you welcome them hospitably and you engage in listening. And what we're doing in the Church of England, we are going through an endless process of rightly of listening and apologizing. And I did this at the end of the conference last week for the terrible way that often the church has treated LGBTI people and that we've demeaned them, we've been cruel, we've excluded them, we've behaved disgustingly and totally contrary to what you see in the New Testament in the person of Jesus Christ. So you have particular, and Pope Francis said this last week. He said, the church has to say that it thinks some things are right, some things are wrong. But that doesn't mean that we don't then engage with the people with whom we disagree. Quite the reverse. Jesus, the biggest accusation people brought again, Jesus was he mixed with the wrong people. I would really like to be accused of that myself. Very nice, thank you. Matthew. Well, I've seen that I always have the easiest position. You're making a lot of converts here. No, I don't feel that, I believe. Because we don't have a sacrament for marriage in Buddhism. There's no such thing. So no problem. Yeah, interesting. You know. What can happen is they make a big feast. Yes, yeah. And they might call a lama to give a long life ceremony and just go by the golden rule. If you provide, you don't harm anyone, good for you. So we don't have such problem, neither for divers, nor for... So basically the real fundamental of fetish, which is of course the same, is do no harm. And besides that, you know, it's up to everyone to abide by the other way of life they want. Great, thank you very much. Oh, just to come back to the role model, I forgot to say, I'm sorry, about Pope Francis. I think why we all feel so enthusiastic and I'm getting all his books as soon as they come out or listening to what he says, it's precisely because he walks to talk and not only because of what he says. Save that thought because I wanna go to that later, okay? Save that thought. Give me my next question, Ms. Dutton. So we believe in the human rights of all people to live the way they wish to live. But as far as marriage in the Baha'i faith, it's between a man and a woman. And that's how it is. And you have... What happens when young Baha'is who are gay or lesbian, how do they, what do they do? Honestly, I don't know. Becoming a Baha'i is a choice. You're not born into the faith. So at the age of 15, a child, if he's born or she's born to Baha'i parents, makes a choice as to whether they're going to be a Baha'i. Sign on to the rules, interesting. And so I guess it's a difficult choice for someone who may be gay. But it's a choice for them to make. And then again, we don't have clergy, we don't have anyone standing in judgment. So it's really between you and God. Interesting. Great. Thank you. Yes. I think Muslim societies generally are very conservative. And these issues are not openly talked about. So that's why we don't really have enough information or whether this is... Haven't developed a theocratic response, I mean, generally at all. I haven't come across any. And even I haven't come across any public outreach for seeking such a response from the clergy. I think primarily because of the reason, the context where Islam is being practiced most of the time, the issues, and there are multiple issues. And some of the issues are really, really critical. As I said, survival, poverty, lack of health facilities, lack of schooling, lack of education, lack of employment. People literally living in a small box, entire family. So I don't think it would be very fair to assume that they are talking about these issues because those people are seeking much more from the clergy and from the faith to come and help and to be relevant in their lives. So I really want to come and connect with that point that you put a hold for them. Yeah, I'm going to use the next question. But what are young gay Muslim women and men and women do just completely live in a closet? I think religiously speaking, the little I know, I'm not authority on religion. But I think like Islam covers the subject of the entire life. So a sexual part of life is absolutely covered as well. And then the injunctions on sexual behavior are also very clear. So I don't think that any interpretation has come out that how to deal with the economic injunctions on lay and lesbian rights. We haven't seen that as yet. So at the same time, if we take it on its face, every human being is sacred. Every, the life of every Muslim is sacred. So life of every living being is sacred. I think that is the starting point. That is the starting point. And I think that is the ultimate point as well. So all of these things have to be seen underneath that. Frank. So I have an answer as a Christian and an answer as a person doing interfaith work. I'm going to say something that's not popular in the evangelical community. But I will not stop talking about equality for LGBT people in my community until not only the communities at a place where they accept and bring in, but actually completely affirm LGBT people, legally, socially, and every aspect of life. I believe that is my moral obligation. The reason for that is it's not just a matter of being progressive or millennial and the humanization I've gone through by meeting and engaging with people in the LGBT community. But there are theological questions we should have about marriage in the Christian tradition. If you look at the earliest forms of biblical marriage and Judaism, it was pretty much a property transfer from a father to the son. The idea of even modern day, the thing we all seem to agree on is two consenting adults. Biblical marriage was none of those things. There's not two. There's many times where you'd have multiple wives. Consent was not a thing for a lot of it, which is why issues like a victim of a rape would, if the rape that's married her, be forgiven because the value of virginity was more than her sovereignty as a human. Or even you go through history. People use biblical cases against interracial marriage. I'm in an interethnic interracial marriage, interfaith marriage as well. In 19, Loving v. Virginia was not that long ago. And so Loving v. Virginia was a Supreme Court case that basically said, no, no state can make a law against interracial marriage. And that was 1968, something like that. To me, it's shocking, right? So marriage has changed. The theology that we use to support a definition of marriage has changed. So as a person of faith in my faith community, I will continue to advocate in theological terms towards that end until we re-reach it. Now, there's the important part about my role isn't primarily as a leader in the evangelical movement. It's doing interfaith work and ending religious-based violence, getting young people to work in development projects to reduce poverty. And when it comes to that, many of our partners, we're working in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and Southeast Asia, many of our partners are volunteers, organizations that work with us do not agree with my theology. That's the beautiful thing about doing interfaith work and interfaith collaboration, is that we may disagree and we may disagree on these issues, but we all believe that we're supposed to take care of the world, to take care of people, and we connect and work with a lot of these types of institutions and people to go on the shared value of service to reduce poverty and reduce violence. And I think that's more important. And we should never preclude and not sit down at the table to accomplish something where we can agree and can collaborate. So that's a good segue to my next question, which is, you know, the Pope came to America several months ago, Pope Francis. And my wife and I happened to be in New York and we happened to be staying at the Essex House on Central Park the day he drove through Central Park. And we had his schedule and whatnot. And we climbed up actually on the window ledge in our room to see, we actually sat there for half hour to see if we could get a glimpse of him. Why the amazing appeal of this man? I agree with Matthew, because what you see is what you get. He has an absolutely coherently thought through understanding of what life is about and what the human being is about particularly. The dignity of the human being. And he applies it rigorously and consistently with humor and with joy and with celebration of what human beings are in an institution where like all historic institutions there's pressures to conform to different patterns. And he doesn't conform. He changes the institutions being changed by him rather than him being changed by the institution. And I think we look at that and you see for me, I see in him the presence and reality of Jesus Christ in this world. And I find both when I met him in private and when I've seen him in public, that is hugely and amazingly attractive. I mean, I read his encyclical on climate. Yeah, very good. That was the first time I've ever read the papal encyclical start to finish. It's quite long, you know? And it was one of the most amazing, beautifully written documents I've ever read. Yeah, it's absolutely, it's poetry in places. It's wonderful. Do you think the other cardinals had any idea what they were doing? Well, talking to the ones I know, yes, they absolutely did. And they did it very, very. I must say. Very conscious. Yeah, that's great. Terrific. Matthew, something more than worth. Some of the first thing he did was so striking, so simple, and it's completely intensely changed your mind. When I heard that he went to a jail and watched the feet of a Muslim woman, I said, wow, but that's something that is completely out of the frame. And then I have a friend with a scientist who goes to the Pontifical Academy of Science. He said he went for breakfast at a canteen and he was just there, I think, his breakfast. And then after he was elected, he went back to pay for his room, because it's the three days in that room where the cardinals stay. So all these put together, this is the real thing, and authenticity as a test. And it inspires you. And that's why. And I also read the first time in my life, and I was that one. And the thing about the environment was so remarkable. Some of the scientists helped him to do that and he did it the open way. He probably did the most progressive statement about how to deal with animals. Well, it takes a long time to find a similar strong in society that industrial farming and all that is degrades our own humanity. So that's all. This is extremely inspiring and remarkable. So I think he has the power of reaching every human heart. He's worked within communities and understands the problems that everyday people face and has this tremendous capacity to be able to reach human beings. Like you, I read a paper in cyclical for the first time on climate and was very impressed. I'm just hoping to see another one on gender equality and for him to come out and say more about that aspect of inequality, which is really essential. It's interesting though, you both in different ways hit on this issue, all three of you, of authenticity. There's actually a Talmudic phrase, what comes from the heart enters the heart. What doesn't come from the heart doesn't enter the heart. Yeah, that means coherence, authenticity. Again, you know, the person has to be the living example. Otherwise it's empty word, do what I said, don't do what I do, then forget it. Who is interested in that? Finish, you know? And there does seem something about this moment of time in popular culture where we are bombarded with the inauthentic that contrived. And I think he stands out even more in that context. And I think you were talking about millennials before and I think they more than anyone else are looking for, you know, get real. Yeah. The genuine... Absolutely, yeah. All right. I think I'm the fourth fan, of course, to be on authenticity and walking the talk, absolutely. And I think a slightly more nuanced approach, I think what he's doing is to be able to walk the extra mile, however hard is that. Give you an example that I think a few months ago he visited Turkey and when he was visiting the Blue Mosque, there was no obligation to actually to show the kind of respect that he showed to all the Muslims in the entire world. He actually claps his hand, face Makka while the Imam was praying to God. And that was a very powerful gesture. And a normal person would have thought thousand times before doing that extra mile. Because it could have been very controversial. It could have been people would have thought that they expected from such a big leader. But he had the vision, he had the authenticity and I think he had the courage to go the extra mile. But now the point is that how to reciprocate that and how to use that as a power to make the real impact. Now to give a further example like in Christianity, the human suffering is very important. Poverty is one of the worst ill and the same is the case with all the faiths that we have. The human suffering is absolutely a part. And but at the same time, I don't see in the real world the Christian, the Catholic and all the charities are working day in, day out, all the other faiths. Save your thought because we're gonna go to that at the end, on incoming call. But do you wish Islam had a vote? I think we, I don't know. But I think it's a different flavor altogether. Having a religion, a faith which actually identifies itself and is able to reinvent itself in every generation that is equally beautiful. So at the same time, having powerful mentors and the role models, that is important. So I don't think that we really, personally, I don't really miss having, because the role model as Prophet Muhammad is so powerful for us that we can anytime relate to him, to his life, is just so living for us. So I personally, yes, I think that there is no need after him to have a person like that. But I fully respect the position that in the Catholic Church for the pope that he has. Thank you. You know, I think in this generation, more than perhaps before, it's important to be decisive in separating what is prophetic from what is pathetic. And I think he's been a very interesting example of this. Just in my own life, I've been able to see the difference between moral authority and moral imagination. And I believe moral imagination is gonna be the only way we can really move forward in our traditions. And for me, when I was much younger, I used to work in the music industry. And I started working with these young piano players, seeing her really talented girl, quite liberal, and I was quite conservative in my faith. And yet, through that friendship, I began to realize that she made me a better Christian. Because she radically accepted me in a place, I was at NYU at the time as a student while working in the music industry. And a lot of people would hear I was Christian and conservative, didn't wanna talk to me. And then about a year and a half into working together, she said, I'm changing my name, I'm no longer gonna be Stephanie Germanata, I'm now gonna play in a named Lady Gaga. And Lady Gaga helped make me a better Christian. Then I worked with, I had a fellowship with an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core, which is seeking to make religious population a social norm. And through there, I met a friend of mine who became a rabbi and became one of my best friends, Rabbi Josh Danton, who was inspired to become a rabbi even gelical pastor, like Chaplain at his school where he went for his undergrad. And then as you layer these, you know, just multiple examples of where you can be inspired from the outside and be willing to acknowledge. Some people call this Holy Envy. Samar Samanovich, the author of, it's all about, it's really all about God. He uses this a lot, Holy Envy. And I really liked that. And even now, through the forum, I'm doing an MBA at Oxford, which is very unusual to be doing interfaith work and doing an MBA. But I find people there who take a very different approach, obviously, to life than maybe I would, to be inspiring me to be a better Christian. And so when I coming full circle, when I grew up, the Pope was kind of equal to the Antichrist and the evangelical, very conservative traditions. We were taught that Catholics weren't Christian. And also, it was a sort of a two-way thing where the Catholic Church didn't recognize evangelicals to be saved. And this is the first Pope I've ever heard actually say that we are in the fold. And I'm like, huh, that's interesting. And I think that narrative is an important few steps. But I will also echo some of your thoughts as somebody who's a bit consequentialist minded, probably an impatient New Yorker as well. I also want to see this become, I want to see it solidified in concrete actions. And you do, in some aspects of the Catholic charity work, but I'm hungry to see what his moral imagination can come up with and what we can dream together. You must have some amazing dinner parties. I mean, just go back to Lady Gaga for a sec. How did she inspire you? Through radical acceptance, through just being a loving person and when we work together. Once again, I could go, and I was 19 at the time, I was 19 actually. I grew up in rural America, middle of nowhere in the mountains between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. First generation to be educated. And so when I moved from the mountains, 3,000 miles away to the village, to New York City, that was a pretty intense change. And I was surrounded by people I had never engaged with. I had my first real conversation with a Muslim, with a Catholic, with a Jew, with a gay person. This was quite discombobulating. And some of those conversations actually led me to founding World Faith. But when I would enter some of these circles, some of these conversations, to be a lot of young, very liberal students who would just be like, no, I won't talk to you. And I remember this now as a person who may be conceived liberal within the evangelical community. How it feels to be told that you're like, that you're not good enough in that sense. And so I want to convey my passion on those things, but do so lovingly. Because that's what I experienced that was revolutionary for me. So for her, she knew my politics, she knew my faith and my beliefs and where we contradicted. We didn't not talk about it, but at no point did we not, we had a bigger dream of what we can accomplish together. And that was to change the music industry. And I think we're able to do some of that, only because we had the moral imagination and the acceptance and then the rest of it sort of worked itself out. One of the themes, and Professor Ibrahim just touched it now that certainly here in Davos is everywhere, income inequality. What can the faith communities do? Besides this, the standard charity. I mean, this seems not to be a global epidemic. How can faith be part of the, faith means to be a part of the solution to income inequality? What should start us off? First, by example, that we need those who follow Christ to be themselves sacrificial in the way they live their lives. Secondly, by exhortation, to bring people back to the face of Jesus Christ, who was in Christian teaching made himself poor so that the world could find the riches of God. Thirdly, by, to lapse from the high-flown rhetoric, by persistent nagging and persistent reminder of what it means. We lived, I was in the oil industry for 11 years and was group treasurer of a big oil company and then went off and got all down. And a lot of my ministry was in parishes and a cathedral for that matter, but in really some of the poorest parts of the UK. And you saw the effect of income inequality. You saw the effect of, as someone said to me, the travel is just in, the month is always just a little longer than the money. That's income inequality. And that lives, if that, if you allow that to burn itself deeply enough into your heart, which you must, then you can, then the churches can speak with a prophetic edge. I love what Frank's been saying again. A prophetic edge, speaking from being present in and with the poor. The places above it, but with them, not doing stuff for them, to them, but with them. You know, the dilemma often says that he's half Buddhist, half Marxist. So for someone whose country has been invaded by Mao and one million people died. Four Marxists, not half Marxists. Yeah, so that's a far fetched statement. And of course it doesn't mean about 15 million dead in China and the same amount in Russia. What it means is this ideal of being together, of sharing, of reducing precisely those privileged inequalities. And so in his mind, I think it is definitely a problem and I think inequality again is not just about income. It's about inclusion. It's about really, you know, in those societies in Nepal and India as well, when you address a woman, it's either mother, elder sister or younger sister. Same for men. So this is kind of idea of a very close sort of, everyone is part of a kind of family. So that idea is of course closer to a humanitarian society than to society of privilege and individualism and so forth. So in that sense, we know that inequality is one of the main challenges of our times. It's bad for everything, for health, for longevity, for quality of education and so forth. So it is one of our main goal. And I think it's somehow rooted with these exacerbated individualism, you know. Work hard, you will be rich and then you have to do the same, you know, even there are no access to education and mother with five kids and no father and how can you expect that just working hard, they will get out of the hole. So the solidarity is really something that is we need to revive, you know, cooperation, solidarity and being together. Martin Luther King said, we came on different vessels, we're on the same boat. So the more world is so called global, the more that interdependence is flattened and need to be taken into account. It's so obvious that we need to take into account that we are all of the same human families and we cannot, you know, get out of that and just cause us for oneself. Thank you. Let's do it. So I think technical solutions and economic solutions like redistribution of wealth, et cetera, are important. But in addition to that, we need sustainable solutions that speak to the spiritual values that you started off by saying yes, the goodness and the generosity and all, but without those, we will not have sustained change and there can be no transformation and I think for all of us to be able to understand that, that there is no other. We are all in this together, it's one world and until we really embrace the understanding of the oneness of mankind, that we are not going to have that transformation. It's not about a small group of people uplifting another, that's not what development is about. It's about building capacity for all individuals and access to knowledge is really important and to be able to use that knowledge in sustained change in one's life. So I think it's a much bigger task than what we discussed at the World Economic Forum, unfortunately, but we need to look beyond that. Thank you. Yeah, I think this is exactly what we need to discuss at the World Economic Forum and we are right in the middle of where things can actually relate to some actions. And I give you an example. In Makka, during Ramadan, over one million people share meals two times a day and that is phenomenal and that is not the only place and in the entire Muslim world, every mosque, there is food that comes and nobody knows where that is coming from. So the charitable actions in all the faiths, they are happening beyond anybody's imagination. Is that important? Of course that is very important. Is that helping partly? But I think what may be missing is to see that we are living in the age of institutionalizations, in the age where things are specialized, in the age where things are being enabled. If you look at the past two, three G20 meetings, B20 meetings, everything is all about inclusive growth. The private sector has realized that the massive growth is going to come from the people who are underserved and that is exactly the kind of approach the faiths need to look at that if they need to be relevant, they need to go out where exactly the people actually need their support. So we are living in the age where enabling digitization is very important as an enabler. So faith as an inspirational enabler, that's very important. Faith as an ideological enabler, that's absolutely important. But faith as a financial enabler, I think that is something that we need to perhaps consider and focus on. Because that is where the synergies at the common ground to meet and try to actually capture the issue can actually happen. And now as I was mentioning earlier, the charities are massively working in human relief efforts, the giving food and medical supply, everything is happening. But there is no institutionalization of the charity to enable that people do not survive or continue to look for it. People so they can be self-sustainable. I think faith is now, is very important for the faith to stay relevant to actually support SMEs, to support microfinance institutions, to support investment banks who are actually looking at the impact sector. So I think that is the kind of approach perhaps faith need to look at to stay more relevant. And I think within this room, there is enough critical mass to have a consensus that this is something that that is perhaps faiths are not doing and this is something perhaps faiths should be doing. Good, thank you. Frank, I'm gonna give you the last word. We'll have to close with this. Sure, it's a fascinating division in the evangelical community right now because when you look at supporting global poverty initiatives, the Christian community, particularly a lot of evangelicals in the US support hugely in small donations. And it's something I take as a, I say with pride that global poverty is something that's very important to my community. There is however voices from within the community who talk about, who sort of support this more conservative narrative of poor people being like bad people. And you know, it makes me think of Diane Lamont with her wise words of, you can be sure that you've made God in your image if God hates all the same people you do. And when you hear some of this vilification of those who have not in America right now, it sort of, it looks a little like we're trying to re-rate our theology, but like Jesus' words on poverty is pretty explicit. So it presents an opportunity right now and we have good and bad. And I think what's needed in the next step, where we're moving forward, is our faith traditions and belief traditions for non-religious people as well. That gives us a really good why. Humanism makes a great case, good without God that you can go do good things. Chris Steadman who's the Harvardist, Harvard, no excuse me, Yale chaplain for humanists has just done a lot of great work in sort of making it going out and saying here's how we can build a framework to go do this work and volunteer and all this. And even partner in this type of work. And I think what we need now is once we have these whys, we need to house. So I'd love to see more inspired people with this vision, with these convictions to go, you know, to become economists, to become working, to build, to be inspired but use the best technology, the best science, the best research. Scalar. Exactly. And that's part of the why as an interfaith leader I'm doing an MBA at Oxford Said right now. It's a very bizarre thing to do, but like I think this is, I wanna see more of this in the next generation. Terrific. People doing different things. I think it's a really exciting time. We're the first generation that has the resources, the people, and the ideas to end all of our problems. We've had the technology to kill mankind since 60 years ago. But we're the first that can actually solve it. Now, will we have the moral imagination to do so? That we'll just have to see. I'm stealing that too. We just write a blog together, look at that. This has been a wonderful panel. Thank you all very, very much. Thank you.