At a time when division, distrust, and despair dominate the headlines, an unexpected alliance of global faith leaders and scholars has gathered in North Carolina.
The goal is simple, yet radical: to show that faith—when rooted in shared values like compassion, justice, and responsibility—can bridge divides and rebuild communities.
But there’s a catch: it takes courage. Healing polarization doesn’t just require dialogue; it demands confronting hard truths, crossing boundaries, and taking bold action for the common good.
That’s exactly what unfolded recently at Duke Divinity School, where I traveled from my native Bolivia to join young faith leaders from more than a dozen countries. We gathered with the Muslim World League (MWL)—the world’s largest Islamic NGO—not to debate doctrine, but to explore how shared spiritual values can help address today’s most urgent challenges: climate change, inequality, violence, and the erosion of trust.
The stakes couldn’t be higher. While in North Carolina, I learned that residents are deeply divided on many fundamental issues, as evidenced by recent Meredith College surveys. The same is true across the United States, where divisions over core values are at historic highs, according to Gallup.
In my home country of Bolivia, political polarization has intensified following a disputed presidential election. Globally, the situation is even more alarming: the world is now facing 56 active conflicts—the highest number since World War II, according to the Global Peace Index.
While politicians point fingers and tech platforms struggle with misinformation, the MWL and those of us in the Faith for Our Planet (FFOP) Fellowship discussed and debated a different path. We spent a week forging genuine human connections, seeking moral clarity, and focusing on values that transcend religion and nationality —empathy, responsibility, and stewardship of our planet.
These ideas were underscored by the MWL Secretary-General Mohammad al-Issa during his visit to the Triangle. He reminded us that over 84% of the world’s population identifies with a religion. That shared moral foundation, he argued, could be the key to building collaboration in a fractured world.
We’ve already seen this potential realized. Earlier this year, the MWL convened a groundbreaking gathering in Islamabad, Pakistan. In partnership with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, they brought together Islamic scholars from across the ideological spectrum to address one of the Muslim world’s most sensitive issues: girls’ education.
It wasn’t an easy conversation. Many participants, including conservative Afghan tribal leaders with ties to the Taliban, arrived with worldviews shaped by years of conflict. But the MWL believed that faith could guide even the hardest discussions.
Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who survived an attack by the Taliban at age 15 for advocating education, joined the dialogue. The result? The Islamabad Declaration—affirming the irrevocable right to education for all Muslim girls.
This wasn’t just a policy win—it was a moral breakthrough. Achieved not through pressure or compromise, but through a shared conviction that faith, at its best, upholds human dignity.
If such an agreement is possible in Islamabad, why not in North Carolina? Why not on issues like voting rights, gun safety, or climate justice? Why not in Bolivia? We face similarly urgent challenges that require genuine moral courage and collaborative leadership.
Too often, we act as if our problems are unsolvable. They’re not. What we lack isn’t solutions—it’s the will to act on our values. That’s why the work at Duke matters. It offers a model of interfaith cooperation rooted in action, not just conversation.
Across North Carolina, on my first-ever trip here, I learned about faith communities already working together on food security, refugee resettlement, and climate resilience. They prove that common ground is not a fantasy—it’s already here, waiting to be embraced.
It’s a vision that begins not with politics or profit, but with people—people willing to listen, to lead, and to risk discomfort for the greater good. People of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other faith traditions united by a shared moral vision and the bravery to act.
Could what began as a conversation among faiths in Durham become something far louder, broader, and more powerful? Let us pray that it does.
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