Inter-Views Alliance promotes, discuss religions

The Inter-Views Alliance, a Registered Student Organization championing religious diversity, is striving to promote awareness of other cultures and their religions through its meetings and events. The group was started last year to try and educate the campus about world religions.

According to the president of Inter-Views Alliance, Leanna Wharram, the group’s goal is simple.

“To help people celebrate and see the diversity in the world,” Wharram said.

The Inter-Views Alliance meets Mondays at 7 p.m. in the Student Activity Center. Each meeting focuses on a different topic. Typically the focus is on one specific religion or how different religions look at a specific topic.

The alliance covered everything from Scientology to Daoism last year. The broad range of religious topics lends plenty to discussions.

“We have discussed everything from creation stories to how different religions deal with death and the afterlife,” Wharram said.

Other meetings have covered issues such as gender issues and how different religions respect the environment. Members also participate in activities during their meetings. One meeting included a demonstration of how different dietary restrictions affect people’s lives.

The reason for naming the alliance “Inter-Views” instead “Inter-Faiths” was to incorporate more cultures, co-founder of the club Carter Gillespie, a senior management major, said.

“There are agnostics, atheists, and people who do not feel represented by the word ‘faith’ so we decided to call it ‘views’ which does not have that religious connotation,” Gillespie said.

Jennifer Graham, the faculty advisor for Inter-Views Alliance, recognizes the significance of such an organization.

“The Alliance is important because it gives people on campus the ability to learn about other religions they might not be familiar with and what they believe,” Graham said.

Even though she was not involved with a similar club during her school days, Graham believes that it is a very important asset to the campus.

This year the alliance is focusing on lesser-known religions. The group will host many different events throughout the year such as a holy book reading. From Oct. 14-16 members of the alliance are inviting people from around campus to join in the reading of the holy texts of the Baha’i faith, an emerging world religion.

The reading will be held on the steps of the Old Courthouse on Front Campus. Last year the Quran was read aloud and it has become a tradition to choose a holy book to read every year.

Another event the Inter-Views Alliance will be participating in this semester is the “Hanging of the Greens.”

The Inter-Views Alliance will invite other groups set up tables to explain their holiday traditions.

Gillespie wants the club to be a tool for clearing up misconceptions about lesser known religions as well as misconceptions of major religions.

“After our discussions I want people to go out and look up stuff for themselves,” Gillespie said. “We don’t have Ph.D.s and we don’t know everything; we’re learning about these religions, too.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 9 2009. Filed under Perspectives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry