I'm Nancy brick house and as Provost of
Baylor University in Waco Texas it's my
privilege to bring greetings on behalf
of the better administration to all of
you who are joining in unzoom for this
virtual conversation as a Christian
research university Baylor is committed
to creating solutions to the most
critical issues we face today fostering
a greater understanding of the
intersection of faith and public health
while squarely within our institutional
mission the fact that we are gathering
virtually and not in person underscores
the unusual predicament in which we find
ourselves as both social and religious
people with having been forced to cease
coming together to worship and engage in
spiritual development we miss holding
hands in prayer we Menace singing hymns
side-by-side we miss embracing one
another and sharing the peace tonight we
are fortunate to have some of America's
most prominent religious commentators
representing a diversity of religious
traditions to explore how we can
continue to thrive and serve the
surrounding world as believers and
communities of faith despite the new
reality forced upon us by the koban 19
public health crises these are truly
precarious times but tonight we will be
studying by truly remarkable speakers
two of whom dr. George and dr. West
recently engaged in a discussion about
civic discourse on our campus in Waco
last fall again welcome to each of you
and thank you for joining in wherever
you may be located to be a part of this
important conversation
I will now welcome in our moderator
sharee hardier president of the Trinity
for thank you so much Nancy I'll just
add my own welcome to all of you join us
for this important conversation on
communities of faith encoded 19 hosted
by Baylor and their Robert P George
Center on faith in public policy along
with the Trinity forum
we had over 2,600 people registered for
this event so there's clearly been a lot
of interest and we just so appreciate
your joining us I'm sure even harder
with eternity form and it's a particular
pleasure to be able to work with our
friends at Baylor in producing this
program tonight
I just want to give a special thanks and
shout out to both the visionaries and
the behind-the-scenes workers that made
this possible on Baylor's team including
David Cory Molly Moore Matthew Lee
Anderson and Nate Priscilla as Nancy
mentioned we are in anxious and
uncertain times
right now we're wrestling not only with
a public health crisis as infection and
fatalities continue to surge an economic
crisis as businesses shut down and jobs
are terminated but the resulting fear
suffering and in isolation along with
increased social distancing has put us
into a spiritual crisis as well and at
the very time that we most crave
connection and spiritual sustenance that
comes from corporate worship and meeting
together we instead have to practice
social distancing so we so appreciate
you joining us for in this conversation
as we seek to explore together how
communities of faith can offer guidance
support and encouragement to those
suffering and how the faithful can
creatively love their neighbor and
contribute to the common good we have an
extraordinary group of panelists for
this discussion as Nancy said but before
introducing them I wanted to offer just
a few thoughts and notes about what is
about to happen over the next 90 minutes
on the right hand of your screen you
will soon see a chat function which can
be used to provide additional
information and resources by our hosts
to supplement this discussion after
about an hour or so of madhuri a
conversation between our panelists we'll
take questions from you listening and if
you look at the bottom center of your
screen you'll see a Q&A button there
that you can use to type in your own
questions with 2,600 people on the line
we won't be able to get to all of them
but we'll take as many as we can and
then at the very end of our time
together you'll receive a survey we
would love to get your
feedback this is the first time that
Trinity forum and Baylor have done this
together so we would really covet and
welcome your suggestions on how we can
make this even more valuable to you in
the future our panelists tonight
represent a range of the faith
traditions including Catholic Protestant
Jewish and Muslim we are so glad to be
joined by each of them starting off with
Professor Robert George who is the
McCormack professor of jurisprudence and
the director of the James Madison
program in American ideals and
institutions at Princeton University as
well as the namesake of Baylor
University's Robert P George Institute
on faith ethics and public policy he's
also served as the chairman of the u.s.
Commission on International Religious
Freedom on the President's Council on
bioethics and the u.s. Commission on
civil rights he'll be joined by his good
friend dr. Cornel West who is the
professor of practice of public
philosophy at Harvard and professor
emeritus at Princeton University in
addition to teaching at Union
Theological Seminary Yale Harvard and
the University of Paris dr. West has
written more than 20 books and edited 13
including his classics race matters and
democracy matters and his memoir brother
West living and loving out loud we're
all so honored to be joined by dr. Hamza
Yusuf who is the president of his a tuna
College the first accredited Muslim
liberal arts university in the United
States and who was recently ranked by
the Muslim 500 as the 23rd most
influential Muslim nationwide
he's also the co-president of religions
for peace and an advocate for promoting
peace between Muslims and Christians
finally rounding out our panel will be
joined by Professor Danielle mark a
professor of politics and religion at
Villanova University a faculty member at
the Ryan Center for the Study of free
institutions in the public good who has
also served as the chairman of the u.s.
Commission on International Religious
Freedom robby cornell hamza and danielle
welcome so glad that's better
exactly
to begin with a fairly broad question
just to get us started Cobin 19 is
causing a lot of people to suffer right
now in all sorts of ways physical
illness financial loss food insecurity
loneliness and loss of purpose and so
much of the suffering at least P seems
so unjust so random or so pointless
so is there meaning and purpose
according to your faith tradition in
suffering and what are the resources
within your faith tradition to help
people cope with that suffering dr.
George why don't you start us off well
thank you so much
cherie not only for that question but
for moderating our conversation I'm
really grateful to Sheree for stepping
in no one does it better and it's really
harder does and so I was so delighted
when she accepted our invitation to a
serve as our moderator of course I want
to thank Baylor University president of
Bravo's brick house president Linda
Livingstone David Correy and the entire
staff the Washington DC team Molly Moore
for this and gosh I am so grateful to my
my great friends Cornel West
my dear brother Tom's a use of my dear
brother Daniel mark my star former
student who is now has embarked himself
on a very distinguished academic career
and has served as my successor actually
in chairman of the u.s. Commission on
International Religious Freedom this is
just a wonderful team of people to be
discussing this very important question
of the spiritual and moral dimensions of
the kovat 19 crisis and I'm grateful to
all of them to all of you for for
joining suffering the first
to say about it is we don't know why God
permits suffering we don't know why God
permits innocent people to suffer
innocent children poor people the
elderly afflicted in Scripture in the
Christian and Jewish traditions of
course sometimes suffering is associated
with God's will God causes suffering it
sometimes seems to say as punishment or
for instruction or as a blessing in
disguise theologians in my wing of the
Christian tradition in the Catholic
tradition have denied that God can
actually actively will suffering that's
incompatible with His infinite goodness
they instead say God permits suffering a
kind of willing we're talking about when
we talk about God's willing in this area
is permissive willing but why does God
permit it to happen that's a question we
cannot but ask but a question to which
we have no access to the answer if if if
someone says well this suffering that
we're experiencing now or in a war or in
an earthquake or other catastrophe is a
chastisement or a punishment from God as
Lincoln for example said of the Civil
War Lincoln said on more than one
occasion that the war came upon both the
north and south for the sin of slavery
if someone says that it's not something
that we can exclude nor is it something
though that we can claim to know rather
I think it falls to us to say how can we
meet the needs of our brothers and
sisters how can we serve those who are
suffering there is something there is an
answer to there's an answer to that for
each of us it's connected to what we in
the Catholic tradition call our
vocations and by vacations we don't
simply mean a religious vocation to the
priesthood or to be a
religious sister a nun we mean the
calling that every single human being
has by God calling from God himself to
serve to use the unique talents
abilities opportunities that each of us
has to serve our neighbors most
especially our neighbors in need our
neighbors who are suffering the final
thing I'll say about that is that in the
Christian tradition and you see this
most clearly in the witness of dr.
Martin Luther King there is the teaching
that unearned suffering undeserved
suffering is redemptive now this can
strike many years outside the Christian
tradition and even some within
Christianity as shocking people say well
that can't be true how can that be true
but in the Christian tradition our
understanding is that in our own
undeserved suffering we unite ourselves
by our acts of will our acts of faith
our acts of hope and of charity - the
redemptive suffering of Christ the
Christian story is about redemption
effected through Christ's willingness to
sacrifice himself to suffer and die on
the cross in atonement for sins and in
accepting our unearned or undeserved
suffering we unite ourselves with Jesus
in His redemptive mission that I believe
is what dr. King had in mind when he
stressed the redemptive nature of
suffering and that's something I think
that in the Christian tradition helps us
to understand what our own role is in it
we have no answer ultimately ultimately
to the question why does God permit it
and this of course is what gives rise to
that branch of theology called theodicy
it generates the so called problem of of
evil the question of whether God could
even exist how can an all good God exist
if they're suffering if he's all good
and all-powerful why doesn't he
eliminate the suffering their various
arguments that can be made I think some
persuasively for why
the reality of suffering should not
cause us to abandon our faith in God but
at the end of the day we don't really
have an answer to why God permits it but
we do have an answer to how we should
understand it and what we should do to
serve others who are suffering dr. West
even further thoughts well I just want
to thank my dear brother Robby for
getting us off a very good and high note
I want to salute you my dear sister
Sharif for your visionary and courageous
leadership of the Trinity forum
you've been added now year after year
and continue to bring together variety
of voices wrestling with very difficult
issues and of course sister Nancy and
Baylor on their facilitating our coming
and then of course by the hamsters but
then you're just always good to be in
conversation but I think you know
Beethoven raised the profound question
of how that we look at the world
unflinchingly and all of its suffering
and still must of the courage to love I
can love neighbor too most truth to love
beauty to love goodness
and they told herself had loved the
world in his own secular humanist way
and I think that's for me the
fundamental question I think brother
Robby is right we will never ever have a
rational coherent answer to the massive
forms of suffering including
the suffering taking place right now
Allah fellow human beings around the
world fellow citizens at the United
States having to do with this
coronavirus up so what do we do well you
do you do do justice you love mercy and
walk humbly with thy God you begin with
the spirit that brother Robby was
talking about of our financial ability
and our cue ability and the question
becomes how do we fortify ourselves to
be of service in solidarity to
bond to the suffering attempt to
alleviate as much of the suffering using
the best scientific weapon tree of
fallen human beings like ourselves and
yet viewing this as a way of bearing
witness to a love and to a mercy that we
associate me as a God that we serve a
set of stories about that God a
tradition that keeps a live reflection
and enactment of the love and mercy of
that love that God but knowing in the
end we don't have an answer to the why
question they'll say s key right about
this and brothers karamazov that there
is no human rational consistent coherent
answer to the why of suffering let alone
massive suffering and that way of
acknowledging how Shakespeare puts it is
it's above the question how do we
intervene in the world given the kind of
sources that are spiritual and moral
that we gain in light of the faith that
we have yes dr. Youcef dr. mark I want
to give you a chance to jump in here as
well thank you most compassionate I
would say that one of the most important
and fundamental aspects of religion that
it addresses the wise science addresses
the house but this really is the realm
of our religious traditions and the
Quran is I think very clear that
tribulation is part of life on earth and
there's a verse in the Quran that devout
Muslims recite every day which says
glory be to the one who created
everything in opposites and and one of
the ways that we know and appreciate
what we have is by experiencing the
opposite of what we have an Arab proverb
says that health is a crown on the
healthy that that only the sick can see
and so you know often we take blessings
for
for granted we don't really think about
what we have and it's it's the times of
tribulation that really causes us to to
remember what we had we're a very
complaining species we whine a lot we we
really forget to be grateful and and one
of the most important verses in the
entire Quran is that if if you're
grateful God will increase you in your
blessings but let the ingrates know that
blessings can be lost and chastisement
can be severe and the other thing that
in our tradition there's a there's a
person in the second chapter that says
God will test you with something of fear
and hunger and loss of wealth and
diminishment of lives so give glad
tidings to the people who are patient
who when they are afflicted they say we
belong to God and to God we return those
have mercy upon them and so when the
Prophet was asked about plagues he was
actually asked about plagues what were
they and he said that they are an
invasion of the unseen world upon you
and and then he said but there are mercy
for believers and I actually in these
days that that's because we've all got
more time than we usually have I mean my
brother who's a lawyer for the state of
California suddenly he said I've got two
hours every day because he was commuting
to San Francisco so a lot of people ar