The Role of Faith Communities and Leaders in Shaping Public Discourse
An interfaith dialogue at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine: Episcopal dean Winnie Varghese and NYU Islamic Center chaplain Khalid Latif examine how faith shapes — and is shaped by — public life.
Why we picked this
Two of New York's most institutionally embedded religious leaders talking not about theology but about how faith communities actually function as civic actors. The Cathedral and NYU Islamic Center both operate at major intersections of the city's religious and secular life, which makes this a dialogue with real stakes.
At a moment when religion’s relationship to public life is among the most contested questions in American politics, the Very Rev. Winnie Varghese and Imam Khalid Latif sit down at St. John the Divine to examine it directly. Varghese serves as a canon at the Cathedral, one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world and one of New York’s most prominent progressive religious institutions. Latif is Executive Director and Chaplain of the Islamic Center at New York University, a position that places him at the center of Muslim student life across one of the country’s most complex urban campuses.
The conversation is part of “Dialogues on Divinity,” a series structured around genuine exchange rather than presentation. The question at the center — how do faith communities shape public discourse, and how does public discourse shape them? — has immediate traction in a political environment where religious identity is simultaneously invoked as civic resource and wielded as partisan weapon. Both speakers lead institutions that have taken visible positions on immigration, racial justice, and civic inclusion, which means their dialogue carries the weight of their own institutional choices.
St. John the Divine provides an appropriately layered setting: a cathedral that has served as venue for AIDS memorials, jazz concerts, refugee advocacy, and interfaith ceremony over its long history of engagement with New York’s social crises. The event is pay-what-you-can, with $15 suggested.