BJC’s Walker, other faith leaders respond to hearing on 'radicalization' in U.S. Muslim community

(from the Web site of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty)

WASHINGTON — Just after Congress convened the first in a series of hearings examining "radicalization" in the American Muslim community, Baptist Joint Committee Executive Director J. Brent Walker and a group of faith leaders responded with a statement calling fellow citizens and political leaders to the “bedrock American principles” of pluralism and religious freedom, mutuality and respect.

In the joint statement, released at a Capitol Hill press conference following the hearing, religious leaders urged “elected representatives to act — not against a single, unfairly maligned group, but against all forms of violence and extremism that endanger our security.”

“As faith leaders, we are committed to building a future in which extremism is an artifact of the past, and where religious identity is not the cause of hostility but of acceptance,” the statement said. “This country’s spiritual, religious and ethnic diversity serves to enrich our public discourse. When our public discourse is enriched, extremism is seldom given quarter.”

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