Faith Forum opens can of metaphysical worms

The only rule: "You must respect the person you're talking to, even if you don't respect his or her beliefs," said Cory Derringer, vice president of the University of Northern Iowa Freethinkers and Inquirers.


That statement set the tone Wednesday night for UNIFI's first Faith Forum. Held in the Hemisphere Lounge of Maucker Union, Faith Forum brought students and community members together to discuss beliefs and to answer the question: "Why pray?"


"(Faith Forum) is an opportunity for believers and non-believers to talk about religion in a small group and to do so in a respectful atmosphere," Derringer said.


Derringer opened the forum by stating his belief about prayer.


"Does prayer have a real tangible, measurable effect on objective reality?" he asked. "I see no reason to believe it does."


Event co-organizer Mikayla Graber followed with her own belief.


"Prayer is a way to speak to God, to make requests, to build a relationship," she said. "You have to communicate with someone in order to have a relationship with them and praying is a form of communication used to build that relationship."


Participants were then broken into small groups for question-based discussion.


"If you pray for 10,000 things and you get about a 30-percent success rate, would that have happened if you hadn't prayed for those things?" asked Seth Coster, UNIFI director of finance.


"What we're praying for is: God do your will," said Kevin Wilkening, pastor at Cedar Heights Baptist Church. "If what we're looking for is results – a genie in the bottle; God pop out and grant what (we) want – then we're not doing what (God) calls prayer, which is lining our wills up with (his) will. If we were to do that, we would have a 100-percent success rate whatever the results. The prayer has been answered."


"Why pray then if God does his will regardless?" Coster asked.


Wilkening explained that, from his point of view, prayer wasn't about asking for things, but about understanding the will of God.


Although most group discussions focused on prayer, participants were free to talk about anything relating to religion or beliefs.

"We wanted to have discussions between religious people and non-religious people. Just a sharing of ideas, so that people can understand issues from another person's point of view," Graber said. "If I surround myself with other Christians, I know that they're not going to ask me hard questions that make me think about why I believe what I believe."


Graber said she would like to see more perspectives represented at the next Faith Forum.

"Right now, it has been a Christian/non-Christian type of perspective. I think people of any type or with a belief on any issue should feel free to come and share what they think," Graber said.


The next Faith Forum will be held March 24 in the Hemisphere Lounge at 8 p.m.