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MANHATTAN, KS — On Tuesday, August 27 at the Student Union of Kansas State University. Michael Wesch, a Professor of Anthropology for K-State and the host of the World Religions Festival event, invited several notable figures to gather together and discuss, sing, and share their practices and religions ranging from Hinduism, Islam, Cao Đài, and more.
Across the world, from China to Thailand to communities across Manhattan Kansas, various speakers of faith came that night to enlighten and show the students of K-State their traditions and life stories. Yet while the event was about the introduction of various cultures and their faith, the goal of this event was to bring the community of Manhattan together and learn that they are not so different after all.
“I just love that I was able to bring those people on the stage with me,” Wesch said. “These are the people we share the planet with. When we're just here in Manhattan, you might not remember just how different all the ideas out there are, and all the different ideas about what a meaningful life is. But to bring everybody here, you not only see those slight differences, but it also reminds you of our similarities.”
"We had people who, in other circumstances throughout history, have actually, like, potentially been at war with each other... being able to bring those people on stage in a celebratory atmosphere, and say, like, we actually, like, we all really like each other." - Michael Wesch
Students and staff filled and packed Forum Hall in K-State’s student union to witness this festival where afterwards when the event was over, many gathered still long into the night to communicate and chat about what they learned and discovered.
Following the event, President of the anthropology club Jenna Fischli expressed the joy of knowledge that one can gain when coming together to understand one another.
“There are people of different faiths and different cultures all around us at K-State.” Fischli said. “I just feel like everybody should at least get a little bit of a rundown of everything…Every culture and faith has really good information and values that I think everybody should hear about.”
"Events like this are really impactful, bringing awareness to different religions, ones that aren't just the top five or so that we always learn about in different history classes."- Jenna Fischli
Most notably, the event allowed many students to leave the event with a better appreciation for the people of the world. Some like Emily Steinlage, freshman in elementary education, and Amala John, Junior in computer science, who are students at K-State, share that the interesting similarities among religions and emphasized the shared human experience, concluding that human beings are beautiful and diverse and that people often hold more in common than they realize.
“Honestly, between all the different religions. You pull pieces out that everyone can relate to.” John said. “It's just really interesting. I feel like there's a lot of stereotypes about Catholicism that I've had to deal with as a Catholic…But I'm glad that tonight we were at least able to show the beauty of it, at least the performance of the song, and just a short little spiel about our faith. I was happy to just show people what drew me to Catholicism.”
“It's just so interesting, especially to hear about a religion from someone who actually believes it, instead of just learning from a textbook or something like that. It's really just eye-opening, and you can really see the beauty in that religion more when you're learning about it from people.” - Amala John
Wesch says that he and K-State had built up great relationships with 10 different religious partners. Plans to expand the number and host it annually in different countries, such as Korea orTaiwan, have been talked about. “The type of connections we can build, having it international, and then bringing it back here could be really special.” Wesch said.
"If we could all just invoke that sense of what it is like to be 10 years old again, and just go out there and explore the world, then the world is your playground.” - Michael Wesch
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