Two revolutionary and provocative minds will meet next Saturday as they debate both current and timeless issues, going head-to-head for four hours in a dialogue titled "Revolution and Religion: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion."

Bob Avakian, chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, and Cornel West, professor of philosophy and Christian practice at Union Theological Seminary, will spend an afternoon in Riverside Church discussing how religion relates to communism on Nov. 15.

The event, sponsored by The Bob Avakian Institute and Revolution Books, is supported by a large Host Committee, which includes many high-profile thinkers and firebrands such as activist Bill Ayers, RCP founding member Carl Dix, Chicago Theological Seminary Professor Theodore Jennings, and Columbia professors Saskia Sassen, Farah Griffin, Fredrick Harris, Carl Hart, Philip Kitcher, and Obery M. Hendricks, Jr.

Ahead of the event, committee members had varying—but high—hopes for what could come out of Avakian and West's dialogue.

Having worked closely with both Avakian and West, Dix said he sees the talk not just as a dialogue, but a gateway into different methodologies for approaching and discussing complex issues like the events in Ferguson, Missouri. Dix and West were recently arrested in Ferguson after attending in a "Weekend of Resistance" protest on Oct. 13.

"He [Avakian], a revolutionary communist together with a revolutionary Christian like Dr. West, can kind of show people a way to explore areas of disagreement while also getting into areas of agreement," Dix said. "But show them a way to get into that kind of discussion with mutual respect and intellectual integrity, and I think it will lead people to think deeply about what kind of people we need to be and the kind of world we need to live in, and the relation between those two things."

Dix also said that with two individuals coming from what appear to be dissimilar fields of study, their different approaches will have a unique effect on the audience.

"West will challenge not to be adapted to indifference, that you can't stand aside from this and say, 'Not my problem,' that you have to take some responsibility in relation to it," Dix said. "Avakian will be analyzing where it comes from and what are the transformations that people need to make to end these horrors that happen around the world, and in that way, I think the audience that is drawn to this will be both treated to a deep exploration of these questions, while also challenged to think about their role in relation to them."

Kitcher, the John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia, considers the event a way to raise awareness about both local and much larger global problems.

"I see the event as something that is going to raise consciousness about the depth of the political problems that are being ignored in the United States in the moment and to a large extent on the global scale," Kitcher said.

Kitcher said that the dialogue could influence awareness and dialogue of politically volatile issues like climate change, even if Avakian and West do not address it specifically next week.

"I think we live in a country that is, at the moment, politically extremely myopic," Kitcher said. "We are not facing out to global and local problems of inequality. We are not facing out to the deep problem of coming together and doing something about things like climate change. We are not facing up to the serious problems of poverty and neglect that are felt by people not only in this country but all around the world."

"These things are interwoven with one another, and I think that we only have a relatively limited amount of time to do something about it," Kitcher said.

Others on the host committee, like Jennings, view the dialogue as a potential stepping stone for further discussion between the larger groups West and Avakian each represent.

"What I see coming out of this dialogue is the possibility of an alliance between radical Christianity and revolutionary Marxism," Jennings said. "Both have been historically very significant forces for transformation in our history. The joining of those forces I think will strengthen each and give us a significant chance to move forward."

Jennings said that by "alliance," he means "recognizing common elements of what's wrong with the social order as we now experience it," and finding a mutual understanding of how to act on them.

Columbia students have also found a connection with the ideas acting behind the dialogue.

A flyer advertising the event was the subject of an Oct. 30 Spectator column by Luke Foster, CC '15, entitled "Religion and Revolution," in which Foster explained how his conservative Christian values overlapped with some of the radical philosophical ideas of the communist Avakian and the socialist West.

Although he said that "Karl Marx identifies Christianity as one of the biggest threats to his view of history precisely because it purports to answer the questions he raises," Foster, who is the president of the Veritas Forum's Columbia chapter, said he would like to be at Riverside Church to hear West and Avakian.

While Foster said that he doesn't think he could practically work with a socialist like West, he would see eye to eye on Christianity's prophetic power to confront injustice.

"I think one of the beautiful things about a university and that kind of community is that you get to expose yourself to different ideas, and I love having that opportunity," Foster said. "I always try to make time for that."

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