Arab Celebrities

Rima Fakih, the Lebanese-American, ‘liberal Muslim’ Miss USA from Michigan, has a fascinating interview at the religion site Patheos  revealing that she is surprise pretty much like most 24-year-old on the spiritual front. She’s a mash-up and she’s proud of it: “I’m Miss USA, not Miss Religion USA.” Read more after the break...
Fakih says in her interview that “Yes, we’re a Muslim family, but we’re also very cultured and we have a mixture of different religions. For example, my brother-in-law is Catholic, and my sister converted and my nephews are baptized. I have an uncle who just graduated and currently he’s a priest. He’s going to be transferred from Ohio to New York shortly, so I can’t wait to see him and my cousins… I even have two cousins here in New York City who are Jewish. As you can see, my family is just an amazing melting pot of wonderful religions and faiths.”

A graduate of a Catholic high school, she says, they celebrate Christmas, Easter and Ramadan at home. She may not be Miss Religion, but she and her family certainly cover the cultural/spiritual sense of “religion” exemplified by many Americans today: Inter-married and unconcerned with doctrinal divides. I would hold off, however, on equating this with being “cultured” as if that had to be set apart from being Muslim.

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