j. gordon melton. in our quest to understand the importance of the religious diversity, we're at the chicago theological seminary on the university of chicago campus and with us is dr. j. gordon melton the director of the institute for the study of america religion. now gordon could you tell us how important it's really is to understand and appreciate religious diversity? >> i could offer several reflections on that. one is the simple fact that it's there, if we're students of religion and how it functions in the society, then we should be aware that people are very, very diverse in the way that they express their response to the divine. we all do it differently and that leads directly to the kind of moral imperative that's before us. our neighbors believe differently, behave differently than we do. if we are to have a whole community, if we are to bring people together in a cohesive world that can live without violence and without the high crime rates with all of the negative things that we have. one very important building block of that kind of community is knowledge and understanding of people who are different than we are, but who never the less share the same