Flagler senior Briggs Hurley stands at the altar practicing Hebrew prayers. Overhead the wording in Hebrew translates into, “Know before whom you stand.” Behind him is a beautiful pane of handmade stained glass in vibrant colors.

Rabbi Mark Goldman, dressed immaculately, interrupts Hurley to admonish him for wearing shorts and flip flops to temple.

“Oh, we’re relaxed since Vatican II,” Hurley says with a grin, dismissing the comment with a wave. Rabbi Goldman rolls his eyes and shakes his head. Then he smiles.

If this were an ordinary conversation between a Rabbi and his Jewish student, the response would make no sense. But since Hurley is going to be attending Catholic Seminary to become a priest soon, the comment fits. What doesn’t fit is a Catholic student practicing Hebrew prayers under the direction of a Rabbi at Temple Bet Yam, a Reform Judaism Synagogue in St. Augustine.

It’s all part of a unique internship Hurley created for his senior year that is focused on a lofty goal the two men hold dear: greater tolerance in the world for paths to God.

Goldman says he and his intern are oddly “a match made in heaven.”

At Temple Bet Yam, Hurley has not only learned Hebrew prayers, religious history and
tradition, but the two have also created a special ceremony to mark his success. They are calling the ceremony “Brit Binah” meaning “Covenant of Understanding.”

“He’s Mr. Perfect,” Goldman said of Hurley. “He’s doing unbelievably well. He’s like a sponge. He is such a quick learner. Briggs is a citizen of the world. He came to Flagler College as a young man with an old soul.”

Hurley has become so proficient in Hebrew that he is currently singing in the choir at the Temple. His mother and grandmother, also devout Catholics, are attending services.

“My Catholic grandmother has no idea what’s going on, but she comes anyway to be supportive,” he jokes.

An Unusual Internship

The idea for the internship came up in the spring semester of 2009 when Hurley took Goldman’s Introduction to Judaism course and loved it. Hurley was eager to learn more about Judaism. “I’ve always been a proponent of inter-religious dialogue,” he said. “I wanted to do an internship in my final year, and I felt that Rabbi Mark and I had a great friendship.”

“We developed a rapport,” Goldman said. “But I had never heard of this. Briggs invented this. I was reluctant at first. No Catholic ever asked me this before. Then Briggs met with [Flagler Liberal Studies chair] Tim Johnson and came up with the syllabus. It was impressive and comprehensive.”

At first glance the two men’s lives may appear contradictory, but watching them interact, there is a profound respect and admiration between the two.

“He reminds me all the time that Jesus was born and died a Jew,” Hurley said. A few minutes later, Goldman repeats this very phrase. Hurley smiles at him and raises his eyebrows. The two men have an open and energetic rapport. “I have to take my vitamins before I come to see Rabbi Mark,” Hurley said.

Although they both come from different walks of life, they have much in common on their journey of faith. Both are lively and exuberant, are world travelers who speak French and have a passion for spirituality and family. They are excellent pianists and love classical music. Each has a staunch conviction about his faith and his commitment to the traditions of his religious upbringing. Both love to banter and share a quick wit and steadfast intelligence.

But Hurley is obviously on a much different path than Goldman, who has 43 years experience as a congregational Rabbi and who served as a chaplain during the Vietnam War.

Hurley, who is graduating after just three years with a dual major in religion and politics, is about to embark on a six-year commitment to Seminary College at Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland. Attending at the request of Bishop Victor Caleone, he will earn a master’s degree in philosophy and also theology.

Hurley said his family is supportive of his decision to become a priest. “My family was elated,” he explained. “It wasn’t just out of the blue. I have been talking about doing this since I was 7 years old.”

Building dialogue between religions

After visiting Flagler College as a guest speaker, Goldman was asked to teach a class as an adjunct instructor. The Rabbi was reluctant at first, but has now been teaching courses for the past five years.

“I love talking to college students,” he said. “It’s become a very rich experience. Students often come into the class with stereotypes about Jews.”

But rather than avoid conflict, Goldman provides an open forum for dialogue.

“I open up the class by asking students what they think of Jews,” he said.

Hurley and Goldman agree that better dialogue between religons is critical, and that goes to the heart of the intership Hurley created.

Goldman says he loves to empower people and believes that Hurley will make a terrific priest, partly because of that willingness to open dialogue and better understand others.

“This Father Hurley will go out with a new outlook into the world,” Goldman said. “He will carry a lantern of light, a new kind of lantern. That’s the reason I said yes to this internship.”

Look to the walls of J. Michael Butler’s office and you’ll learn pretty quickly about his research interests. Posters for Lynyrd Skynrd hang next to public signs from the segregation era. There’s a Robert E. Lee ceramic Jim Beam flask, a Frederick Douglass hand puppet and a vial of “authentic” Elvis sweat.

A history buff with a penchant for studying Dixie rock, Butler might be best known for his interest in civil rights, which has been his primary area of research over the years. This mild-mannered Southern gentleman with a heavy Alabama accent becomes animated when talking about history.

“It’s alive. It’s exciting. It’s based on the interpretation of the facts,” Butler said. “I’m engaging students in a topic that they don’t think is important. It’s American history – it’s not just black history.”

Butler, a new assistant professor of history who joined the Flagler faculty from South Georgia College, says his goal is to open students’ minds to how modern Southern history impacts Americans today.

Since graduating from University of Mississippi in 2001 with a doctorate in history, Butler has built on his dissertation work on the civil rights era to bring his research to a wider audience. Butler co-wrote “Victory After the Fall: The Memories of Civil Rights Activist H.K Matthews” in 2007.

Butler first met Rev. H. K. Matthews while he was doing research for his dissertation. It became apparent that race was not only an issue in his research, but also in his ability to do research on such a sensitive topic. His first challenge was to find African American activists, and his second was to get them to agree to talk to him.

“Most of my work is tearing down barriers,” Butler explained. “The Rev. Matthews wondered why a white boy from Alabama was calling him up asking him complicated questions.”

At first, Matthews would only agree to a very limited meeting with Butler. “We were supposed to talk for 30 minutes the first time we met,” he said. “Three hours later, we were still talking.”

The rest, as they say, is history. After Matthews saw Butler’s dissertation, he wanted Butler to work on his memoirs with him. Such an offer was a major compliment to Butler; he’s been fighting stereotypical assumptions about his accent for a long time, often having to tell people, “Don’t assume I share your prejudice.”

Butler continued to challenge issues of racial tension with his second book, “Beyond Integration: The Post-1964 Black Freedom Struggle in Pensacola, Florida,” which is under review with the University of Florida Press. The book will address social and racial tensions that took place after integration.

“Integration was not the end of the civil rights era,” said Butler. “Feelings intensify after it. The bigger battles didn’t happen in Pensacola until the 1970s. I wondered why.”

Like a good scholar, Butler sought primary research sources to answer that question. As expected, his search brought many challenges.

“I had to be creative in my research on this,” he said. “The newspapers locally intentionally played it down and downplayed the number of protestors. There wasn’t a lot there to work with, so I had to go to police files and legal documents.”

Many of the key activists that Butler sought to interview were already dead. A widow he had arranged an interview with canceled on him, saying the memories were too painful for her. He had prominent white community members hang up on him and refuse to speak to him. Fortunately, Matthews had kept audio recordings of meetings from the civil rights era and trusted Butler with them.

“This humanizes a historical era. These were real people going through this,” Butler said. He eventually was able to interview many important people relevant to the civil rights era, including former Florida Governor Rubin Askew.

Pensacola is an example of how many Southern cities dealt with sometimes hostile race relations. Butler says his hometown of Mobile, Ala., took a similar approach.

“Race relations in Mobile was a great unspoken. The racial tension there was swept under the mat,” Butler recalled. “How little I knew about the civil rights era when I entered graduate school. I’m not sure how you grow up in the South with such an important topic being ignored.

“It was very divisive. Some of my teachers had lived through it, and it was very painful for them. It was the moral issue of the day.”

Butler’s next research agenda turns to Southern rock and masculinity. He thinks pop culture can tell us a lot about Southern society. “Elements of race are always there,” he said. “It defines us as a region. You can’t understand civil rights, the Confederacy or Southern rock without looking at it.

“I want to know why people react to the song ‘Free Bird’ the way they do. Grown white men will hear that song in public and cry openly.”

Butler is as fired up about answering this research question as any other that he has addressed.

“I just love what I do,” Butler said. “One of the good things is that I wouldn’t change what I do for anything. I love to teach. I love to research. I love to write.”

All Butler’s work begs the question, “What does it mean to be Southern?” He said despite the controversy of his work, he still loves where he comes from.

“You can be from the South and still be proud of it,” he said.

Butler sees a major connection between his research and his ability to make history vibrant for students.

“I try not to divorce the two elements of teaching and researching. Anything I can use to engage the students, I use,” he said. “Things that are sensitive have a historical background. We have to understand that to get along.”