Interfaith dialogue

Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious dialogue, refers to efforts made by members of different religious backgrounds to better understand each other by identifying the beliefs, practices, and priorities they have in common. The term covers a broad range of activities aimed at educating people about faith traditions other than their own. The goal is to limit conflict between religious groups and promote peace.

Background

While religion is often blamed in disputes between groups of people, it is difficult to find consensus on how much religion contributes to disagreements and wars. In the ancient world, battles were often fought for the honor of both a human political ruler and a god, or for a ruler who was treated as a god. Prior to the seventeenth century, religion and political identities were more closely intertwined, with many countries having a national religion and religious nationalism common in many societies. In Europe, the Protestant Reformation became a source of decades of bloody religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. One of the deadliest conflicts of this era was the Thirty Year’s War (1618-1648), which devastated large swathes of Central Europe, caused hundreds of thousands of combat deaths, and subjected civilian populations to atrocities, famine, and widespread disease. While religion certainly played a factor in the shaping of political alliances and, many of these wars were also fought for power, wealth, land, or other reasons not directly related to religion. Any discussions about differences between religions were more likely to be focused on convincing people to change their viewpoint, or convert to a different faith.

In contemporary times, greater emphasis is placed on separating worldly rulers from religious deities and promoting the separation of church and state. However, some countries continue to have a state religion that exerts significant influence over how the country is governed and operated. In addition, people sometimes act based on religious viewpoints that differ from many other followers of that same religion. This can result in issues between faith groups. For example, the September 11, 2001, terror attacks against the United States were carried out by men who were acting on extreme interpretations of Islamic beliefs that are not shared by the majority of Muslims. However, there is a human tendency to generalize such extreme beliefs to all members of a faith tradition, which led to a post-9/11 surge in Islamophobia both in the United States and around the world. Interfaith dialogue is an important part of helping to diffuse tensions that result from misunderstandings about the faith beliefs of other religions.

Overview

Efforts at interfaith dialogue have occurred for centuries. For example, Jews, Christians, and Muslims—who all trace the origins of their religions to the biblical patriarch Abraham—have engaged in periodic discussions about the similarities and differences between their faiths. Sixteenth-century Muslim Emperor Akbar the Great ruled the Mughal Empire in India by promoting unity and tolerance between the region’s numerous faiths. Interfaith dialogue has also taken place between branches of the same faith that hold different interpretations of their religious texts and teachings, such as different denominations of Christianity.

Through discussion and education, participants in interfaith dialogue strive to better understand the history, holy texts, prayers, and practices of other faith traditions. This understanding, combined with the relationship-building that occurs when people share conversation, serves several purposes. It helps overcome misunderstandings and outright errors in people’s perception of other religions. It reveals the things different traditions have in common. Hearing people from a faith tradition talk about their personal faith also helps to remove the tendency to see things as “us versus them.”

Those who facilitate interfaith dialogue rely on guidelines to help the process work. These include:

• Participants must avoid any attempts to defend or promote their own religion or the concepts of religion in general.
• Participants must be open to revealing their religious practices and defining the key principles of their faith tradition.
• Participants focus on expressing how their faith is present in their everyday lives and not on the theology or philosophy of religion.
• Participants should be aware that the experience could result in changes to their ways of thinking that could even result in them choosing to convert to a different faith practice.
• Participants must remember that peace is the ultimate purpose. Therefore, conversations should be calm and respectful.

Interfaith dialogue can take place in several different ways. It can be as simple as someone sincerely researching the beliefs of a tradition to which they do not belong, or two people of different faiths having a conversation about their beliefs. Groups of people may gather once or regularly to discuss their faith. The dialogue can involve many religious traditions and can occur on local, national, or international levels.

Interfaith dialogue can be complicated. It is not uncommon for one religious tradition to have beliefs that are incompatible with those of another. For instance, many followers of Hinduism believe there are many paths to the ultimate goal of becoming one with the supreme being, Brahman. Christians, on the other hand, believe eternal life in heaven is only possible for those who believe God came to earth as Jesus Christ, and that Jesus died to remove the sins of humanity. Despite issues like this, interfaith dialogue attempts to develop understanding and build on the things different religions have in common instead of the differences. For example, Pope Francis put forth considerable effort in the twenty-first century to promote interfaith dialogue between the Catholic Church and religions across the globe. He also began using interfaith dialogue to find common values such as compassion, resilience, and justice to address climate change issues.

Some people believe that interfaith dialogue is essential in a world where migration is diversifying the population of many countries. They believe promoting discussion and understanding is the best way for multi-religious countries to reduce conflict and discrimination. To help this process, a number of faith traditions have created documents to help direct their members participating in interfaith dialogue. These include Nostra Aetate, a document created by the Roman Catholic Church in 1965, A Common Word Between Us and You, written in 2007 by dozens of Muslim scholars, the Presbyterian Church USA’s publication “Interfaith Guidelines on Dialogue,” and “Called to be Neighbors and Witnesses,” published by the United Methodist Church. A number of organizations, such as the National Council of Churches, have created departments dedicated to interfaith discussion. Other organizations were formed exclusively for this process, including the Interfaith Center of New York, which was established following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Not everyone agrees interfaith dialogue is useful, however. Some people feel the practice’s emphasis on finding ways to avoid conflict causes people to compromise on important aspects of faith. For example, assertions that the many versions of a supreme being worshiped in different traditions all represent the same god raises concerns for people who believe these views are incompatible and cannot represent a single deity. Others feel they cannot engage in discussions that imply acceptance of certain practices. For instance, traditions teach that certain behaviors are sinful and that members of that tradition have a religious obligation to help the practitioner overcome the sin. This would be incompatible with interfaith dialogue.

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