Interfaith Dialogue

Learning Objectives

 
To define the concept of interfaith dialo
gue
To spell out the conditions to make any
interfaith dialogue successful
Key Understanding
• Knowledge of the concept of interfaith
dialogue is key to understanding how a
an interfaith dialogue can be successful.

Key Question
• What is interfaith dialogue?
• How can we make interfaith dialogue
successful?
Interfaith Dialogue
• Many parts of the world have been characterized by
religious conflict or by tensions that are religiously
justified.
• Religion and violence seem to go hand in hand
because of religion’s inherent social boundaries and
because religious ideas are often employed to instill
religious commitment, organize resistance and
encourage martyrdom.
• Institutions around the world have responded to
religious conflict by initiating interfaith dialogue as a
way of fostering understanding between religions,
building peace in the region, and even facilitating
community development.
Interfaith Dialogue
• The involvement of young people in interfaith
dialogue is deemed central because they do not only
“share in the problems… but they also inherit the
responsibility to sustain the peace building effort in
the region.”
• Interfaith activities should become part of young
people’s religious socialization because they afford
“gradual education” for student to advance beyond
“mere tolerance” toward “true respect from
understanding.”
• Interfaith dialogue is about “persons of different
faiths meeting to have a conversation.”
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
1. Individuals must believe that religion has a
constructive role to play in resolving conflicts.
2. Dialogues are avenues to change hostile
attitudes towards other religions in being able to
find commonalities.
3. Interfaith dialogue in itself must be seen as an
avenue for political change.
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
• Concrete implementation of the three conditions:
 Working with religious stakeholders, Steele
has suggested that peacebuilding
stakeholders can take different roles of
observer, educator, advocate, and
intermediary.
 Peacebuilding aims to prevent war, resolve
existing conflicts, or help in postwar
reconstruction.
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
• Concrete implementation of the three conditions:
 Liecthy puts forward mitigation as an
approach to temper the existing conflicts
between Catholics and Protestants.
 Mitigation is the “capacity to lessen or
eliminate possible negative outcomes of a
belief, commitment, or action – while still
upholding it.”
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
• Concrete implementation of the three conditions:
 Gibbs, an Episcopalian priest, believes that
their global reach lies in being able to partner
with grassroots organizations to facilitate
dialogue through the methodology of
appreciative inquiry (AI).
 AI values personal experiences and diverse
religious traditions as a way of building
interpersonal relationships.
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
• Concrete implementation of the three conditions:
 Forward, a Methodist minister, suggests that
the main obstacle to interfaith understanding
is the exclusivist mindset of religious
individuals that treat people of other faiths as
inferior or even erroneous.
 He calls for a change not just in terms of
behavior but also theological thinking in
examining one’s own religious assumptions.
Conditions to Make Interfaith
Dialogue Successful
• Concrete implementation of the three conditions:
 Tyagananda, a Hindu monk, notes that the
motives of participants in an interfaith
dialogue should be checked against attempts
at trying to convert or replace the religion of
others and finds the dialogue models of
mutuality or acceptance as desirable.
 Mutuality “is based on the recognition that
religions of the world are equal partners”
through which relationship cooperation may
be achieved while acceptance affirms the
truth claims of other religions.
 Activity
Find a person from your school or community and
ask the following questions. Feel free to add more
questions as needed. Based on your informant’s
answers, identify the stereotypes or ideas other
people have on his/her religion.
1. What is your faith?
2. What is the most essential or important aspect
of your faith?
3. What role does your faith play in your life?
4. Have you encountered any form of
discrimination because of your faith? How did
you deal with it?
5. My religion is (fill in the blank). What thoughts
do you have about it?