Interfaith practitioners from deeply committed faith communities often encounter strong opposition within their own communities. This is usually a reflection of insecurity, either in relation to a specific alternative religion, or indeed in relation to the wider human cultural context. It may also come from an obscurantism that believes that there is nothing “true,” nor of value to learn about or from, outside one’s own tradition.
Deserving of more regard though, is the fear often expressed that dialogue may undermine a particular faith commitment. However, while all real living encounter inevitably does involve risk (which is not at all necessarily a negative thing), my experience is that interreligious encounters actually strengthen the commitments of those who are faithfully and knowledgeably rooted in their respective traditions. In requiring one to be able to define and articulate one’s own commitments, one deepens one’s self-understanding.
There of course is the rub. Often those engaged in interfaith activity are not adequately knowledgeable and rooted in a particular tradition, and often interfaith relations in themselves serve such persons as an “alternative faith community,” which can even undermine the interests of true interfaith dialogue.
A challenge that is sometimes related to this phenomenon is the attitude that minimizes difference, to the point of viewing all religions as basically the same. Of course we are able to discern important shared values, principles, and even practices in the different religious traditions, but these do not make us all the same. Portraying different religions as the same prevents us from seriously learning from one another. It also manifests a cultural arrogance, for in claiming that we are all basically the same, one makes one’s own subjective understanding of one’s own faith tradition or heritage the sole criterion for a positive value judgment of others. Such an approach not only reflects the limitations of only being able to appreciate and respect those who are very much like oneself, but also minimizes the value of the diversity of human society and its various forms of spiritual expression.
Another challenge for interfaith dialogue comes from an almost diametrically opposed approach, from the world of post-modernism. This approach declares that each religion or culture is a completely self-contained system that expresses itself in a particular language and pattern of symbols that can only be understood in relation to other words and symbols that constitute the complete system. This leads to the claim that interfaith dialogue is impossible because the participants are never talking the same language or mean the same things.
There is merit to the argument that much is lost in translation whether verbal or cultural, and that we need to be wary of simplistic attempts in this regard. Nevertheless, those of us who are deeply engaged in interreligious dialogue will treat the above-mentioned theory similarly to the way Benjamin Franklin treated the postulates of Bishop Berkley—experience teaches us otherwise!
Anyone who is genuinely engaged in interfaith encounter knows that even if we do not always have the language, terminology, and experience to understand everything in another religious culture the way it is understood within itself, this does not mean that we cannot learn from one another.
So many of us involved in interfaith dialogue can testify to profound enrichment gained from dialogue with people of other faith traditions. Our experience repudiates the very idea that we are destined to have to live in exclusively different cultural, linguistic systems without being able to understand one another in any meaningful way—an idea which both falsely denies us the enrichment of such dialogue, as well as the promotion of true global understanding and well-being.
Finally let me refer to what is one of the biggest challenges for contemporary society as a whole and that is the violent abuse of religion that threatens peaceful coexistence everywhere. With it comes the question of what it is that makes this path attractive to so many. While there is no one simple answer to this question, it is clear that certain conditions create a climate that enables such mentalities to flourish. These include some obvious factors like economic and political marginalization. But no less important, if not more so, is the wounded psychology of those who feel that they lack the respect and value they crave. Because religion seeks to give meaning and purpose to who we are, it is inextricably bound up with the different components of human identity and plays a key role in nurturing identity when threatened (or perceived as such). However in contexts of alienation and conflict, religions not only provide support and succor; they can also provide a framework for self-righteousness and denigration of the other, enabling one group to see itself as the godly in conflict with diabolical forces, inevitably leading to a betrayal of their religion’s most sublime universal values.
Of course, when we are confronted with the violent abuse of religion as with all threatening violence, it is essential to take necessary steps for self-defense and paradoxically this may require the use of violence to combat violence. However it is not enough to be reactive; this challenge necessitates pro-active steps as well.
It is here that interreligious dialogue in particular can play such an important role. Reaching out to the other in an Abrahamic spirit of hospitality can play a critically valuable role in giving communities and their members a sense that they are welcome and respected by other communities, and help combat feelings of alienation and lack of respect that fuel violent reactions.
Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions present Abraham’s tent itself as a manifestation of this spirit, with its flaps raised so that sojourners from all four corners could find hospitality and welcome there. Genesis Chapter 18 opens describing Abraham sitting at the entrance to his tent “and he lifted up his eyes and saw and behold three men were standing in front of him; and he saw and ran towards them”… Abraham greets them and offers them hospitality—no questions as to their origins, beliefs, etc.
In the course of this encounter he discovers that they are divine messengers, as he is promised the wondrous birth of a son a year later.
However two of the three visitors still have work to do, both to warn of the pending doom of Sodom and Gomorrah and to rescue Lot and his family from it; and the next chapter opens with the words “and the two angels came to Sodom.” Asked one of the Hassidic masters, why does the text refer to the visitors only as ”men” regarding the loving and righteous Abraham; but concerning Sodom of all places, they are referred to as “angels.” And he answered, because Abraham didn’t need to be told that they were angels, because Abraham saw the angel in every human being.
That is the ultimate ideal of hospitality, and perhaps the greatest challenge for interreligious dialogue in our times, to facilitate the discovery of the divine presence in each and every person, all created in the divine image and to receive them accordingly.
