The Broken Wings of Lebanon

The Broken Wings of Lebanon October 28, 2006

Ghassan Rubeiz


Ten weeks after the summer war, Lebanon looks like a bird healing its broken wings.
The fragile Lebanese state has always suffered from internal disunity, fratricidal neighbors and Western hegemony. Lebanon is now trying to appease the US and Europe on one side, and Iran and Syria on the other. Hizbullah accuses the Lebanese government of excessive dependence on the US. But the irony is that this militia is itself dependent on Iran and Syria.

During the summer war, the current Lebanese government efficiently negotiated a cease fire and UN resolution 1701 empowering the Lebanese state authority. The government is now trying to lead a vast recovery after the staged but not perfected Israeli withdrawal. Thus far, the US government, the Arab League and the international community are satisfied with the dramatic cessation of hostilities, the progress in humanitarian relief and the partial recovery of businesses. Over ten thousand UN soldiers patrol the international security zone at the southern border and support the Lebanese national army that has recently deployed there

UN Resolution 1701 is proving difficult to fully implement. The central problems that ignited this summer’s war remain. There are signs of skepticism from various stakeholders. Donor countries are concerned with the strong political opposition to the government. Prisoner exchange between Israel and Lebanon has not taken place. Hizbullah, retaining its arms and its mobility, moves north of the Israel-Lebanese border. Israel flies over of Lebanese air space to monitor possible cross-border shipment of arms to Hizbullah. Israel views the summer war as a beginning of a longer military conflict with Iran.

Recovery will take time, if it continues. A million Israeli cluster bombs remain unexploded barring 200, 000 people in the south from returning home and injuring two to three children a day. The Lebanese Mediterranean coast is ecologically threatened with a massive oil spill. Lebanon faces a budget deficit of 42 billion dollars. Unemployment has risen from 13 % before the war to about 20%.

Public opinion is divided. In the south, people tend to embrace the resistance; “the resistance” is a code word for the militia. In the rest of Lebanon, sentiments about militias range from skeptical to supportive. However, people are sobered as the realization of the cost of destruction sinks in. Boosting the credibility of Hizbullah, General Michel Aoun, a secular and popular Christian leader, has joined in supporting this militia in demanding political reforms and the formation of a national unity government.

The country is in transition. If Lebanon’s democracy is to survive, its politicians must unite as they face external threats. Civil war leaders who still dominate politics are not used to reconciliation. After each debacle, party leaders indulge in blame.

The key to Lebanon’s political future is the status of Hizbullah. Hizbullah is complex. It is a militarized movement, a party with socialist leanings, a provider of services, a tribal structure and a national movement of liberation from corruption and hegemony. As an ally of Iran and Syria, and as a popular resistance model for the Arab world, Hizbullah has become a regional symbol.

Hizbullah is also an example of a new and growing trend in non-classical, international warfare. This movement stands as a prototype of grassroots insurgency that relies on civilian protection in facing traditional armies of asymmetrical power. Out of contagious anger and desperation civilians defend Hizbullah fighters with a human shield. Civilians also support the insurgency with ethnic affinity, endless recruits, logistics, human services, and an ideology of martyrdom

Demilitarization of Hizbullah is partially linked to the depth of Lebanese domestic reform and to the future of the regional peace process with Israel. The demilitarization is also linked to the international community’s treatment of Syria and Iran, Hizbullah’s external allies.

Today, an insecure Iranian regime seeks empowerment through nuclear power. In the early seventies, Israel was first in the region to link national security with the possession of the atomic bomb. The Israeli military ascendance over the last six decades, its territorial expansion in Arab lands and its symbiotic alliance with the US have created a military asymmetry in the region that is provocative to Iran and its regional allies.

The Syrian regime demands that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights and Palestinian territories. Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in 1967 and has been under mild US sanctions for some time. Syria tarnished its international reputation by its extended and abusive military presence in Lebanon. Its current support of Hizbullah and Hamas does not bring this country many friends.

The US/Israeli media assault on Syria and Iran has had an almost magical counter productive effect. The assault makes these insecure regimes more credible and their leaders charismatic. Regime change in the Middle East is best done from within; it takes time and positive intercultural interaction with the silent majority. This social change approach to politics sounds strange to current Administration experts in Washington.

The US approach to Lebanon follows the same fragmented and inconsistent policy we have observed in Iraq and elsewhere in the region. The Middle East conflicts in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Israel, Syria and Lebanon are interconnected. The solutions to these conflicts require a simultaneous and comprehensive approach rather than a battery of separate approaches to each conflict. Right now, the US is desperate for a solution to its quagmire in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it ignores Iran’s potential help as a border country. The Persian state would be more cooperative if given the attention it craves, economic incentives and an elevated standing in the political power hierarchy of the region. Similarly, Syria seems to be willing to cooperate with the US and Israel on Lebanon and all other issues if it receives its Golan Heights from Israel.

If these Syrian and Iranian claims are met their unconditional support of Hamas and Hizbullah would change. When Syria and Iran jointly encourage Hamas to recognize Israel, renounce violence and negotiate for peace Hamas would oblige. A Palestinian state could then be negotiated along the 1967 borders. Israel would then achieve a full regional normalization with the Arab world.

The American public expects a sea change (not “adapting” or “change in tactics” as the President recently opined) in US Middle East policy after this month’s mid-term election. Will this change lead to a US regional integrated approach to the Middle East? Will this new policy encourage direct talks with the “enemy”? Will there be at least a faint admission that reliance on force to guide foreign policy is misguided?

“Staying the course” in this US Middle East policy has proven disastrous, but “cut and run” is also problematic. What is needed is a new foreign policy in response to the region’s aspirations for self determination, peace and economic recovery.

Democracy evolves with increased stability, justice and industrialization. Real peace in Lebanon will only come about through a comprehensive settlement of Middle East conflicts.

Meaningful interfaith dailogue faces several hurdles

Daily Star Commentary

Meaningful interfaith dialogue faces several hurdles



Christianity, Judaism and Islam have a great challenge to limit the growing sectarian tensions that fuel low-intensity conflict as well as full-scale wars. Is interfaith dialogue relevant to local and international bridge-making?

Interfaith dialogue is a search for common ground in truth, values and interests. But there are rules for dialogue and there is practice wisdom. To start with, local respect for expertise is paramount. It is assumed that the most credible experts on Islam are Muslims and the same for other religions. To illustrate, Pope Benedict XVI has defined jihad in Islam in a simplistic way. The dominant writing of Western experts on Arabs and on Islam is too subjective and often negative.
Interfaith requires living experience in other cultures and positive sharing in the environment of other faiths. No amount of sophistication in theology or academia is a substitute for enduring and genuine contact with other cultures and religions.

Dialogue is not about scoring points or moving people away from their beliefs. The focus is not to teach but to learn, not to impress but to empathize and identify with the other. Dialogue requires personal authenticity, active listening, warm nonverbal communication and subtle linguistic exchange.

More rules. No faith is excluded as unworthy of dialogue, including people outside monotheism and even "nonbelievers." The point is that spirituality is not the monopoly of people of dogma. Dialogue enthusiasts in Christianity and Islam are expected to discourage their colleagues from campaigns of proselytism. Put differently, extreme evangelists are not in the business of dialogue. Extremists of all religions consider interfaith dialogue misguided. Interfaith is not welcomed in communities of restricted freedom.

Dialogue is hard work, but when there is progress the participants get on a spiritual "high." Often, what make dialogue frigid are the actors: Too much dialogue has been assigned to celebrities, politicians or hard-line religious authorities.

Dialogue agencies have been frustrated in their work. The reasons for the failure of interfaith dialogue are too complex. Superiority stands out. Around the world, at an early age, children are taught that their God is the best there is. Other people's Gods are often suspect or imperfect. Ironically, as a result of narrow-minded religious pedagogy, people end up worshipping three distinct monotheist Gods. There is an articulated and paralyzing fear and possessiveness among high-power religious and political authorities that once the process of questioning the scripture leads to the unraveling of the basic system of faith, chaos is the outcome.

Moreover, in a world of growing political turmoil, extremists "steal the show." While conservatives slow dialogue due to fear of unraveling, radical political groups create inter-religious tensions that makes the social climate of dialogue hostile. Terrorists "dialogue" with violence, seeking inter-religious contact. Moderate preachers do not receive their share of the media's attention. Violence in religion comes also in much more subtle ways. In the West, some churches run an industry of fear and anxiety, praying for apocalyptic war and proliferating inflammatory rhetoric about other religions and civilizations.

Ironically, another dialogue barrier is globalization. Sermon's fire and fury are no longer addressed primarily to the local church or the local mosque. What a Western priest says about Islam and Muslims in Chicago is heard in Cairo and New Delhi the same day. Similarly, angry Muslim preachers in Kashmir or Karachi address Christians around the globe through cable channels. Real wars are nowadays fought on the international screen. The summer war in Lebanon and Israel fueled religious hatred around the world.

Finally, among barriers to dialogue is the fluctuating relation of the center to the extreme in religious communities. The lines between moderation and extremism are often hazy and dependent on the level of insecurity of the community and who decides what is mainline. The trend is for each religious community to affirm moderation and distance itself from extremists. Mainline Christians distance themselves from extreme Evangelicals. Similarly, Muslims distance themselves from suicide bombers who target civilians. But still, non-Muslims complain to moderate Muslims that they are not loud enough in their criticism of their extreme side. Reciprocally, Muslims ask Christians to watch extreme Evangelicals who are growing in influence in Western society. For their part, Jewish dialogue spokespersons are often challenged to listen to Palestinian suffering.

Practical dialogue has proven to be more effective than formal theological dialogue. Over the last two centuries, immense religious resources have been used overseas to advance the well-being of people through education, health and development projects. Egalitarian partnerships between donors and local community leaders transform foreign aid from a charity to a process of empowerment.

An alternative opportunity for reconciliation among monotheistic religions may lie at their historical roots, and not in their strategies of moderation. Religious institutions, like all social structures, tend over the passage of time to lose some of the core values of their original tenants. Early Christianity has carried the torch of unconditional love, forgiveness and personal spiritual renewal. Christianity has best been exemplified by the life of Jesus of Nazareth. But over the years, Christianity has been Hellenized, then Europeanized, and in recent centuries, due to proliferation of televangelism, it has become too Westernized. Critics of the modern Church today observe an institution that is too burdened with dogma and too distant from original Christian tenants.

Institutional Islam, meanwhile, has not escaped the impact of politics. It is surprising to observe today that Muslims are so conflicted about freedom of interpretation of their faith. To what extent is the dominant fear of open interpretation of "the Word" in Islam an artifact of politics?

In sum, a new ecumenical paradigm of dialogue might be found in the historical relations of the three monotheistic sister religions, rather in their adapting of their contemporary hierarchies. A new era of interfaith dialogue requires the birth of a new framework of teaching religion, a new way to practice dialogue and an affirmative perspective of the complementarities of faiths.

Ghassan Michel Rubeiz, a Lebanese American, is former secretary for the Middle East at the Geneva-based World Council of Churches. He wrote this commentary for The Daily Star.

Do we need interfaith dialogue?

Do we need Interfaith Dialogue?

Ghassan Michel Rubeiz, October 6, 2006
Guest Lecture : George Washington University, a sociology class


Among world religions, the three monotheist faiths are the most politicized and conflict prone. Christianity, Judaism and Islam have the greatest challenge to reconfigure their relations to reduce the growing sectarian tension that fuels low intensity conflict as well as full scale wars.

Interfaith dialogue is a search for common grounds in shared elements of truth, values and interests. Genuine interaction among representatives of religious communities is often a step in healing and reconciliation. Discussion of interfaith issues may produce symbolic compromises of practical value. On the local community level, Christians, Muslims and Jews have occasionally cooperated as children of Abraham. Dialogue may contribute to practical political solutions. Irish Protestants and Catholics found peace through dialogue. Dialogue may reach theological breakthroughs or new approaches to history. In recent years, after considering the divisive historical debate linguistic rather than theological the many confessions of the 15 million Christians in the Middle East reunited in an ecumenical Conference of Churches

Interfaith dialogue varies in intensity and formality. For example, Christians and Jews have developed structures of ongoing dialogue. The Judeo-Christian culture is a background for communication and reciprocity among the two faiths; American Christians tend to emphasize the connection between the Bible and the Jewish Torah. The Holocaust suffering reinforces intellectual, emotional and spiritual exchange between people of overlapping biblical and cultural heritage. Solidarity over Israel is a dominant feature in Western Christian/Jewish dialogue.

In the Middle East, Asia and Africa Christians dialogue with Muslims informally through visits during holidays. Informal exchange occurs daily in communities of diverse religious communities. This experiential daily contact helps cement relations among people in a natural and lasting way. Formal Christian Muslim dialogue also takes place. This form of exchange is active in countries where Christians and Muslims are sharing common concerns. For example, Lebanese Muslims and Christians dialogue about politics, intermarriage, modernity and identity issues. The Beirut based Middle East Council of Churches has spearheaded many interfaith dialogue encounters over the last three decades and it has demonstrated the positive results of practical dialogue through social service to communities of all backgrounds.

There are many skeptics of interfaith dialogue. For some, dialogue is an exercise of diluting the faith and sidelining basic existential socio economic issues. Another threat to dialogue is attitudinal. Islam accepts Christianity and Judaism as sister religions. Regrettably, the “two sisters” do not reciprocate with Islam on this basic position. Despite the subtle rejection, Christian and Jewish theologians have had no hesitation in discussing social issues, politics and theology of cooperation and liberation with Muslims.

Interfaith crises bring the issue of relations among religions to public attention. The controversial speech of Pope Benedict XVI has stirred emotions and invited commentary around the world. Critics of the Pope argue that his message to Muslims is provocative and counterproductive. Defenders of the Pope explain that the Pontiff was eager to challenge Muslims candidly about their position on violence. Vatican spokespersons are now calling for “dialogue with teeth”; reminding the world that His Holiness finds classical interfaith dialogue too passive, given the urgency of the world situation.
Is aggressive dialogue more effective? Could there be other remedies? Both sides of the controversy of the pope’s speech have ignored the critical relevance of methodology of inter religious dialogue. Had the Pope addressed Muslims in a different way would he have reached them better?

What are the protocols of dialogue?

There are some principles of successful interfaith dialogue. Like military combat, interfaith dialogue has rules of style and has well developed wisdom of practice. Regrettably, the rules of inter religious dialogue are not formalized, agreed upon or well known to the public. The following are selective and illustrative ideas of the growing ethics of inter religious dialogue.

Respect for local expertise
It is assumed that the most credible experts on Islam are Muslims and the same for other religions and their respective experts. Pope Benedict has defined Jihad in Islam in a simplistic way and has assumed that Muslims are less prone to integrate reason with faith than Christians. Western experts on Arabs and on Islam dominate the field of world expertise. Western history is loaded with subjective and pejorative analysis of Arabs, Muslims, Turks, Middle Easterners, Near Easterners and people of the Levant or of the “Proche Orient”. Western study of the Middle East is called “Orientalism”. To read more on this subject look for Edward Saeed’s works. Saeed argues that politically powerful societies have for too long subjectively and insensitively defined for the poor and the weak their religion, their history, their culture, their psychology and even their destiny.

Existential knowledge
Interfaith requires living experience in other cultures and deep sharing of positive experiences in the environment of other faiths. No amount of sophistication in theology or academia is a substitute for existential knowledge of other people’s faiths in the context of their cultures.

Interfaith dialogue not advocacy
Dialogue is not about preaching, scoring points or moving people away from their basic beliefs. Advocates in dialogue are easily recognizable. The temptation to score points or win an argument is great, but this attitude is dysfunctional and it is often what slows down interfaith dialogue and what makes genuine exchange difficult.

Learning expected on both sides
The focus of dialogue is not to teach but to learn, not to conquer intellectually but to empathize and identify with the other. Style of dialogue requires personal authenticity, sensitivity in active listening, in body language and in choice of words.

Inclusive dialogue
No faith is excluded as unworthy of dialogue, including people outside monotheism and even “non believers” in God or confirmed agnostics. Some Monotheists who practice dialogue tend to take a condescending attitude toward non believers or toward people who find solace in doubt, comfort in theological skepticism, normalcy in mixed confessional perspectives and meaning in theological “deafness”. The point is that spirituality is not the monopoly of people of dogma. Almost all people have some yearning for the divine, for symbols, for the ambiguities of life or for the spiritual domain. The fact that some atheists have no place for religion in their life does not disqualify them from being active partners for interfaith dialogue. The mere respect for “religious exiles” may draw them back to a comfortable zone of communication on spirituality.


Proselytism discouraged
Committed people of faith are usually excited about their beliefs. They are driven to share their convictions with others. However, conviction does not always translate into passion to share personal beliefs. In Judaism and in certain Islamic sects, like Sufism and the Druze community, there is no such drive to convert others. A dialogue forum calls for mutual respect of other faiths.

Dialogue enthusiasts in Christianity and Islam are expected to discourage their colleagues from aggressive campaigns of proselytism. Put differently, evangelists are not in the business of dialogue. Evangelists consider interfaith dialogue misguided. Interfaith agents are also not welcomed in communities of restricted freedom of thought.

Dialogue positive atmosphere
Interfaith dialogue is expected to be a positive experience. It is not rewarding to do dialogue in secret or as a duty. When there is progress in dialogue the participants get on a spiritual high because they experience a rare moment of self realization. Often, what makes dialogue frigid is the trend to assign dialogue to celebrities and to politicians.


When it works dialogue seems to generate results among mixed communities but unfortunately, much of dialogue is conducted superficially. No wonder why the Vatican wants to put “teeth” into dialogue.





Interfaith dialogue has no teeth
The World Council of Churches, The Council on American-Muslim Relations, the World Conference on Religion and Peace and the World Conference of Christians and Jews are among the international dialogue agencies. Such agencies have been frustrated in their work for harmony among local and international religious communities. The reasons of failure of interfaith dialogue are complex; there are three outstanding problems.

Nature of religious socialization
Around the world, at an early age, children are taught that their God is the best there is. Other people’s Gods are often suspect or imperfect. For example, misinformed Christians, claim that their God is “relational” but the God of Muslims is “abstract”. Similarly, many Muslims claim that since their Divine revelation is latest it is the best. “Why bother with adapting the scripture, you will mess it up” is the typical literalist stance. Apart from theology, religious prejudice is imparted in child rearing practices that communicate alienation from people who worship differently. Regrettably, as a result of exclusive and narrow minded religious pedagogy in the Middle East people end up worshiping three distinct Monotheist Gods. There is an articulated and paralyzing fear and possessiveness among high power clerics that once you start questioning the scripture, the unraveling begins and chaos is the outcome.

Hijacking of the worship place
Conservative theologians slow dialogue for fear of the great unraveling; radical political groups create inter religious tension that makes the social climate of dialogue inconvenient or hostile. Terrorists “dialogue” with violence, seeking inter religious contact. Moderate preachers do not receive media’s attention. Terrorists have hijacked the worship place and they posture as religious spokespersons, but they are not. Sadly, Ben Laden is the most penetrating religious message maker to the Western community.
Violence in religion comes also in much more subtle and slick ways. In the West, some churches run an industry of fear and anxiety, selling salvation to prospective hell goers; “healing” the sick on the TV screen for money, praying for end time war and proliferating sermons that are inflammatory about other religions and civilizations.

Globalization of organized religion
We know now that the world is flat, or so says Thomas Friedman in his best seller. But as the world is getting flattened, sermons are getting transcontinental. Sermon’s fire and fury are no longer addressed primarily to the local church or the local mosque. What a Western priest says about Islam and Muslims in Chicago is heard in Cairo and New Delhi the same day. Similarly, angry Muslim preachers in Kashmir or Karachi address Christians around the globe through cable channels.
Moreover, real wars are nowadays also fought on the international screen. The summer war in Lebanon and Israel fueled religious hatred around the world. Today, a Muslim teen anger in a remote area of the world speaks like an “expert” on crusading Christianity and his Christian or Jewish counterpart reports on Jihadi Muslims.



Practical dialogue as an alternative

If direct dialogue is fruitless or counterproductive in some circumstances, enhancing good will through good deeds may work. Practical dialogue has proven to be more effective than formal theological dialogue. Over the last two centuries immense religious resources have been used overseas to advance the well being of people through education, health and development projects. Missionary hospitals, schools and universities, cultural centers, land reclamation experiments, water projects, loans to poor communities are a few examples of practical dialogue across cultures and religions. Faith funded aid projects often enhance reconciliation among religious communities if the program is not linked to aggressive evangelism or other questionable donor motives. Many American or European Universities started as missionary projects and evolved to become great avenues of inter religious and intercultural harmony. Proselytism-free foreign aid gains roots in the community of service. Egalitarian partnerships between donors and local community leaders transform foreign aid from a charity to a process of empowerment.

Ecumenical approach to inter religious dialogue

Extremists are good at listening to their own voices. Dialogue normally occurs between moderates. But the classical approach to religious dialogue is for each side to affirm moderation of its beliefs and distance itself from extremist believers. In their dialogue, mainline Christians distance themselves from extreme Evangelicals. Extreme Evangelicals pray for the end of the world and expect an Armageddon war that would separate believers from non believers, the former going to heaven and the latter to hell. Similarly, mainline Muslims distance themselves from suicide bombers who are promised automatic entry to heaven for fighting the non Muslim infidels.

Non Muslims engaged in dialogue complain to moderate Muslims that they are not loud enough in their criticism of their extreme ideologues. Reciprocally, Muslim bridge makers ask Christians to watch extreme Evangelicals who are growing in number and influence in mainstream Western society. Jewish dialogue spokespersons are often challenged by their friends in the dialogue community to listen hard to Palestinian suffering.

In each religious community, the separation of moderates from extremist and of faith from politics has been difficult. The lines between moderation and extremes are often hazy and fluctuating depending on the level of insecurity of the community and depending on who decides what is mainline and what is heresy. During times of high stress, such as war conditions, the extreme communities are protected by the majority. As we have seen recently in Lebanon, during troubled times the problem of discrediting extremes by moderates intensifies. In war, sometimes the “extreme” becomes heroic in the defense of the community against external danger. And the moderates are embarrassed when in normal times the “extreme” is so sharp and attractive in political analysis of the community’s predicament.

The fluctuating relation of the center to the extreme in religious communities seriously inhibits interfaith dialogue. An alternative opportunity for reconciliation among the three most political religions may lie at their historical roots, and not in their strategies of moderation. This alternative dialogue deserves explanation.

Religious institutions, like all social structures tend to loose the core of their original historical purpose with time as they accommodate to social change, political events and forces of history. Early Christianity carried the torch of unconditional love, forgiveness and personal spiritual renewal. Christianity evolved from Judaism in response to the challenge of living not by the letter of the law but by the spirit of it. Christianity was exemplified by the life of Jesus of Nazareth. With time Christianity was Hellenized, then Europeanized, and in recent centuries it has become Americanized. Critics of the church today observe an institution that is too burdened with dogma and too thin on core tenants of early Christianity: flexible dogma, humility, passion for the poor and universality of humanity. Martin Luther King, Jimmy Carter, and Mother Teresa are good exemplars of early Christian values and life style; their global popularity is telling.

To appreciate Islam, non Muslims have to examine its historic relation with Christianity. Islam came about as an inspiration to identify God the One, when early Christians were fiercely debating the Trinitarian relation of Jesus to God and the Holy Spirit. So the contribution of Islam to the monotheistic family is the importance of God’s unity (Al Tawhid), linkage of the people of the Book (Ahl al Kitab) and emphasis on equality, social justice and community building (Al Umma) . Islam respects religious diversity, exercise of reason in religion and personal growth in education, right from the early days of the prophet Mohammad.
It is surprising to observe today that Muslims are so conflicted about freedom of interpretation of their faith. Is the dominant fear of open interpretation of the Word in Islam a political rather than a religious phenomenon?

Judaism is relatively free of dogma. It is a spiritual community in covenant with God. To be Jewish is belong to a community of Jews, to have a memory of being Jewish and to follow the wisdom of the scripture. Jews have been active in reinterpreting their faith, but the traditional hierarchy is still in control of who is a Jew or who is not, and whether Judaism is a religion or an ethnicity.

A historical look at the relations of the three Abraham religions might lead those searching for common grounds to a set of core values of reconciliation and mutual empowerment. Judaism, in its core, offers the concept of God the creator of the whole world who invites all people to respect the basic moral principles of well being. Christianity’s core contribution to the dialogue is the Gospel of spiritual renewal, living beyond the letter of the law. Islam comes in with its unique core contribution of highlighting social justice and pointing to the one God as the center of worship.

In sum, a new paradigm of dialogue might be found in the historical relations of the three monotheistic religions rather in adapting their contemporary hierarchies. A new era of interfaith dialogue requires the birth of a new way of teaching religion, a new way to practice dialogue and an affirmative perspective of the complementarities of faiths.

The author is former Secretary of the Middle East at the Geneva-based World Council of Churches.