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.