Religions Just Beginning to Work Together

About 10 years ago, someone I met at a party, hearing that I taught comparative religion, asked about my research interests. “Interfaith dialogue,” I replied. “What dialogue?” he asked.

That question was understandable. Religions have been warring throughout history, and tensions remain. But during the past half-century and especially the past decade, a remarkable burgeoning of interfaith dialogue and cooperation has occurred. A few examples:

* The founding of the Academy for Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies in the mid-70s by George Grose, a local Presbyterian clergyman. The organization and a handful of others like it in the United States and Europe have sponsored talks between the three faiths, published books and papers, and promoted cooperation.

* The Buddhist-Christian dialogues begun around the same time by Professor John Cobb and others at the Claremont School of Theology. Here too, bridges of understanding have been built through conferences, publications and other cooperative efforts.

* The 1993 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, where 8,000 delegates from practically every religion on Earth framed a global ethic; and the Parliament’s 1999 reprise in Cape Town, South Africa, where 7,000 met to continue the dialogue and seek cooperation.

* The first Millennium World Peace Summit, set for Aug. 28-31 at the United Nations in New York, where 1,000 religious leaders of all faiths will gather to explore ways religion might help defuse regional conflicts. In particular, participants will be asked to sign a Declaration for World Peace that will be circulated globally to religious leaders.

This interfaith work has already led to greater respect and understanding between faith communities and holds out immense promise for the century ahead. However, it demands of its participants special courage to study other faiths with an open mind.

In doing so, you may become aware that these religions possess a high moral code and have produced saints and scholars. You might also discover valuable attributes not stressed in your own faith but not in conflict with it; for example, Hindu or Buddhist meditative practices, or the Muslim commitment to praying five times daily.

You will also come face to face with teachings that flatly contradict your own. Muslims, for instance, deny that Jesus was crucified. Hindus are polytheistic; Buddhists, largely unconcerned with God or gods.

To reevaluate views of another religion that were based on stereotypes, half-truths and misinformation also takes courage. For instance, Hindus do not worship statues of deities but the divine reality they symbolize. Islam does not condone the subjugation of women and provides them substantial equality. Most Islamic authorities condemn the abuse of Muslim women in Taliban-governed Afghanistan.

You risk being changed by encounters with adherents of other faiths. Such experiences will bring you face to face with fine human beings whose insights and virtue will change you. You will articulate your own faith in a new setting, and that will also change you.

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You may have to admit that your own religious tradition has not always lived by its ethical principles. Pope John Paul II exemplified that powerfully when, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem last spring, he stated, “The Catholic Church . . . is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place.”

The candid admission by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1996 that it condoned slavery in the American South was another example of such courage. So was the disavowal by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at about the same time of anti-Semitic writings by Martin Luther.

Your studies also may lead you to disagree civilly with your partners in interfaith conversations. Some religious tenets are not fully reconcilable, such as whether Jesus is God’s son, as Christians hold, or an important human prophet, as Islam teaches. You may face criticism from your co-religionists. Some of them may see such activity as compromising faith, endorsing false doctrine and wasting time. For rabbis, pastors or imams engaged in interreligious work, jobs may even be at risk.

Finally, you will need the courage to accept that some genuinely virtuous people from the conservative wing of various faiths, especially evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, will never change their conviction that interfaith dialogue and cooperation are worthless or even sinful. They should not be derided for such beliefs but be shown empathy and respect. To do otherwise is to miss the mark, for the moral tenets of all the great religions call us to live together and show compassion for one another despite our deepest differences. And that too takes courage.

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On Faith is a forum for Orange County clergy and others to offer their views on religious topics of general interest. Submissions, which will be published at the discretion of The Times and are subject to editing, should be delivered to Orange County religion page editor Deanne Brandon.