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Written by reviewed by Rabbi Bill Rudolph
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Thursday, 23 December 2010 04:21 |
This collection of essays about interfaith dialogue was published both as an issue of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, whose founding editor, Temple University Religion Professor Leonard Swidler, is arguably the leading figure in promoting interfaith activity in most of our lifetimes, and as a book for the trade market.
Its eight essays are a useful “how to” manual for interreligious dialogue and reflect the increased interest in that dialogue that our fractured global village has provoked as well as the hope that such dialogue can help achieve some of the peace and respect that seem so lacking. Each essay is followed by questions for reflection and suggestions for action.
Swidler’s opening essay offers many helpful guidelines for conducting interfaith dialogues; those that resonate with me most from my own experience are that the more difficult points of difference should not be tackled in the first encounters and that each partner must come with a self-critical attitude toward him/herself as well as the religious tradition s/he represents.
Miriam Therese Winter talks about obstacles to success in dialogue and some methods to overcome them (e.g. conversation circles), and offers the wise suggestion that shifting the focus from dialogue to establishing a relationship will make for easier success in dialogue. Eboo Patel and coworkers have an interesting take on storytelling as a key methodology for interfaith dialogue especially among youth, based on the power of personal narrative in identity-formation. Edith Howe and S. Mark Heim think that much dialogue is stilted and artificial because it’s attempting to compensate for the absence of “accidental” relationships and conversations that happen normally in our own lives. Better would be joint projects among dialogue partners, one of which is book discussion groups; Howe and Heim show how such groups might function and offer an extremely helpful and balanced bibliography (eg. both Michael Lerner and Bernard Lewis on the Middle East conflict.) The essay by Khaleel Mohammed on Jewish Muslim dialogue is rather infuriating at the start —it equates the 9/11 attack with the U.S. response — but if you keep reading you will find yourself in agreement with and admiration for what he suggests going forward.
The Middle East conflict was the catalyst for my own most recent experience with interfaith dialogue. The decision by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to approve steps toward divesting from companies doing business with Israel seemed so wrong-headed. It led me to make a blind call to the pastor of my neighboring Presbyterian Church. I hoped that he and I could form some kind of relationship that would help me understand where his church was coming from and maybe help him see why I was offended. Our first conversations led to the formation of a dialogue group with members from each of our congregations. That was about five years ago. We have been meeting monthly since, with dialogues that are deep and stimulating and really fun too. We didn’t start with the Middle East Conflict, and our ability (who knew?) to look very critically at our own faith traditions puts us all at ease. The pastor and I led our congregations on a joint trip to Israel one summer. Since then we have co-sponsored a variety of programs. We break bread together. Our annual barbeque is wonderful. Each of us considers interfaith dialogue, at least as we have experienced it together, to be a great gift. Jews and Christians learning from one another is a fruit of dialogue.
The volume before us speaks in its own multiple ways about this very gift and is must reading for anyone contemplating such a step.
Rabbi Bill Rudolph is from Congregation Beth El, Bethesda Md.
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