World Council of Churches
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches
Reformed Churches Bern-Jura-Solothurn
Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF)
INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
“Promised Land”
Church Center Bürenpark, Bern, Switzerland
10 - 14 September 2008
Inter-religious dialogue from a biblical point of view
Prof. Dr Mihai Valentin Vladimirescu
University of Craiova, Romania
“I cannot persuade myself that without love to others, and without, as far as rests with me, peaceableness towards all, I can be called a worthy servant of Jesus Christ.” Basil the Great (329-379)[1]
Inter-religious dialogue is a particularly important dimension of the dialogue among civilizations. Indeed, the key issue raised by the dialogue among civilizations is the place of ethics in the relationship between societies, peoples and individuals. The promotion of dialogue among different communities and civilizations is a priority for the international community. It is only in dialogue that communities can truly meet and understand one another.
Choosing the route of dialogue, however, involves facing a number of difficulties and challenges. Throughout history there have been clashes between groups of people bearing different “truths” or worldviews. This difficulty is ingrained in the centuries-long history of every group and its own self-understanding and can be eliminated neither quickly nor through pure will.
The Bible does not directly address inter-religious dialogue as it is understood and practised today. The Greek word dialegomai, which appears in such verses as Acts 17:17 and Jude 9, means “to say thoroughly, i.e. discuss (in argument or exhortation).” The New Testament writers were thus using dialegomai to describe a period of questions and answers following the proclamation of the gospel. Nonetheless, the Bible gives several examples of sustained inter-religious conversation. Jesus spent several days in the temple as a young man, discussing religious issues with the teachers. Jesus questioned the teachers on various points, amazing them in turn with his responses to their questions. While an example of intra-religious rather than inter-religious dialogue, this discussion almost certainly involved insights from Jesus that would have been understood by the teachers as transcending the common boundaries of contemporary Judaism.
The method of education through questioning was common among both Jews and Greeks: the rabbinical method of teaching involved mutual questioning and discussion, and even earlier the Greek philosopher Socrates used this method, in what is now called Socratic dialogue. Such mutual discussion is at the heart of inter-religious dialogue. Paul’s discourse on the Areopagus hill in Athens (Acts 17) exhibits a similar willingness to engage in inter-religious dialogue. Rather than avoid any contact with the idolatrous practices of the Athenians, Paul closely observed them and then used these practices as the springboard for presenting his beliefs. Note that Paul did not initially engage in evangelism or debate: he debated with the Jews and the “devout” (i.e., God-fearing gentiles), but he merely “beheld” the practices of the people outside his religious community. Paul examined the religions of the Athenians to determine their spiritual state and to present the gospel in a way that would be most comprehensible to them.
The knowledge used by Paul could only be obtained through direct interaction with the practitioners of the Athenian philosophies and religions. Paul also shows that Christians can acknowledge truth in other religions without accepting the entirety of the religion as true. His affirmative quotation from the Cretan poet Epimenides (whom he also quotes in Titus 1:12) is an example of approving a truth in the beliefs of the Athenians. The fact that he was nonetheless presenting the gospel, however, also shows that acknowledging the limited truth to which the Athenians held does not mean one should compromise advocating the supremacy of God’s full revelation in Christ. The episode in Athens is an example of Paul becoming all things to all people in order to win some (1 Cor. 9:22). Through the clarified understanding of other religions that results from inter-religious dialogue, evangelists are able to express their beliefs so that they will be correctly understood by people in other religions and cultures. This can only result from walking in the shoes of others. Dialogue helps us to understand how non-Christians perceive Christianity.
Interest in a Christian approach to people of other faiths can already be seen in the New Testament. Peter, responding to the realities of a multi-faith context, says to the gentile Cornelius, “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him” (Acts 10.34-35).
This basic understanding of God’s direct access to all people echoes the Hebrew scriptures: “For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts” (Mal. 1.11).
The deepest concern in the teachings of Jesus—the command to love one another, to awaken spiritually, and to go through a profound rebirth—calls for a renovation of our being and the move to a dialogical consciousness. Thus, in our Judeo-Christian roots we find this call for the awakening of a new awareness that centres upon God and the presence of God as the primary concern for human beings, which in turn calls for the deepest change in our lives.
Religions are deep wells of social value. They provide ethical frameworks, binding beliefs and sense of human solidarity in community. They harbour values such as justice, peace, compassion for the suffering, friendship with the stranger, and connectedness to the earth. Historically, these values have been mostly directed towards shaping self-sufficient communities, in spite of the universalist thrust at the heart of the post-axial religious consciousness. In a plural world this is no longer tenable.
Inter-religious dialogue changes our normative understanding of religious meaning. It represents a shift from self-sufficiency in religious understandings of identity and truth to an appreciation of potentially multiple sources of identity and truth.
Respect for the diversity of religions and cultures, tolerance, dialogue and cooperation can contribute to combating ideologies and practices based on discrimination, intolerance and hatred and help reinforce world peace, social justice and friendship among peoples. Underlining the importance of promoting understanding, tolerance and friendship among human beings in all their diversity of religion, belief, culture and language, we affirm inter-religious dialogue as an integral part of efforts to translate shared values into action, in particular efforts to promote a culture of peace and dialogue among civilizations.
[1] Letter 203, 2
