Feature story
The conversation affirmed that the pursuit of gender justice and human dignity is both a social responsibility and a spiritual calling that crosses all religious boundaries. Women, girls, children, and other vulnerable groups continue to face deep-seated challenges shaped by cultural, economic, and religious systems.
Participants found that “re-reading” our context means listening anew—to our sacred texts, to lived realities, and to one another’s wisdom.
The panel brought together four speakers: Mohamed Elamin, from the Muslim Council of Elders in Abu Dhabi; Kathryn Lohre, a Christian leader in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue; Fr Greg Soetomo, a Jesuit theologian from Jakarta; and Venerable Napan Thawornbanjob, a Buddhist monk from Thailand.
Elamin said the mission of the Muslim Council of Elders is based on “building interfaith partnerships,” referencing collaborations with the Vatican and the World Council of Churches, including the 2023 Emerging Peacemakers Forum in Geneva. Main programmes, he added, focus on “promoting peace and reconciliation, strengthening interreligious cooperation, and empowering youth.”
On human rights and the dignity of women and girls, Elamin stressed that these values are “deeply rooted in our traditions and Islamic teachings.”
Lohre, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, underlined that “as Christians, reading scripture and doing theology undergirds, supports, and inspires our commitments to gender justice, and inclusive leadership of women and girls.”
With other religious partners and secular actors, Lohre said, we can leverage our shared commitments to human rights and the dignity of girls to promote gender justice in our societies and globally. “Our common valuation of the full humanity of women and girls is an important factor in how we address religious intolerance in our multi-religious societies and informs our work to address religious nationalisms and fanaticism within our own communities, as well.”
Thawornbanjob offered a perspective shaped by years of Buddhist peace-building in Thailand’s conflict areas. He described compassionate presence as a disciplined moral practice, one that may require speaking uncomfortable truths for the sake of human dignity.
Recalling a moment when a Buddhist monk was killed by a bomb, he told national audiences: “Let the bomb destroy only the body of a Buddhist monk, not the heart of Buddhism.” This, he suggested, is how compassion restrains cycles of revenge.
He highlighted the “importance of shared, synergistic action: opening space for women, young people, and marginalised groups; strengthening interreligious cooperation; and nurturing a culture of mutual respect.”
Soetomo offered a portrayal of Indonesia’s rich interreligious landscape and highlighted his work, focusing particularly on the Muslim–Christian dialogues to which he has devoted his efforts for decades.
He spoke of the “common path travelled together with Muslim brothers and sisters, a path that often converges within the same academic institutions and in everyday life.” He highlighted that “encounter is the key word in any expression or movement that seeks to build a harmonious social life. So many forms of suspicion, prejudice, and misunderstanding toward those who are different or ‘other’ are created by individuals or communities on the basis of perception and imagination. All too often, these are shaped by the machinery of social media and by hearsay, rather than by genuine, honest, and open encounters.”
The discussion was moderated by His Eminence Metropolitan Konstantinos Tsilis, the first Orthodox Metropolitan of Singapore and South Asia since 2011.
