Can religious others co-exist together in harmony?

The pandemic highlighted that religion is not solely based on doctrine. Rather religion revolves around a person’s ethical and spiritual practices. This way of understanding religion, which can be experienced and influences the way we live, is reflected within the political unrest in our global society. As seen in India where Hindu mobs are inciting violence through their targeting of Muslims, to Israel and Gaza where both the Jewish and Muslim community across the world are targeted to answer for Hamas and the Israeli Government’s crimes as well as the state of humanity in Gaza.

With the rise in political tensions, communities are being polarised. Religious differences in particular are becoming a source of hate. We thus need to  question if harmony between religious others can exist. And if so, how? To answer both these questions interfaith dialogue must be brought into this conversation.

Interfaith dialogue is a peace-making process, bringing together religious others to resolve conflicts, debunk myths and hateful perspectives about others. Peace between religious others can only be achieved by rebuilding relationships based on appreciating others’ differences and shifting perspectives about the other. This aspect of interfaith dialogue is an undervalued yet an important part to creating harmony between religious others.

The most popular method for conducting an interfaith dialogue is through scriptural reasoning. It may seem counterintuitive to use scripture, a piece of religious doctrine, for interfaith dialogue as scripture is usually an obstacle for successful dialogue. Scriptural reasoning, however, is not concerned with formulating theories of scriptural truth, but preserving religious identities by exploring differences.

According to Moyaert[1] the aim of scriptural reasoning is not to assert your own doctrinal truth or to reject others scripture. Rather it is a place to understand your scripture from another’s perspective and becoming aware of other scriptural meanings in light of a topic.

For Moyaert, utilising interfaith dialogue in this manner allows for differences, particularly disagreements between religious others, to be an “opportunity, rather than a problem”[2]. This way of meeting religious others thus goes beyond creating theological comparisons and prevents clashes between each other regarding proving whose scripture is true.

Interfaith dialogue through scriptural reasoning is therefore a productive form of meeting religious others. Rather than creating barriers, it allows religious others to rebuild relationships based on appreciating differences and shifting perspectives about the other, including no longer viewing the other through an ancient lens of stereotypes and myths.

This ‘experience’ of meeting religious others to explore differences generates a form of hospitality between religious others. Particularly as differences are no longer being treated as a source of hate. As hospitality towards the religious other grows, religious others, themselves, begin to care for the other as barriers of difference start to disintegrate. By caring for others we begin to lose categorisation of us and them, privileged and non-privileged, superior, and inferior.

The ethics of care that emerges from scriptural reasoning can be further enhanced through dialogue focused on aesthetic experience, such as art. Following Anderson’s perspective, art in interfaith dialogue’s enables differences and the religious other to be seen through an empathic lens[3]. This ‘way of seeing’ the other prevents one from depreciating or homogenising them.

The other then becomes visible through works of art, that being, a beloved or sacred object such as a musical instrument or a painting. From Anderson’s perspective, when one sess an aesthetic object, they do not just see the object but contemplate about the object and their relationship between them and that object. This aesthetic practice of lingering over a beloved object brings about an awareness of the other within oneself. Through art, religion, and dialogue one becomes closer to the presence of the other[4]. Thus enabling an ethics of care to flourish between one another.

For example, the song ‘Refugee’ by David Brymer brings forth a Christian dialogue establishing comparisons between Jesus as a refugee and comparing  these biblical experiences and teachings with regards to Jesus as a refugee and comparing these biblical experiences and teachings with the refugee crisis in the twentieth century. This example crucially illustrates that a form of art enables an ethics of care to emerge, not just an appreciation of difference between religious others, but to bring current ethical issues, including gender equality, racial equity and other power dynamics to the forefront of interfaith dialogue.  

If we continue to follow Anderson’s argument we will find that differences are an opportunity that can attempt to heal the world through ethics. To have these differences appreciated through this mode of hospitality is a productive way of conducting interfaith dialogue because art provides an imaginative “ground from which genuine listening, seeing and speaking emerge” rather than belittling the other concerning doctrinal truths[5].

Interfaith dialogue focusing on the other’s experiences does not need to be limited to scriptural reasoning. Instead spontaneous meeting of the other can be as productive. For example, from the interviews Illman conducted, novels can awaken one’s “empathetic abilities and create respectful understanding of difference more effectively than theoretical texts”[6]. This mode of experience enables the mind to contemplate upon the experiences of the other whilst retaining one’s own identity. This space creates a balance between one’s faith commitment and openness to the other.

Fictive readings of the religious other may not be a direct way of meeting the other, but it is still an ‘experience’ where one contemplates upon the religious other. Literature reflects life, containing descriptions of ordinary human encounters we can relate to, emotions and ethical conundrums we face as human beings. Through reading literature the religious other becomes valued and visible.

As conflicts emerge, communities become polarised, and differences are becoming a source of hate. Humans are being categorised into us and them and the value of others is deprecating to supposedly ‘justify’ their non-existence. In such a world peace is necessary but not sustainable. For such peace to last relationships between others must be rebuilt and based on appreciating, not weaponizing, differences and shifting perspectives about the other away from myths and stereotypes.

This undervalued aspect to interfaith dialogue is an important building block to enabling religious others to co-exist in harmony with one another. Particularly as interfaith dialogue enables empathy to emerge and for religious others to see each other, rather than depreciating each’s value. Expanding this relationship beyond dialogue will prove to be a challenge. But it highlights that religious others can co-exist in harmony with one another.

Bibliography

[1] Marianne Moyaert, ‘Scriptural Reasoning as Inter-Religious Dialogue’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Inter-Religious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013), 65.

[2] Moyaert, 68.

[3] Mary Anderson, ‘Art and Inter-Religious Dialogue’, in The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Inter-Religious Dialogue, ed. Catherine Cornille (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2013), 11.

[4] Anderson, 111–12.

[5] Anderson, 103.

[6] Ruth Illman, ‘Artists in Dialogue: Creative Approaches to Interreligious Encounters’, Approaching Religion 1 (2011): 66.