The Interfaith Challenge

There's a tricky balance involved in a lot of things, and one of them is interfaith dialogue. I can infer this even before having truly engaged in it myself, because it involves two very separate, opposing realms: one's inmost, private convictions, and the public, cooperative collaboration of common ideals and beliefs. How is one to hold on to personal beliefs in a faithful, steadfast manner and yet expand one's spiritual breadth by being open to other (perhaps conflicting) credences in an interfaith forum? The balancing act, which seems to me just as precarious as walking on a tightrope, has two crucial items at stake, one being the preservation and integrity of one's soul and spirituality, and the other being, plainly speaking, world peace. A lot of battles would not have been fought had people been of an open mind spiritually, culturally, theologically and otherwise, yet completely compromising one's beliefs in the process is not ideal or fair as an alternative.

A propos of this, I stumbled upon a quote from a sourcebook on world religions that I think articulates this point very well:

"In this new age of developing global community and interfaith dialogue, the world religions face what is perhaps the greatest challenge that they have ever encountered. Each is inspired by a unique vision of the divine and has a distinct cultural identity. At the same time, each perceives the divine as the source of unity and peace. The challenge is to preserve their religious and cultural uniqueness without letting it operate as a cause of narrow and divisive sectarianism that contradicts the vision of divine unity and peace. It is a question whether the healing light of religious vision will overcome the social and ideological issues that underlie much of the conflict between religions."

Steven C. Rockefeller,Spirit and Nature, p. 169.

Anyway, I'll leave you guys with that, and I hope I haven't bored you to tears. I'm new at this blogging business (I think I just CREATED a blog instead of posting this to our RFP-USA blog, until I figured out what I'd done!), but next time I may have to think of something profound and pertinent yet spicy and borderline scandalous to keep your attention. ;) However, let me know if you have any thoughts on what I've posted, and I'd love to talk with any of you about such issues this summer.