Michael Amaladoss

Talk about the dialogue between religions by Christians has normally been set in the context of mission. Some would see dialogue as a step towards the proclamation of Christ and of the Church as the only way to salvation. Christianity is seen as the fulfillment of other religions. One dialogue with the other believers because proclamation is not possible in situations where people and governments are opposed to it. Others, however, would see dialogue as an integral dimension of mission. One dialogue with others because one recognizes the presence and action of the Spirit of God in them. Today dialogue between religions has acquired a new dimension and a new urgency. Believers in different religions are not just living together. In many places, they are fighting each other in the name of religion. Religions inspire and legitimate violence. Therefore, a dialogue between religions seems urgent for survival and peace of the humans on this earth. We have, therefore, to look at dialogue between religions, not only in a missionary and religious, but also in a socio-political context. Both contexts are related in life and ideology.

Violence in the Name of Religion
Violence between people professing different religions has a long history. Every religion has its martyrs. The Crusades and the European Wars of religions are part of world history. If we take only the second part of the twentieth-century inter-religious violence in the world has been widespread. Hindu-Muslim violence in India, Buddhist-Hindu violene in Sri Lanka, Christian-Muslim violence in the Philippines, Indonesia and the former Yugoslavia, inter-Christian violence in Ireland, Judaic-Muslim violence in the Middle East, Buddhist-Christian violence in Burma – the list can go on. There has been anti-religious violence in the former and present Communist countries. Even the USA and Japan have not escaped violence by fundamentalist sects. Religious minorities and converts to New Religious Movements have had a difficult time in most countries.

But the link between religion(s) and violence seems to have caught the imagination and attention of people every where after the terrorist attack on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. People thought that the predictions of Samuel Huntington regarding the Clash of Civilizations have been proved true. Huntington had identified civilizations with religions and suggested that the next major conflict would be between Christianity and Islam. Disclaimers to the contrary, popular imagination, both of Christians and Muslims, probably live the ongoing conflict in West Asia or the Middle East as one between the two religious communities.

A few years earlier, on the occasion of the Second World Parliament of Religions in 1993, in Chicago, the participants proclaimed that there can be no peace in the world without peace between religions. This project has been symbolically dramatized by leaders of all religions coming together in Assisi to pray for peace in October 1986 and January 2002. This is the context in which we are raising the question why believers are fighting among themselves and how we can avoid such conflict.

1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. London: Touchstone Books, 1996.
2. Cf. Hans Kung and Karl-Josef Kuschel (eds), A Global Ethic. London: SCM Press, 1993.

Inter-religious violence rarely has only religious reasons. There are always socio-economic and political causes that lay behind religious conflicts. Religion justifies them and adds its own reasons too. So we shall adopt a broad approach in our effort to understand religious violence.

Defending One’s Identity
One of the roots of religious violence is the quest for social identity. Our identities are socially constructed. Individuals become aware of their identity by interacting with significant others starting with their mothers, fathers, siblings, the wider family, and the neighbours. At the same time they also build up a social identity by interiorizing symbolic structures of communication and relationship through language and ritual. The life-cycle and seasonal rituals particularly contribute to the building up of the group. Initiation rites may play a key role at a crucial moment of personal development. These are constituents of culture. The individual belongs to a group which distinguishes itself in contrast to other groups: ‘We’ against ‘Them’. Psychologists suggest that when there are two groups, they see each other, not merely as different, but as competitive and inimical and inferior to themselves. This is based on the feeling of the ‘in-group’ against the ‘out-group’. There is no attempt to know the other, giving rise to ignorance and prejudice. These feelings may be dormant at normal times, but get aggravated in moments of tension for whatever reason.

Such divisive group feelings are further strengthened by religion. Religious symbols deal with ultimate persepctives and as such touch the deeper levels of personal and group identity. Religious rituals strenthen this belongingness. Religion is a powerful cementing force. A group may feel that it has been specially chosen by God and has a special revelation. Or it may claim a special experience of the ultimate. The others then may be seen as questioning and threatening this special relationship, especially if they claim a different experience of the divine.

In a conflictual situation people tend to project the drawbacks and evils in oneself on the other. In a religious context such a projection may become the demonization of the others.

Religious Communalism
Conflicts between groups arise when they are forced to share the same geographical, economic and political space. Such togetherness involves a question of power: who controls the situation, who dominates. Such need to dominate seems to be a basic need for the humans as political animals. Politial control however becomes crucial when there is a competition for limited resources in the economic sphere. In such a situation individuals find group support indispensable. The religious group, of course, will be the strongest since it has God on its side. A religious group may be even more closely knit than a class group.

3. Cf. Sudhir Kakar, The Colours of Violence. Delhi: Viking, 1995.
4. See Veena Das (ed), Mirrors of Violence. Delhi: Oxford, 1990. Gerald James Larson, India’s Agony over Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1995.
5. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God. The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

Religion, then, becomes communalistic. Communalism is the political use of religious group identity. People who belong to the same religion are made to think that they share the same economic and political interests. The actual struggle may start with the economic and political sphere, justified by religion. But it easily spills over into the religious sphere also and religious symbols are attacked. In these cases religions are involved in economic and political conflicts. There may be some truly religious people in every group who may see such abuse of religion and regret or stand against it. Every religion will have its prophets who condemn its abuse and try rather to use it for promoting peace.

Religious Fundamentalism
Sometimes religion itself can become cause for division and conflict. Every religion has its fundamentalist groups. Fundamentalists are those who defend what they think are the fundamentals of their religion when they feel that these are under attack. Christian fundamentalism emerged in the USA in the early years of the 20th century when some Christians felt their beliefs threatened by the emerging theories of science, like the theory of the evolution of the species, proposed by Charles Darwin. They thought that it directly attacked the Biblical story of creation. It was also a purely naturalistic vision of the world that did not need God. So they defended their religious faith through a literal interpretation of the Bible. Such groups later turned against communism since it was seen as propagating atheism. This opposition to communism is behind the build up of the big war machine that is the USA today. Liberal moral practices like abortion-on-demand also attracted their opposition.

We see a similar fundamentalistic current also in Islam. Many of the modern reformers in Islam were equally opposed to the secularistic atheism promoted by the consumer culture of the West, represented by the USA, and to the Marxist atheism of the Communist powers. Some of them promoted literal interpretation of the Qur’an. Unfortunately this fundamentalistic struggle became communalistic since theses two cultural-religious currents were supported by the political and military dominance of the Western powers led by the USA and the Communist block led by the former Soviet Union. So it became not only a religious but also a political and military struggle. Guerilla warfare and terrorist attacks are the ‘weapons of the weak’. Violence will then be justified as self-defense.

6. Cf. S. Arockiasamy (ed), Responding to Communalism. Anand: Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, 1991.
7. Cf. Lionel Caplan, Studies in Religious Fundamentalism. London: Macmillan, 1987; John Locke, The Challenge of Religious Fundamentalism. Honkong: FABC Papers 92m, 2000.
8. John L. Esposito (ed), Voices of Resurgent Islam. New York: Oxford Univeristy Press,1983.
9. Cf. Gavin D’Costa, The Meeting of the Religions and the Trinity. Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000.

Exclusivism in religion can be considered a mild form of fundamentalism. Exclusivists think that their religion is the only way to salvation. Consequently they are also universalistic or global. They feel that they are responsible for the salvation of everyone. This feeling of responsibility urges them to ‘save’ others through force, if necessary. The force could be political, social, economic, and today also of the media. In the past Islam and Christianity have not hesitated to use even military force for the purpose – of course, for the ultimate good of the people.

Religious Violence
Our analysis so far may make us think that social groups are really responsible for the violence for economic and political causes. The power of religion is often coopted to legitimize such conflict. Even religious fundamentalism does not seem to become violent unless it is also mixed up with political factors and, perhaps, no-so-hidden economic interests. We might be tempted to think that religions in themselves are promoters of personal/inner and social peace. Unfortunately, religions are very ambiguous in this matter.

A French literary critic, Rene Girard, even suggests that violence is at the source of religion. His thesis is simple. It is a basic human tendency to desire to have what other people have. He calls this mimesis or imitation. One is ready to do violence to the other in order to apporpriate what the other has. In a community, this tendency to mutual violence is projected on to a scape-goat – a weaker person or a stranger – who is then killed. This act of violence helps the community to purge itself of its aggressivity. In Christianity, God in Jesus, by offering himself as the scape-goat and by ritualizing it in the Eucharist frees us from the need to find other scape-goats and thus from further violence and the consequent guilt. I do not agree with this theory. I think that it cheapens religion, seeing it as a product of human violence. But the fact that such a theory can find a market today shows how easily violence can be justified and coopted by religion.

All religions start as a quest for a solution to the problem of evil as unmerited suffering. Suffering is seen as a punishment for sin. The evil of sin can be attributed only to the humans, not to God. But sin seems so enormous that most religions feel the need of an evil power like Satan who tempts and provokes the humans. Satan may eventually be conquered by God. But in the meantime we have an ongoing conflict between good and evil and takes historical, human and social form. The struggle is directed againt those – people and structures – that are seen as the agents of Satan in this world. Violence against these is not only accepted but even encouraged. This is how a ‘just war’ slips into a ‘holy war’ – a jihad, a crusade. The Scriptures of all religions are full of such wars. The Old Testament is full of the wars of God’s people against their enemies. They are often humanly unjustified, divine election and favour being seemingly the only justification. The New Testament speaks of the struggle between Jesus and Satan, though eventually it is Jesus who is killed. Jesus’ death is interpreted as a punishment for the sins of humanity.

10. Cf. R.Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred .Lanham:Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
11. René Girard, The Scapegoat. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1986.
12. The focus of the Buddha is inward. His ideal is egolessness. His vision is the interdependance of all beings. His middle path avoids extremes.

Hinduism has its epic wars between the good and evil forces in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. In the Qur’an Mohammed is at the head of an army, even if the last battle for Mecca passes off non-violently. Only in Buddhism the struggle between good and evil is seen as a moral, interior one. Even then the Buddha chooses the middle path between rigourous asceticism and indulgence. Though Buddhists are as violent as others, they cannot quote the Buddha or his teachings in support of their violence. Thus all religions, except Buddhism, tend to the demonization of the enemy and justify, even encourage violence. Supporters of just wars are very much alive even today. Therefore one cannot say religions do not support or justify violence. Unfortunately they do. I am not saying that religions are inherently violent. But they do justify it under certin circumstances.

Sacrificial Violence
There is still another religious priniple that also seems to justify violence. All religions speak of sacrifice. In the history of religions we have a spectrum that extends from human sacrifice to ‘spiritual’ sacrifice. Sacrifices are spoken of in the context of sin, guilt and propitiation. Strictly speaking, sacrifice is the offering of oneself, one’s own life. But this is done symbolically by offering other lives, namely animals. Life is symbolized by blood. So sacrifice involves killing and violence. Jainism in India, Buddhism and some forms of Hinduism have done away with bloody sacrifices. But they have done so by focusing on self-realization through meditation for ultimate liberation. They no longer speak about a God whom one has to propitiate or satisfy by offering sacrifices. We, Christians, have not abandoned a sacrificial language in understanding the redemption wrought by Jesus. The offering of oneself as a sign of love and service has a deep meaning. But we must free this self-offering from any sense of reparation or satisfaction, involving suffering as punishment. We must also distinguish self-offering from suffering. Suffering may be incidental. One can even take on suffering as a way of showing love in a particulr circumstance. But it is not an essential element of love or offering. One can regret it even while accepting it.

Religions for Peace
While religions can, in various ways, provoke violence, it is they who also can inspire peace. All religions speak of peace: Shalom! Salam! Shanti! Just as religions, in the process of being rooted in a particular place, tend to accultuarte themselves and justify existing socio-economic and political structures, religions, or at least some of its serious practitioners, challenge injustice and violence in the name of the Ultimate. Economical and political structures will always be guided by profit and power. The quest for justice and peace can come only from religion (s). Even those who justify violence always propose peace as their goal. How can the religions promote peace in practice? I think that each religion has to answer this question for itself.

But religions can hardly promote peace, if they are not at peace among themselves. Hence we have to ask, first of all, how religions can promote peace among themselves. Even at this level, as a Christian I can only reflect on what we as Christians could do to live in peace with members of other religions and promote peace at other levels. It is in this context that interreligious dialogue indicates not only an attitude but also an action-plan. I shall explore this in two stages. First of all, I shall try to clarify our attitudes towards other religions as possible partners in promoting peace. Then I shall explore how we can actually do this in collaboration in a socio-poitical context.

A Positive Attitude to Other Religions
Before the Second Vatican Council, Christianity thought of itself as the only way to salvation and the only true religion. Other religions were simply false. Falsity cannot claim any rights. So wherever Christians were in a majority, the people of other religions were, at best, tolerated without full rights. At worst, they were persecuted, like the Jews. Where possible their lands were taken over and they were Christians by force – in Latin America, for example. Only the rich cultures and developed religions of Asia managed to withstand this aggression. We need not go into this unplesant history. But we should not forget this self-righteously.

At the Council, there were two developments. There was an affirmation of religious freedom. People had a right to follow any religion according to their conscience. This freedom was not based on the ‘goodness’of the religions, but on the dignity that each human person, created in the image of God, enjoyed. Secondly, there was a more positive approach to other religions. God was seen as the common origin and goal of all peoples. Good and holy elements – the seeds of the Word – were found in the other religions, which were seen as human efforts to reach out to God. Christians were encouraged to dialogue with them. Side by side with this openness to other religions, there was also a strong affirmation of the universal salvific will of God. Every human had the possibility of participating in the paschal mystery of Christ, through the work of the Spirit, but in ways unknown to us.

After the Council theological development encouraged a more positive appreciation of other religions. Adopting an a priori approach, theologians like Karl Rahner suggested that, if God is reaching out to other people with saving grace, given the human (bodily), social and histoical nature of the people, this could only be through the religions through which the people were trying to reach out to God. People are therefore saved in and through their religions, not in spite of them. Adopting an a posteriori approach, the Asian Bishops affirmed that, judging by their fruits of holiness, we have to acknowledge the action of God in the other religions.

13. Dignitatis Humanae, 1-3.
14. Nostra Aetate, 1.
15. Ad Gentes, 11.
16. This was made very clear later in Evangelii Nuntiandi, 53.
17. Gaudium et Spes, 22.
18. Cf. Karl Rahner, “Christianity and the Non-Christian Religions”, in Theological Investigations 5 (1966) 115-134. See also J. Neuner, ed. Christian Revelation and World Religions. London: Burns and Oates, 1967.

19. G.Rosales and C.Arevalo. eds. For All the Peoples of Asia. Manila: Claretian, 1997, p.14.
20. Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, Bulletin 22 (1987) 55-56.
21. Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 47.

This positive attitude to other religions received ‘offcial’ sanction when John Paul II invited the leaders of all religions to come together to Assisi to pray for peace in the world in October 1986. Commentators pointed out that to invite other believers to pray is to acknowledge that they can relate to God in prayer and that God listens to their prayer. This was an implied acceptance of the legitimacy of other religions as facilitating divine-human encounter. This was one reason why it provoked the ire of Archbishop Lefevre. John Paul II went on to defend his gesture by asserting that every authentic prayer is from the Holy Spirit and that what unites us with the other believers in the plan of God is more fundmental and divine that what divides us. In his social encyclicals he has also been calling on all believers to collaborate in the promotion of justice and solidarity in the world.

This process of opening towards other religions reaches a new landmark when John Paul II acknowledges, in his encyclical The Mission of the Redeemer, that the Spirit of God is present and active, not only in their hearts, but also in the cultures and religions of all peoples. He also affirms the freedom of God and the freedom of the people in such divine-human interaction.

The Spirit is at the very source of man’s existential and religious questioning, a questioning which is occasioned not only by contingent situations but by the very structure of his being (Dei Verbum, 54) The Spirit’s presence and activity afffect not only individuals but also society and history, peoples, cultures and religions. Indeed the Spirit is at the origin of the noble ideals and undertakings which benefit humanity onits journey through history… (Gaudium et Spes, 26) …The Church’s relationship with other religions is dictated by a twofold respect: “Respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of is life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man.”

Basing themselves on these developments, theologians today affirm that the other religions facilitate salvific divine human encounter. Most theologians would also agree that salvation relates to the paschal mystery of Christ. But it does not seem necessary to acknowledge this relationship consciously. The dynamics of this relationhip is explained differently by different theologians.

There are however two opinions about how the other religions relate to the Church. Some think that the other religions have to find their fulfilment in the Church, which is identified with the Kingdom of God. Salvation is always related to the Church in some mysterious way. Dialogue then would be one way through which such fulfilment could be promoted. This is to say, that the whole world is meant to become the Church some day. Others think that the Church is not the Kingdom of God, but only its symbol and servant. The goal towards which the Church and the other religions are moving is the Kingdom. This cosummation may be eschatological. In the meantime the religions are called to dialogue with each other and mutually correct and enrich each other in their journey towards the Kingdom. The Church is aware of a special mission to promote the gathering up of all things into the Kingdom, as its symbol and servant.

Every one however is agreed that what we need today is dialogue between the believers of different religions, not conflict. This dialouge has to take place, not merely at the religious level, but also at the social and political level, where we are called to collaborate in the promotion of justice, solidarity and peace in the world. We can still continue to witness to the call of Jesus to become his disciples and be the symbols and servants of the Kingdom in the world. We can welcome people who wish to become the disciples of Jesus and participate in his mission. But we no longer present this as the only way in which they can be ‘saved’. In the situation of conflict that we are in, even a mild form of fundamentalism represented by an exclusivist position must be avoided.

Having a Proper Attitude for Dialogue
We cannot really dialogue with the others if we are not really committed to it. In this matter we are not credible. We are communicating a double message. Within the Church there is a diversity of opinion. The Church, unlike other religions like Hinduism or Buddhism or even Islam, is a well organized institution. Therefore what its leaders say is taken seriously. The leaders who speak for the Church seem to speak with a double voice. On the one hand the Pope invites the leaders of other religions to come together to pray for peace. On the other hand, the Vatican brands the other religions as objectively deficient. I do not know who has given us the right to judge others in religious matters. It is one thing to witness to one’s convictions. It is another to sit in judgement over others, especially after recognizing the freedom of God and of the others. The leaders of the Church indicate in a more or less subtle manner that they are encouoraging dialogue only because they cannot proclaim. That is why members of other religions are looking with suspicion at the enthusiasm of some Christians for dialogue. It is one thing to say that one need not deny or hide one’s convictions in dialoguing with others. I suppose all believers think that their religion is the best. It is another matter to continue an aggressive attitude and language in mission that smacks of a religious crusade. Even if I wish to proclaim the good news that God has spoken to me to other humans with freedom, who have their own experience of God, I can only do so dialogically, taking into account their God-experience. One sometimes wonders why the people who seem keen on imposing their version of Christianity on the East and the South do not show the same kind of zeal in converting the de-christianized populations of the North and the West who, increasingly, do not seem to believe in anything.

22. Redemptoris Missio, 28-29.
23. Cf. Jacques Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Maryknoll: Orbis, 1997; J. Kuttianimattathil, Practice and Theology of Interreligious Dialogue: A Critical Study of the 24. Indian Christian Attempts since Vatican II. Bangalore: Kristu Jyoti College, 1995. “La pertinence de la mission chrétienne dans le contexte de la pluralité religieuse”, Spiritus 41 (2000) 115-240

People who are serious about dialogue are not saying that all religions are the same or that all are equal. We are dialoguing not with religions, but with people. We are saying that God’s saving grace is reaching out to people wherever they are. We are suggesting that the various religions are facilitating saving divine-human encounter. Every religious system and institution, including the Church, has its limitations and sinfulness. They need to be challenged prophetically to conversion. It does not help to look at the good in ourselves in theory and the bad in others in practice. If we believe that the Spirit of God is present everywhere, then we have to discern her presence carefully and not make a priori judgements about God’s plan for the humans, based on our own God-experience. We are not looking either for some common denominator around which we can unify all religions. Religions are different. God is free to say different words to different peoples. That is why dialogue between religions can be mutually enriching. In making the following sugestions about the practice of dialogue I take for granted that we have the proper attitude of dialogue.

Dialogue as Conflict Resolution
In a situation of inter-religious conflict, the first step in dialogue is conflict resolution. We can think of doing this at two levels. Where is there is or has been conflict we have to work to bring about peace. At a second level, we have to explore ways in which people involved in conflict and mutual violence can be reconciled.

The first element in conflict resolution is the restoration of justice. The authorities in South Africa, when it became a democracy after decades of apartheid, established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. (TRC) Their experience could provide a context for making certain proposals. Inter-religious conflicts are often provoked by economic and political factors. The properties of some are destroyed and others benefit from it. People are murdered. The political order too has been violated. In such a situation, we cannot speak about resolving conflicts without restoring justice. Justice does not mean revenge: an eye for an eye, life for life. It is not victor’s justice, like the trials of Nuernberg after the Second World War. We cannot turn back the clock of history. We cannot bring back dead people to life. That is why the TRC spoke of restorative justice as opposed to retributive justice. Reparation can be done to people who have lost their property, either by people who have deprived them of it, if they can be identified, or by the community/State. Restorative justice aims, not at going back to the old order, but to build a new community. This supposes forgiveness and reconciliation. These have to be based on truth. The truth of what actually happened must be established. One can transcend it; one need not forget it. The process of forgiveness starts from the victims: they must be ready to forgive, if not forget. In order to forgive, the truth of what they have suffered must be recognized. Forgiveness supposes and demands repentance on the part of those who have done wrong. Forgiveness cannot be given if it is not asked for and accepted. People in power giving themselves or their predecessors a blanket amnesty is not reconciliation. Putting the blame on the system is not forgiveness. People who were responsible – at least the leaders – must come forward to accept responsibility and express regret. Only this kind of interaction between the opressors and the victims can lead to the healing of memories. Memories need not be abolished; but they can be healed. The stories of avowls of violence done and of pain and suffering undergone before the TRC have been cathartic to every one. It is not difficult to imagine recognized leaders of one community asking forgiveness symbolicaly from another community.

24. Dominus Iesus, 22. For a commentary on this document see Jeevadhara 31(2001) 171-248.
25. Cf. Raymond G. Helmick and Rodney L. Peterson, Forgiveness and Reconciliation. Templeton Foundation Press, 2001.

What happens in many cases is that, when there is violence, order is restored by the police or army. In majority-minority conflicts the civil authorities and police, coming from the dominant communities, may play an ambiguous role between restoring order and supporting the majority. Enquiry committees are appointed. Because of the mob character of the violence, the real culprits who inspired and instigated the struggle are never brought to book. Real justice is not done to the innocent victims. Memories are not healed, but simply suppressed. They just wait for another occasion to flare up, making the next conflict more violent than the first. Normal forms of dialogue are not really possible on such occasions.

The Dialogue of Action
When trying to identify the causes of violence we should distinguish between the leaders and the mob. The leaders, of course, should be identified and judged according to the laws of the land. But the mob often behaves in an inhuman, animal way. They are maddened by emotion. There are instances of people who indulge in violence as part of a mob, but who are ashamed of what they did when they think of it calmly later. There must be ways in which such self-reflection, conscientization and conversion can be promoted. Corresondingly the people who have been hurt must also be reassured. The State is not the proper authority to handle this process of reconciliation. It lacks the moral authority and credibility to handle it. It is here that inter-religious groups of community leaders should take the initiative to promote reconciliation and peace. This is really dialogue of action.

To be effective such a dialogue of action requires a democratic context, where there is freedom and possibility of participation for all. In an authoritarian atmosphere, such dialogue of action would probabaly be limited to prophetic gestures of protest.

The Dialogue of Life
The experience of conflict must lead us to take preventive action to preempt such conflicts in the future. We saw above that one of the reasons for conflict is the emergence of group identity that opposes one group to another. How can such conflictual identity be overcome and a sense of community promoted? I take for granted that differences of identity, especially at the religious levels, cannot be abolished. Therefore we have to create an awareness that in contemporary society we are actually living multiple identities. We belong to different groups at different moments of our lives: living, professional, recreational, cultural groups. Some of these groups maybe chosen voluntarily. One of the groups that in some way embraces all the others brings us together as citizens of one country. As citizens we share some common economic and political interests. The State should be a neutral structure that does not favour any one group. At another level each group also has and pursues its separate identity and interests, without deteriment to the legitimate interests of others. But between these two levels we have a civil society where all the different religious and ideological groups engage in active discussion to converge on common goals, even if each group is based in its own religious and cultural perspectives. Such a dialogue is carried on in discussion groups, the media, the universtities, etc. This is inter-religious diaogue in a socio-political context.

Encountering the others in a social, cultural and political context enables us to discover the others as humans, not identified exclusively in terms of their religion. Such contact helps us to know them and develop friendships. This helps us to discover and experience a fellowship at a deeper human level that transcends religious divisions. Living together in the same geographical area, attending the same school or club, working in the same office can help us towards this realization. But it will not come automatically. Circumstances may bring us together, but we will have to make positive efforts to get to know each other, to relate. Such friendship may eventually lead us also to get to know some elements of their religious belief and practice so that our prejudices regarding them may be reduced, if not dispelled. We could then participate in each other’s festivals and celebrations at a social level. This will be dialogue of life.

Such diaogue of life can be introduced and prepared at the level of the school if the students are introudced to various religions, their founders, histories and doctrines, their festivals and observances, their political and moral options. Introduction could include their scriptures and literature, their arts and their places of worship, their symbols and rituals.

The dialogue of life could be supported by exchange and discussion at a more expert and intellectual level. The approach is not one of comparative religion wich claims a certain neutral, scientific quality. We are meeting as believers and are giving an account of what we believe in a systematic, rational way. We affirm similarities as well as differences. Such an intellectual approach may help us to grow out of a fundamentalistic attachment to our traditions. An interpretative approach to make our exposition relevant to contemporary times may lead, in the context of dialogue, to a fusion of horizons and to mutual enrichment. Hopefully there will be a convergence of conclusions for action. Such an inter-religious interaction has always been there in history, even if it was polemical. Intellectual confrontation always leads to clarification and development.

Inter-religious encounter can lead to internal reform and change. In the 19th century there were many reform movements in Hinduism thanks to its encounter with Christianity. The Christistian attitude to other religions is undergoing a radical transformation because of its encounter with the developed religions of Asia like Hinduism and Buddhism. Islam developed the devotional Sufi when it encountered popular religiosity and devotional musticism across India and Asia.

Praying Together
Since all religions (except Buddhism) believe in God and since no religion is really polytheist, the deepest encounter between religions can take place in the presence of God. In October 1986 and January 2001 the various religions came together in Assisi to pray for peace. Even if they did not pray together they recognized and respected each other’s prayer. Decades earlier, Mahatma Gandhi in India had been promoting inter-religious prayer as a means of promoting inter-religious peace and friendship. Different religious groups read from their Scriptures, sang their hymns and prayed. The attitude of the other believers present could vary from respectful presence to active participation depending on the kind of symbols used. If we recognize that we are all praying to the one God, then we should be able to relativize and enter into the symbolic structures of other religions, provided they do not insist on what is specific to their myth, faith and history. In this process each religion discovers the difference between their own symbols and meanings, accepting a convergence of meaning through a pluralism of symbols. Such inter-religious prayer is becoming common in Asia today.

As far as Christian theology is concerned, if we believe that the Spirit of God is present in other religions, then we can accept the possibility that God has spoken to them in their official scriptures. Even though God has not addressed those words to us, the fact that they have been addressed to other humans mean that they are not tottaly irrelevant to us, especially in an inter-religious context. People at a more popular level seem more open to inter-religious experiences. Their recognition of sacredness as a quality of persons and places seem to depend more on their personal experience than official boundaries.

26. Cf. Dennis Gira and Jacques Scheuer. Eds. , Vivre de plusieurs reli gions. Promesse ou illusion? Paris: L’Atelier, 2000.
27. Cf. M. Amaladoss, “Double Religious Belonging and Liminality”, Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Relection 66 (2002) 21-34.
28. See Anand Amaladass and Rosario Rocha. Eds. Crossing the Borders. Chennai: Satya Nilayam, 2001.

We find a similar openness at the highest levels. For some decades now, Christians have been interested in Hindu and Buddhist methods of meditation. There are many Christians who practice Yoga and Zen. Some may not go beyond using their techniques to attain inner peace. But others have tried to touch the depths of the experience that those methods lead to. Once the perspective of Christianity being the fulfilemnt of other religions is abandoned and they are recognzied and accepted as different, then the question arises whether a Christian can aspire to a Hindu experience of God or the Ultimate. Can one be a Hindu-Christian? This is not an abstract question, since there are individuals who have tried to cross boundaries. This is not an academic, but an experiential question. The experiments and experiences of a few show that the boundaries that divide religions are not as impermeable as their own devotees imagine. Here we come to dialgoue at its deepest level.

Conclusion
Jesus said that the sabbath is for the humans, not the humans for the sabbath. Similarly we can say that the religions are for people and their life in the world; people do not live for their religions. The basic commandment is to love one another and to love God in the other, not to fight about which symbol of God is true. On the last day Jesus will not ask about which God people worshiped, but whether they served the poor and the needy. (Mt 25) God is not exclusive; people and their religions are. Once we are assured that God’s saving love in Christ and the Spirit is reaching out to all people in ways unknown to us, we can witness to the self-emptying love of Jesus without anxiety and aggressivity. The way of Jesus is kenotic service, not domination. (Phil 2:6-12) We can leave to God how God will bring together all things so that God will be all in all. (cf 1 Cor 15:28) We can respect God’s freedom and the freedom of the people. To acknowledge and accept the freedom of the other is to be ready for dialogue. Then violence in the name of religion will be no more.
Michael Amaladoss, S.J.