Building Interfaith Trust

The events of 9/11, Bali bombing, and the U.S-lead invasion in Iraq have made painfully clear the need for improved understanding among Christians, Jewish, and Muslims. Misconceptions and misunderstandings abound. Little effective communication occurs. Extremists on both sides would like to see a clash of religiously defined civilizations.

To forestall such a clash, dialogue is essential at various levels. First, there must be dialogue among political leaders from the West and the East. Equally important is dialogue among people of faith, among religious leaders, among scholars, and among lay people. The fact that Muslims, Christians, and Jews all consider Abraham to be their spiritual ancestor and progenitor provides a natural basis for dialogue and religious communication. The sacred texts of the three traditions are also interrelated with each other.

Despite the genuine differences that exist among the three Abrahamic traditions, they all put forward visions of peace. It is essential to recognize that there are narratives in all three religions that are pluralistic and peaceful, but there are also exclusive narratives in each of these faith traditions as well.

We need to consider how the enduring virtues of the great faiths can be used to build a shared community in terms of mutual respect, openness, trust, dignity, and responsibility. These three monotheistic religions need not meet at rivals, but can meet as partners and moral equals in building a shared future. In knowing each other, they can give the best of their traditions and values to creating a genuinely peaceful interfaith community.

Cultural contact between Islam and the West has been marred by historically unequal power relations, leaving the West often arrogant and insensitive and the Muslim world frequently defensive and insecure. But active engagement with one another, through sustained dialogue and interaction, permits each other to understand the deeper meanings, associations, and history of the other. Active engagement permits us to understand the authentic, life-affirming expressions of human religiosity in each of the other faiths. Above all, we seek a paradigmatic shift in how we see, understand, and relate to one another. Our awareness can and must be expanded beyond existing limitations, as we develop a greater sense of belonging to the family of humankind.

There are sections of all three faith communities that are not prepared to engage in dialogue or accept responsibility for the conflicts generated within their own traditions. But all three communities also have members and leaders who cherish the opportunity to become better informed, who welcome the opportunity to hear and acknowledge the pain that each may feel in relation to the other, and who are prepared to collaboratively work toward a more enlightened and peaceful future. And in doing so they recognize that there are serious issues that divide them and that these issues are often as much political as theological.
Religious peacemakers can consider these questions: how can relations among the three religious communities be improved and how can recrimination be avoided? How can the three communities increase their mutual understanding and respect for each other? How can the three communities strengthen their commitments to reconciliation and peaceful coexistence?

In promoting greater mutual understanding, dialogue should be made more effective. Dialogue generally places too much emphasis on talk; the greatest impact comes from undertaking activities together. Engaging in joint activities and projects is generally a more effective means of building trust and mutual understanding than is discussion and debate.

Each community needs to be convinced that the other communities genuinely feel its pain. There is a need to develop programs for interfaith reading of sacred texts to educate, inform, and deepen our understanding of one another. The three traditions need to share with each other their understanding of peace and spirituality, and they need to broaden their understanding of peace collaboratively.

There is also a need to develop shared mourning processes surrounding death, destruction, and injustice, particularly in relation to terrorism and military attack as well as act of governmental oppression. Through dialogue each community can articulate what it needs from the others. For instance, Jews express the need to hear Muslims and Christians condemn all forms of terrorism, including suicide bombings in Israel. Muslims express the need to hear from Jews and Christians that they truly comprehend the suffering experienced by Palestinians at the hands of Israel authorities.

Dialogue must not be confined to clerics. Dialogue must be multifaceted; different dialogue efforts should involve different constituencies and strive to achieve different ends. The role of women as potential religious peacemakers must be recognized.

Much of the hard work to promote peaceful coexistence must be done internally by each community. The religious peacemakers must take on the defamers and mythologizers within their own communities who are demonizing the Other. Cultivating an ethic of self-criticism is also important. Internal self-criticism involves an awareness that leads to accountability, to the need and ability to correct actions and thoughts inconsistent with religious ideals.

“Boundary leaders” –those who operate on the borders of their communities and are ready to reach out other communities – need support from each other. Their work is psychologically and spiritually taxing. Religious leaders should be urged to utilize their skills as empathizers and conflict resolvers not to reinforce boundaries but to reach out to other religious communities.

It might be possible to form facilitation teams composed of representatives from different religious traditions to enter situations of conflict and tension. Multi-faith media teams might also be created to jointly author essays and articles on religious interfaith issues. Greater publicity needs to be given to examples of religious peacemaking and interfaith collaboration.

Diplomats need to recognize that religious peacemakers can be their allies in the promotion of peace and reconciliation. To leave the language of faith out of peacemaking is a serious deficiency. This language is powerful, motivating people, and thus needs to be central.

News accounts generally focus on religion as source of conflict. The extremists are given the most prominence, which means that the fundamentalists are most visible representatives of each tradition. This excessive emphasis on extremism generates interfaith fear and hostility. Those with pluralist and inclusive perspectives usually have great difficulty conveying their messages. Therefore, it would be vital for media to give pluralism a fair hearing.

Not all religious leaders wish to assume those responsibilities and some still promote religious triumphalism at the expense of interfaith amity, and this only compounds the levels of fear and mutual hostility. Those within these communities who are committed to pluralism and peaceful coexistence must step forward and take the initiative.

While the responsibility rests primarily with the people of faith, governments, educational institutions, and the media can play critical roles in either exacerbating the problem or contributing to the solution. Building interfaith trust in a climate of fear is both a challenging and urgent task.[]