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Interfaith Belonging is not Inter-Religious Understanding
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/roberthunt/2013/06/interfaith-belonging-is-not-inter-religious-understanding/At a recent meeting to work on programs for an interfaith chapel. It immediately became clear to me that a deep conceptual confusion was likely to thwart the intentions of the participants...
...
And just what did these Interfaith ministers personally believe? Essentially they held in common:
1. A belief that all humans are on a quest to relate to and move toward “the Divine,” “the One,” or “The Transcendent/Immanent,” or some other conceptualization of “Spirit” or “the Sacred.”
2. All religions are part of this quest and offer resources for all those participating in this quest.
...
The problem is that followers of Interfaith seem to make two wrong assumptions. The first is their belief that all other religions share their conviction that all humans are on a quest for God. The second is that they, as followers of Interfaith and students of different religious beliefs and practices, can actually represent these different religions. Indeed, they imagine that Interfaith is a kind of living inter-religious dialogue now properly directed to serving the universal human quest for the sacred.
Both assumptions are wrong, and because of them the Interfaith religion has a much reduced chance of creating inter-religious understanding. Indeed it seems to me that the so-called interfaith services, lectures, meditations, and so on are actually just evangelistic efforts to convert people from one of the classical religious traditions to the new Interfaith religion. This is why they receive little or no interest from actual Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. Who wants to go to someone else’s worship to be converted to their religion?
...
And just what did these Interfaith ministers personally believe? Essentially they held in common:
1. A belief that all humans are on a quest to relate to and move toward “the Divine,” “the One,” or “The Transcendent/Immanent,” or some other conceptualization of “Spirit” or “the Sacred.”
2. All religions are part of this quest and offer resources for all those participating in this quest.
...
The problem is that followers of Interfaith seem to make two wrong assumptions. The first is their belief that all other religions share their conviction that all humans are on a quest for God. The second is that they, as followers of Interfaith and students of different religious beliefs and practices, can actually represent these different religions. Indeed, they imagine that Interfaith is a kind of living inter-religious dialogue now properly directed to serving the universal human quest for the sacred.
Both assumptions are wrong, and because of them the Interfaith religion has a much reduced chance of creating inter-religious understanding. Indeed it seems to me that the so-called interfaith services, lectures, meditations, and so on are actually just evangelistic efforts to convert people from one of the classical religious traditions to the new Interfaith religion. This is why they receive little or no interest from actual Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists. Who wants to go to someone else’s worship to be converted to their religion?
