22/05/2024 08:30 - 13:15

HALL: LA PIRA - ROOM 4

Proponent: Howard T.A.

Chair: Fahy J.

Speaker: Boros P., Howard T.A., Narman M., Schneider M.

In recent decades, organizations committed to interreligious or interfaith dialogue have proliferated, both in the Western and non-Western worlds. Why? How so? And what exactly is interreligious dialogue? These are the touchstone questions of this panel.  It draws its inspiration from one of the panelists' book: The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue (Yale University Press, 2021); this is the first major history of interreligious dialogue in the modern age.  The University of Bristol's Gavin D'Costa, a leading scholar of interfaith dialogue, has called it "a scholarly, finely crafted and fascinating book."
While many have theorized about and practiced interreligious dialogue, few have attended carefully to its past, connecting its emergence and spread with broader developments in modern history.  Interreligious dialogue—grasped in light of careful, critical attention to its past—holds promise for helping people of diverse faith backgrounds to foster cooperation and knowledge of one another while contributing insight into contemporary, global religious pluralism.
However, as recent events in the Middle East and elsewhere have, shown, interreligious dialogue faces numerous challenges.  Some have even argued that its payoff has not lived up to its promise and it is in a "state of crisis."  This panel will explore aspects of the history of interfaith dialogue and some of its contemporary challenges before speculating on promising ways forward