by Russell Zinn

Created on: March 10, 2009

A topic that has become an issue internationally, not just in the US, is religious intolerance. The idea of committed adherents of different religions communicating with each other in any meaningful way, whether or not religious, is pretty much non existent. Too many people, especially in the US, are simply offended for someone bringing up their religion in the public square, or any conversation. Requiring anyone wishing to converse with others to leave their religion at home.

How then, can we engage in meaningful interreligious dialogue? To begin, people must accept the idea of a civil public square, a public place where people can freely talk without others being offended. This does not mean no disagreements, with so many religions out there, there will always be some disagreement, but how one deal with it is the key. After one accepts the idea of disagreeing without being offended or offending, they can begin to build bridges to other people.

To begin a significant conversation with someone from another religion, one must start with the commonalities between each other. Winfried Corduan's "Tapestry of Faiths" introduces the seven aspects of each religion. He explains the dimensions' of salvation, content, revelatory, truth, moral, and communication aspects. To start with, most religions came from a common belief of some kind of general revelation. Using one or more of these aspects of religions, one can build a bridge to another religion and engage in a meaningful conversation. However, with the picture of a bridge in mind, the foundation on the starting side must be well grounded before extending the bridge. The same is true of a religious bridge, if one is not well grounded in their own religion, when they start building out to other religions prematurely, it will crash down. Building bridges is essential to an unheated, meaningful conversation between to devout religious adherents.

After putting aside differences and building bridges focusing on similarities, a very productive and interesting conversation is bound to happen. This is what's called a civil public square, where people do not have to leave their religion out of every conversation. Where they can openly share about their religion and have others interested in it and asking questions to connect with them. That is how two committed adherents engage in a meaningful interreligious dialogue.

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