Thursday, June 08, 2006

Interfaith conversations



I continue to notice a pattern in "interfaith" conversations and settings. The pattern is this - more often than not, interfaith equals no Christian references. I attended an interfaith prayer service today and I anticipated a mix of prayers and faith perspectives. Instead, I witnessed a list of references to every faith besides Christianity. A few Psalms were included in the prayer service but there was an obvious omission of any New Testament references.

Why does this pattern exist? Many would try to cite that Christians have taken advantage of their majority status to push back other faiths. Is this completely true? My observation is that Christians have often subscribed to a guilt complex that is shaped by Christianity's connection with colonialism and anything else that is related to the forcing of the Christian faith on others. I have a question in response to this connection. Why do other faiths fail to have the same guilt complex? Why is it that Christians always have to back out from asserting anything in "interfaith" conversations and prayer services?

I worked with numerous Muslims in my last software development job near Washington DC and I often had religious conversations throughout the day at places like the coffee maker. I had the opportunity to attend a Friday prayer at a local mosque with these friends and I received numerous insights from the experience. One of my closer friends was open to seeing the commonalities between our faiths but the majority of others had little to no interest in that kind of 'dialogue.' They made it clear that they did not have any form of guilt complex for the uniqueness of their religious claims.

Am I the only person who notices the pattern of Christian references being absent from "interfaith" conversations? Or am I one of the only individuals who is willing to point it out?

1 comment:

wes said...

I will need a beer to unpack this, because it feels as though we have painted with a broad stroke our generalizations of intrafaith dialogue--I too am finding it difficult [see my recent post--and commenter stushie]--hopefully we could then get plugged into a meaningful relation minstry paradigm.