Ten steps to renew inter-religious relations

Joseph Evans offers a practical ‘decalogue’ which could help religions engage in positive discussion and action for the good of all concerned.

In an earlier Adamah Media article I proposed a series of principles which could guide inter-religious relations. Among other things, I suggested that such relations requires hard thinking, hard study, hard prayer and hard loving.

Empty discussion based on woolly thought, without real knowledge of one’s own and the other’s beliefs, is merely hot air as polite and respectful as it might try to be. We should also pray for humanity to come together in shared faith pleasing to the divinity. Relying on human efforts alone won’t get us anywhere.

And then without true love – knowing that real love can be hard – we will only grow apart and serve evil not good. As I wrote: “Dialogue with other believers requires overcoming prejudices and cultural barriers and appreciating the dignity of the other person, whatever his or her creed.”

Religious dialogue should never abandon the search for truth. Discussion based on a relativistic rejection of a sense of truth – everything is somehow true or nothing is really true – quickly falls into the absurd. We must be convinced that truth can be found and work together respectfully, and as rationally as possible, to seek it.

While never proclaiming our beliefs against others, we shouldn’t be afraid to jolt others’ sensibilities. What for me is an article of faith might be shocking for them, and someone else’s firm conviction might seem to me very problematic. We should be ready for this shock and be prepared – on both sides – to explore why it has that effect. And likewise, even if we are convinced as to the truth of our religion, we should be ready to admit, and discover, specific ways in which it might not be lived out properly. Every religion can have its deviant and corrupt forms.

These are some of my principal arguments in that article. But inter-religious relations cannot stop there. Apart from theological discussion, we should engage in practical action. Indeed, in my article I talked of working together to care for the poor and needy.

Unity in good action can foster unity of hearts.

In this article I want to flesh this out more. What are the specific areas, the key moral issues, we can agree on and stand united to promote? All too often we focus on the differences, and as these are frequently so numerous in inter-religious encounters (the theological gulf between Hinduism and Christianity, for instance, can seem almost infinite), we can be paralysed.

But inter-religious engagement worthy of the name – that wants to go beyond a futile talking-shop – needs to reach concerted practical action. Here’s a proposed list of 10 areas – if not 10 Commandments, then at least 10 fields of opportunity – where believers of all stripes could reach a consensus for common action. Five are expressed as ‘no’s’ and five as ‘yes’-es’. Of course, these are my choices, no doubt inspired in good measure by my own Christian convictions, but I propose these as areas where I think there could be possible agreement among all religious believers.

Let’s dive in.

1. No to slavery and human trafficking

Slavery and human trafficking are allowed to flourish in part because religious believers do not do enough to oppose them. Indeed, religions have taken far too long to oppose them. Consider, for example, that slavery was only finally abolished in Christian Europe in the 19^th century.

There might even be racist or other notions lingering in certain religious forms which see non-adherents to that religion, particularly if it is linked to a particular ethnicity as happens with some creeds, as deserving of subjugation. Slavery could be seen as an appropriate punishment for not accepting that religion. Should this be the case, the conviction has to be honestly declared and allow itself to be challenged.

But generally believers of all religions will coincide in feeling horror that other human beings are unjustly deprived of freedom. If religion is to be a force for good in the world, it must be a force for freedom. Religions can then stand together to explain how true freedom is not the licence to do whatever one likes: there are limits. Just as freedom does not justify physical harm to others or oneself, neither does it justify moral harm.

The common struggle to oppose slavery and the trafficking of humans which, alas, is so much a part of the contemporary world, could be a good place to start in inter-religious action.

2. No to the exploitation and oppression of women

No serious religion can be happy to see about half the human population subject to exploitation and oppression. Surely religions can stand together to say ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to the objectification of women.

If a religion has a justification for seeing women as inferior, it should bring it to the table for discussion, ready to see if its arguments really do stand up to logical analysis by others. Put bluntly, if you think women are inferior, then at least have the courage to say so openly and explain why.

There might even be convictions which others see as negative prejudice and you see as positive respect for a deeper motive. Speaking as a Catholic, I would see my Church’s resistance to the ordination of women as priests as one such example, and would be happy to argue my case, while also aware that we still have a long way to go in opening roles of leadership and responsibility to women.

But if this negative mentality is merely due to cultural forces, or the force of time, the religion should have the courage to fight against this mistaken attitude, helping its own adherents to overcome their prejudices.

Demeaning practices such as female circumcision should be challenged. Can the cultures which practise these find real religious or rational justification for them? I would suspect not though I am ready to hear the arguments in their favour. I suspect rather that they have simply acquired the force of custom. But corrupt customs can and should change.

And surely it is time for believers of all creeds to campaign and work energetically to oppose together the commercial forces which promote pornography for evil profit, united in prayer and political, educational and even technological action. This is certainly a problem which is crippling many people in the (nominally) Christian West and it would be interesting to compare notes with religious believers from other parts of the world to discuss possible forms of cooperation to help overcome this plague.

3. No to human misery and poverty

Religious teaching can give meaning to suffering, explaining how the deity can make use of it for a higher purpose: for example, as a form of spiritual purification or to prepare us for eternity.

But this does not mean that religions are indifferent to human misery and indeed various religious forms – I am aware of this in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, and Buddhism, to name but a few – give much importance to works of mercy. Their understanding is that God (with Buddhism it might be more a sense of compassion) pities suffering human beings and wants his followers to be instruments of his tender care towards them.

As atheism rarely takes pity on human misery, it is all the more incumbent on religions to do so. So we should work together to overcome suffering as much as we can. As some religious codes can fatalistically accept it, this is another attitude which could be brought to the table for discussion.

The fight against poverty is more tricky. Some creeds even seem to justify it – such as the Hindu caste system (though it is rejected in fact by many Hindus) – but most don’t. Again in various religious systems, particularly Christianity, poverty can have a positive value when seen as the voluntary renunciation of material possessions to open oneself more to God. And the poor are considered to be particular objects of divine love.

But Christianity and most other religious traditions coincide in seeing unchosen indigence as something bad.

How can people raise their sights to the deity when they are forced to wallow in degrading misery and must focus instead on where to find their next meal?

As helping to feed the hungry is the first step for them to raise their sights to God, all religious traditions would therefore benefit from giving food (and shelter and clothing) to those who need it.

4. No to war and violence

The expectation that religions should stand against war and violence is a hard one to defend because some religions have precisely spread through these means and many religious believers have used God’s name and still use it today to justify their bloodshed.

But religions also can evolve without betraying their essential principles. By a deeper study of their own foundational documents and the very best expressions of their lived out practice, I am confident that many religions will discover that violence is not fundamental to their beliefs and might have arisen from a mistaken or at least limited interpretation of them, contingent to that historical period.

They will discover holy men and women in their history who stood out for their promotion of peace and who can inspire them to do the same today.

It is striking how Christianity has precisely followed this path, learning that spreading faith by the sword is an aberration from true Christian belief. This does not, of course, necessarily mean that all Christians have in fact learned the lesson: witness the current conflict between Christian Russian and the Ukraine.

Peace is a complex and hard structure to build and maintain but it involves the concrete and local gestures of goodwill of very ordinary believers.

5. No to abortion

Religion which does not defend innocent life – and what is more innocent than a child in the womb or a new-born babe? – is a dead religion. If it does not see every human as a creature willed by the deity, and therefore to be cherished and defended, what idea does it have of that deity? What sort of divine being is it who wants his innocent creatures to be killed?

I am aware, however, that there can be differences of opinion about when life actually starts in the womb – some religions don’t believe there is life until after 40 days. While this could be an ongoing area of discussion, we could certainly work together to defend life in the womb from this point onwards.

At a time when, through the loss of the sense of God, some Western countries and lobby groups promote abortion as a human right, we should jointly proclaim human life as a right, as divinely willed. And this includes the right not to be killed in the womb.

A form of violence which is creeping in in our time is euthanasia. Apart from many human reasons against it, it should be easy for religious believers to agree to oppose it together. Only the deity should decide when human life must end.

6. Yes to the family

One conviction which the major world religions have clear is that true marriage can only be between a man and a woman with a view to having children. They see marriage as an unbreakable partnership for life, at least as the ideal goal since some allow divorce.

Though some religions allow polygamy, they still teach that the fundamental marital (and therefore sexual) relationship should be man-woman, and not any other combination.

Not surprisingly, it is the families of religious people which most grow. Here, our common belief in the reality of marriage could lead us to common action which could actually save humanity from self-extermination.

The declining birth rates throughout the world but most dramatically seen in places like Japan (where, not surprisingly, religious practice is also very weak, either not lived at all or reduced to mere superstition) remind us how serious the threat is. A lack of faith so often results in a lack of children, putting humanity’s continuation seriously at risk. Religions can stand united to work not only for life after death but also for life before it!

7. Yes to religious influence in public life

Religions must speak out together to demand the right to have a voice in social life. They should not be confined to the temple or the church and be denied the possibility of influencing the nation’s policy and practices. In the West and in some Asian authoritarian regimes this right is often not in practice recognised.

We should likewise stand united to oppose all forms of unjust prejudice and discrimination against religions: Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, the persecution of Christian minorities, etc, as well as the social pillorying of religious convictions.

It is time too for believers to stand together to call for greater integrity in public life. Religions can cooperate to work for a new political culture truly inspired by honesty, public service and the ethical values which religions teach.

But where religions do have a voice, they have to learn self-restraint so as not to abuse their authority.

Where religion and politics are mixed, religion’s purity always ends up badly stained.

So, yes, religions have a right to speak out and aim to influence the nation’s life for the good, but this right imposes on them a greater responsibility of self-control. And those cases when religions do not live this only shows how harmful this is when it happens.

8. Yes to care for creation

Religious sensibility can help a believer view the natural world and the human person as marvels of the divine creator. Care for and defence of the environment could be a great place to initiate inter-religious joint action, as, thankfully, seems to be happening ever more, with a recognition of mankind’s role as the peak and steward of visible creation.

9. Yes to integral development

Belief in the divinity also involves valuing the dignity of its greatest creature on earth, the human person. God is also glorified when his rational creature, the one who most reflects him, is.

Hence it should be natural for religions to promote education and artistic, intellectual and cultural development, and many beautiful common initiatives could be undertaken in these areas. Those religions which fail to do this should ask themselves whether they are really being faithful to their key beliefs. Would their deity be happy with their neglect in such areas?

10. Yes to freedom

I touched on this earlier, but all religions should stand up for freedom, and this includes freedom for both themselves and other creeds to operate within a flourishing civil society.

This is something we should demand from secular authority but also live out ourselves (as a Catholic, I am aware that we Christians have often failed to do so). A religion which feels the need to proscribe other religious expressions to defend itself is a very fragile religion. If it thinks it is true, it should have the arguments and confidence to stand up for its beliefs without simply banning others.

These 10 areas could open up exciting and creative fields of common action and fruitful relationships, lived out frequently at a low-key local level. This would be beneficial to each religion involved and would also greatly benefit wider society.

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