Inter-faith dialogue has become the new mantra for religionists and conflict managers around the world. The Pope calls for it, presidents and prime ministers call for it, and the men and women in the United Nations promote it. And if one were to go by the latest presidential primaries politics, “talking to your enemies” is good diplomacy!

Institutes, centers, and organizations promote interfaith dialogue. For example, the Institute of Interfaith Dialog, which has fourteen centers in the U.S., seems especially active in promoting dialogue among people of different faiths. But on its advisory board are only Christians and Jews. That the board’s knowledge of other religions is cursory can be found out by checking out the brief synopsis on Hinduism included on the IID site. Hinduism’s “… development was influenced by many invasions over thousands of years. One of the major influences occurred when Indo-Europeans invaded Northern India (circa 1500 to 500 BCE) from the steppes of Russia and Central Asia,” they state based on claims made in outdated scholarship. The {url http://india_resource.tripod.com/aryan.html} “Aryan Invasion Theory” has been replaced by an “Aryan Migration Theory” as well as by an “Out of India” theory. But the well-meaning folks at the Institute surely are not up to speed when it comes to non-Abrahamic religions. Nor do they know much about the caste system, which they say “was abolished by law in 1949” and which is, however, still prevalent, in “South India”! What Indian law makers did when they wrote a new Constitution for a newly independent India, in 1950, was to ban discrimination based on caste. They did not ban caste. As to the quixotic claim that there is more caste-based social interaction in South India, that will come as a surprise to most Indians. An interesting paper by experts at the World Bank provides an overview and analysis of the nature of caste and caste mobility in India.

But let us get back to the topic of interfaith dialogue. Following the 9/11 tragedy there was a spurt in interfaith dialogue initiatives. But many of those initiatives brought mostly Christians, Muslims, and Jews to talk to each other, ignoring the fact that half the world’s people do not identify themselves as Christian, Muslim, or Jewish.

One effort that goes beyond the narrowly circumscribed intra-Abrahamic dialogue initiatives is that by the Belgium-based Catholic monk, Lucien F. Cosijns. He considers, for example, whether Hinduism is monotheistic, because of the hang-up Christians and Muslims have about God being one, and being theirs only. Without going into the nature of such a belief system, and the argument for and against monotheism, what should be commended is Father Cosijns openness to the world that is multi-religious. For a Hindu like me, living in the United States, and who has been bombarded with Christian messages, as well as the myriad initiatives focused on bringing Christian, Muslims, and Jews to the table, Cosijns adumbration of the basics of interfaith dialogue comes as a breath of fresh air.

Tired of the unverifiable claims made by Christians and Muslims of their God being the only God, and their way being the only way, and of the silly back and forth between proponents of science like Richard Dawkins and proponents of faith, I am struck both by the ignorance of those making monopolistic claims and the fastidiousness with which they stick to their claims. Cosijns therefore acknowledges that “there is (a) need to convert the missionary activities and goals of the world religions from an ‘approach of converting’ to an ‘approach of testifying’.” He argues that “the essential valuable elements of one’s own faith should be presented in a language understandable by the local faithful, so that the dialogue between the world faith communities… lead to a better mutual knowledge and understanding, and to an exchange of the mutual values as an enrichment of the own faith and of the faith of the others.”

With a billion Catholics around the world, and the Vatican being one of the most influential religious centres, whose heads have spoken from both sides of their mouth on interfaith dialogue, Cosijns points out that while one of the Second Vatican Council’s document, the “Nostra Aetate” affirms that “The Catholic Church rejects nothing which is true and holy in these religions. She looks with sincere respect upon those ways of conduct and life, those rules and teachings which, though differing in many particulars from what she holds and sets forth, nevertheless often reflect a ray of the Truth which enlightens all men,” another document, “Ad Gentes” completely contradicts the Nostra Aetate by declaring that “The Church is missionary by her very nature”, and whose purpose is “evangelization and the planting of the Church among those peoples and groups where she has not yet taken roots”. According to the Vatican, since there is only “one Mediator between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus,” “therefore, all must be converted to Him as He is made known by the Church's preaching. All must be incorporated into Him by baptism, and into the Church which is His body”.

This contradiction has not been resolved, and thus during the latest visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the U.S., he claimed Jesus as Lord while also meeting with people of different faiths to urge dialogue. Some Hindus who met with the Pope surely did not know about the Vatican’s contradictory messages or simply decided to ignore that message. Dr. Uma Mysorekar, a gynaecologist and President of the Hindu Temple Society of North America, wondered why some of her fellow Hindus were protesting the Pope’s visit to the U.S. Those who were protesting said that the Vatican encouraged proselytization. Mysorekar naively argued that because the Pope “wanted to meet leaders of other faiths meant he recognized other religions”. Meeting the Pope, dressed in all his splendid and shining regalia, can be a singular event in the life of an activist – a photo-op moment, a one-for-my-grandchild’s-scrap book memento moment. That, however, should not hide the fact that the Vatican’s message as well as the message from Muslim leaders is one of religious supremacy which basically undermines interfaith dialogue.

Prof. Rambachan of St. Olaf College recently delivered the Lambeth Inter Faith lecture. Such a lecture, in the host’s Christian precinct, cannot but strive to find commonalities and seek compromise between two very different faith systems – one monopolistic and monotheistic, and the other a “rolling caravan of belief systems and practices”. Prof. Rambachan asserted that “Friendship and not hostility is still the norm of our narrative,” ignoring the horror, for example, of the Goa Inquisition, and the continuing multi-billion dollar annual campaigns to woo Hindus to Christianity through false promises, money, and slander. A better and historically accurate picture of Hindu-Christian interaction can be found in Prof. Balagangadhara’s book “The Heathen in his Blindness: Asia, the West and the Dynamic of Religion”.

Interfaith dialogue is a conundrum because most people come to the table with “strong” or “unshakeable” faith in their belief systems. Add to the mix, belief systems that make monopolistic and unverifiable claims. Can they belong to the same set of religions as those belief systems that are open and pluralistic? As a friend caustically put it, “Lions cannot lie with lambs as long as lions have their teeth and their claws, or until sheep acquire more potent arsenal than their bleats.”