dialogue

I have been thinking lately about the nature of dialogue. I have in mind principally religious dialogue, but this extends to any and all groups or individuals who undertake to express themselves and to understand others. The only bottom line is that participants show respect for the other. As you can see, I have a very wide definition of 'dialogue'. 'Dialogue' for me includes talking with, being with, working for, listening to, and a number of other verbs followed by a preposition that reaches out to another individual. The key element is the reaching out to another to bring that 'other' into some type of relationship with yourself. This is what I take to be the essence of dialogue. From what follows below, it is clear that I want to combat a narrow sense of dialogue that sees it only consisting in 'negotiating' differences in propositional belief in order to try to eliminate those differences and find the 'truth'. This is very far from what I consider to be the purpose or spirit of dialogue. True, 'unity' is the key to my definition of dialogue, but it is not one that consists of doctrinal unity, but rather a unity of spirit and love that is strongest when it emerges out of diversity. I feel strongly about this because dialogue simply signifies the desire to have a relationship with someone or something. And, at least, on an ideal or institutional level, we should be constantly seeking relationships with others. The significance of the act of speaking, listening. or the act of being together, to me, lies more in the act itself than in anything exchanged or said.

I am a bit pre-occupied with this topic at the moment because I recently read some statements by an evangelical who decried the attempt at dialogue by a Utah pastor at a recent event at which Mormons and Evangelicals spoke about Christianity together. This particular evangelical felt that, above all, interaction with 'cults' like Mormons had to be centered on proclaiming their error and pointing out the difference between the 'truth' and Mormonism. He writes:

"I [intend] to address the way we approach others of different faiths with the gospel. What happened at this event is not about becoming friends and learning about other faiths or even understanding their worldviews; God is concerned that we could and ultimately will be influenced by another's religious beliefs if we get too close, even becoming completely deceived to the point of compromising the gospel of Christ."

We'll come back to this in a second.

So as not to appear unbalanced, I will relate a similar attitude displayed recently by a mormon towards another group. I recently attended an Anglican service with a few mormon friends. During the pastor's short sermon, one of my friends got my attention, gestured at the text of the sermon, and mouthed the word 'blasphemy!' very intensely. When I asked him why he felt it was important to see another's belief system in such evaluative terms, he explained that he is doing his own belief system and the Anglican system a service: he is taking them seriously and not trying to water down our differences. Whenever he is in a foreign worship service, he scans the service and only participates in that with which he could agree.

These two attitudes towards belief are admirable on one level: both of them have a healthy respect for difference that sees compromise on that difference as a false value. But I fear that, in the first case, this attitude can never lead to true 'togetherness', i.e. the understanding and love that comes from seeing theological difference as only one aspect of a much larger relationship. I feel his view egotistically focuses on getting across his pet project, beliefs, and concerns to the detriment of communication. I do not see how any relationship could be healthy on that basis. Both sides need to speak. Not even a relationship with God, in my view, can be one-sided. God does not force-feed us truth, but lets us grow independently and speak for ourselves. In other words, God and man should be constantly in 'dialogue' for the relationship to be healthy. As for the second attitude, it is an improvement, but, once again, I think it focuses too narrowly on what we think we 'know' as being the deciding factor in who we identify and commune with. I have a strong aversion to sharply dichotomous ways of viewing the world. In effect, I think it is dangerous to base one's actions and one's interaction with others on the basis of it only being this one way because, simply put, the world is rarely only that 'one' way. If we stake everything on it being that way, we may end up having a painful, conflict-ridden existence.

To both of these individuals, 'dialogue' in the sense of seeking some type of common ground in order to have a conversation and be together, threatens the integrity of theological differences between them. I don't think it has to be seen that way. I, of all people would hate to be caught defending a notion of dialogue that simply erased individuality or difference. To be honest, I see only one thing being lost in dialogue: pride. I think what we implicitly express by seeking to find commonality as opposed to trumpeting difference is that we are more interested in being together than in putting ourselves and our own beliefs above another. I doubt that anyone would claim that Christ was expressing moral relativity by associating with marginalized and traditionally unclean groups. Rather, what Christ expressed with all of his striving to enter into dialogue with diverse peoples, was that, even above belief and manner of life, love and respect should unite us. Recently, a friend of mine made the point that Christ left us, essentially, only two things: a community and a meal. I love this because these two things express 'togetherness' more than 'right thinking'.