Interfaith dialogue

Interfaith dialogue, also known as interreligious dialogue, refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e., "faiths") or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels.

Throughout the world, there are local, regional, national and international interfaith initiatives; many are formally or informally linked and constitute larger networks or federations. These include organisations such as the United Religions Initiative, the Parliament of the World's Religions, and interfaith training institutions like OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation in the United Kingdom, which since 1996, has prepared interfaith ministers for community service, spiritual accompaniment, and inclusive ceremony.

The often quoted statement "There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions" was formulated by Hans Küng, a professor of Ecumenical Theology and President of the Global Ethic Foundation. Interfaith dialogue plays a major role in the study of religion and peacebuilding.

The Archdiocese of Chicago's Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs defines "the difference between ecumenical, interfaith, and interreligious relations", as follows:

Some interfaith dialogues have more recently adopted the name interbelief dialogue, while other proponents have proposed the term interpath dialogue, to avoid implicitly excluding atheists, agnostics, humanists, and others with no religious faith but with ethical or philosophical beliefs, as well as to be more accurate concerning many world religions that do not place the same emphasis on "faith" as do some Western religions. Similarly, pluralistic rationalist groups have hosted public reasoning dialogues to transcend all worldviews (whether religious, cultural or political), termed transbelief dialogue. To some, the term interreligious dialogue has the same meaning as interfaith dialogue. The World Council of Churches states: "Following the lead of the Roman Catholic Church, other churches and Christian religious organizations, such as the World Council of Churches, have increasingly opted to use the word interreligious rather than interfaith to describe their own bilateral and multilateral dialogue and engagement with other religions. [...] the term interreligious is preferred because we are referring explicitly to dialogue with those professing religions – who identify themselves explicitly with a religious tradition and whose work has a specific religious affiliation and is based on religious foundations."

History records examples of interfaith initiatives throughout the ages, with varying levels of success in establishing one of three types of "dialogue" to engender, as recently described, either understanding, teamwork, or tolerance:

The historical effectiveness of interfaith dialogue is an issue of debate. Friar James L. Heft, in a lecture on "The Necessity of Inter-Faith Diplomacy," spoke about the conflicts among practitioners of the three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). Noting that except for the Convivencia in the 14th and 15th centuries, believers in these religions have either kept their distance or have been in conflict, Heft maintains, "there has been very little genuine dialogue" between them. "The sad reality has been that most of the time Jews, Muslims and Christians have remained ignorant about each other, or worse, especially in the case of Christians and Muslims, attacked each other."

In contrast, The Pluralism Project at Harvard University says, "Every religious tradition has grown through the ages in dialogue and historical interaction with others. Christians, Jews, and Muslims have been part of one another's histories, have shared not only villages and cities, but ideas of God and divine revelation."