Religion and Pluralism

Interreligious Theology? Peter Berger

Though the official guardians of religious tradition have typically looked askance at the idea
of interreligious dialogue, the practice of coming to terms intellectually with other faiths has a
long and rich history.
The Academy of World Religions at the University of Hamburg (Germany) is directed by
Wolfram Weisse and Katajun Amirpur (respectively, a Protestant and a Muslim scholar). The
Academy intends to foster dialogue between the world religions. It was founded a few years
ago, but earlier this year it received a large grant from the German government, allowing it to
greatly expand its activities. There is no great mystery as to why the German government
should be interested in interreligious interaction. The focus, naturally, has been on Islam. The
Academy has been involved in the training of imams in Europe. But it has also staged events
dealing with Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Domestically, the integration of Muslims
(several millions of them) in German society has been a great concern, especially in term of
school policies. In foreign affairs, Germany, along with other Western democracies, has been
drawn into the confrontation with radical Islamism. The Academy has developed an
international network of very competent experts who are involved in a range of activities:
dialogue between representatives of different religious traditions on substantive issues of faith
and values; development of ways of teaching about religion in schools with ethnically and
religiously mixed student populations; and social-scientific research about interfaith relations
in urban centers in Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia. There is a stimulating mix of
theoretical and practical concerns. Like John Wesley, Professor Weisse might say that the
world is his parish.
Interreligious dialogue has been around for a very long timeas an effort to come to terms
intellectually with religious traditions other than ones own. Of course one should not use the
term dialogue to describe a situation in which one party is coerced under duress to
participate in a conversation whose outcome has already been fixed by the stronger partyas
was sometimes staged by the Inquisition to humiliate and supposedly defeat representatives
of Judaism. Dialogue occurs between parties who participate voluntarily and treat each other
with respect. A great example from the early history of Buddhism is the work called The
Questions of King Milinda, an account of a conversation between a Buddhist teacher and a
Hellenistic king who was part of the heritage left in Central Asia by the conquests of
Alexander the Great. (The Greek name of the king was probably Menander.) Similar
dialogues were initiated by enlightened and genuinely interested rulers: Between Muslims,
Christians, and Jews during the (intermittently) tolerant conviviencia periods of the
Caliphate of Cordobawith the same mix of parties at the Hohenstaufen court in Sicilyand
between Muslims, Hindus, and Christians at the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Needless to say, these episodes were frequently followed by a return to religious persecution
and repression. The official guardians of a religious tradition have typically looked askance at
such experiments of tolerant exchange. An instructive example of such experiments is the
mission to China of the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci (15521610). Ricci was convinced that
Christianity could only be made plausible in China if it was presented in Chinese garbin his
case literally. Ricci acquired a perfect command of Mandarin, dressed and lived like a
Confucian scholar. He believed that Christianity and Confucianism were quite compatible, the
former being a harmonious completion of the latter. This missionary strategy did succeed in
making some converts. The sticking point, which eventually led to the downfall of this

strategy, was Riccis attitude to the veneration of ancestors, a key feature of Confucian ritual.
He thought that these ceremonies were the simple expression of a praiseworthy respect for
ones eldersa sort of Chinese translation of the Biblical Commandment to honor father and
mother. Therefore, Chinese Christians should have no problem following this Confucian
practice. Other Catholic missionaries vehemently disagreed, especially the Dominicans (who,
among other contributions, staffed the Inquisition, which earned them the nickname Domini
canes/the dogs of God). In 1645 the Holy Office of the Inquisition banned the Chinese
rites. Mercifully, Ricci had died a natural death by then. Something of his legacy must have
lingered on, because in 1715 Pope Clement XI found it necessary to reiterate the ban in the
decree Ex illa die.
The case of Matteo Ricci is instructive because it shows both the promise and the peril of
amicable contact between religions. The promise is what much later Catholic missiology was
to call enculturationthe faith, though originally coming from the outside, comes inside to
become part of a culture. This has happened many times in the history of religion:
Christianity, originally an obscure Jewish sect in a remote province of the Roman Empire,
spread throughout this Empire, became Hellenized and Romanized, and eventually a
foundation stone of Western civilization. Buddhism, deeply rooted in the religious world of
India, spread beyond itthe dharma went eastand in the process became sinified and a
constituent element of the cultures of China, Japan, and other countries far from its origins.
And Islam burst out of Arabia and created a civilization that reached from the Atlantic to the
China Sea, in the process becoming indigenized, encultured, in different ways in what
became the Arab world, Iran, and Indonesia. This is promising because it demonstrates the
adaptability of religious traditions and their universal potential. The peril is that those who
represent a faith go native (as anthropologists put it) and forget what they were about in the
first place. This is precisely what the Dominicans accused Ricci of. As human beings keep
talking with each other, they influence each other. (In the sociology of knowledge we call this
cognitive contamination.) They exchange messages, which can be greatly enriching. It can
also mean that some forget what they were going to say.
The Protestant missionary enterprise which exploded in the 19th century created large bodies
of knowledge about every religion under the sun. Even if the original impetus was
missiologicalunderstand in order to convertit also aroused sheer curiosity and
disinterested scholarship. A pivotal event in this interfaith encounter was the World
Parliament of Religion which met in Chicago in 1893. It was a big event, attracting wide
public attention. Among other things, it brought to America prominent teachers of Hinduism
and Buddhism, and the first Bah missionary. I happened to visit the centenary celebration
in 1993, also meeting in Chicago. An uninformed visitor looking through the program and
looking at the book exhibit might conclude that Christianity is a small minority sect in
America. Diana Eck (a Hinduism expert at Harvard) has described the United States as the
most religiously diverse country on earth; this may be an exaggeration, but not by much.
Interest in dialogue between religions has grown exponentially throughout the 20th century,
not only in this country but also in Europe, where immigration has created large non-Christian
(especially Muslim) communities. Three highly influential religious figures of the last century
put interfaith dialogue at the center of their thoughtthe Protestants Ernst Troeltsch and Paul
Tillich, the Catholic Karl Rahner, and the Jew Martin Buber. The Vatican and the World
Council of Churches have created very active departments to foster this dialogue. The
Hamburg Academy was founded when the issue of interreligious relations is at the center of
German public attention (especially the question of what a truly indigenized Islam is and
should be in Germany)

The Academy produces publications in both German and English. A notable English
publication is Wolfram Weisse et al. (editors), Religions and Dialogue: International
Approaches(Waxmann, 2014). I found particularly interesting an article by Perry SchmidtLeukel (a German Protestant theologian), Intercultural Theology as Interreligious Theology.
The terminology needs clarification: As I understand it, intercultural theology means that
the faith is explained in terms that are comprehensible to people from different cultures;
interreligious theology means that a thinker integrates the faith with ideas that come from
another faith. An obvious example would be from early Christian history. Intercultural
theology: Jesus and his disciples spoke Aramaic; as their (originally oral) traditions were
promulgated beyond their original Jewish environment, they were translated into Greek, the
lingua franca of the late Hellenistic era. This exercise became interreligious theology as the
faith came to incorporate ideas from Greek philosophy, presumably beginning with the
prologue to the Gospel of John and eventually leading to the complex Greek formulations of
the Christological creeds. Schmidt-Leukel proposes four principles that should govern
interreligious theology. First, the theologian should practice a hermeneutic of trustthat is,
proceeding in the trust that theologically relevant truth is not only found in ones own
tradition, but also in those of other religions. Two: One should therefore investigate the
compatibility of different, at times even seemingly contradictory tenets of faith and pathways
of religion. Reference is made here to a phrase by Wilfred Cantwell Smith, an important
American proponent of dialogue between religionsan invitation to synthesis. Three: The
conviction that reality is one, although there are different perspectives about it. And four: This
sort of theological enterprise will always be incomplete, a work in progress. There will never
be a final, all-embracing summation.
I find it difficult to disagree with these principles. They are particularly helpful in describing
an attitude with which to approach dialogue, rather than a methodology by which to conduct
it. It is hard to engage in dialogue with people one cannot trust (because they are not serious
or have hidden motives, such as wanting to convert you, or to trap you in contradictions so as
to demonstrate their own superiority). It is certainly futile to attempt dialogue with fanatics.
The term synthesis makes me uneasy. Some things cannot so easily be synthesized. Imagine
an exercise to find common ground between Biblical faith and the Mesoamerican religions
that believed in the necessity of human sacrifice in order to feed the gods.Some things cannot
so easily be synthesized. Imagine an exercise to find common ground between Biblical faith
and the Mesoamerican religions that believed in the necessity of human sacrifice in order to
feed the gods. (Fortunately there are no extant Aztec priests who could be invited to interfaith
conferences.) But synthesis may also be difficult, indeed misleading, in dialogue where
neither side is morally reprehensible. Both Buddhism and Christianity hold high the virtue of
compassion. But Christian compassion, caritas, has always been understood as a strongly
emotional empathy with others. At least in Theravada Buddhism there is the belief that any
strong emotion produces karma, which prevents liberation from the endless cycle of
reincarnations; compassion then is exercised in an attitude of detachment, far from the
emotionally charged caritas. Any synthesis must not disregard this difference. (Mahayana
Buddhism is another story, with its belief in the power of Bodhisatvasindividuals who have
delayed their entry into Buddhahood out of compassion for all the sentient beings who are
still mired in unenlightened darkness.) Put differently, dialogue must not be a night in which
all cats are grey.
Yes, reality is one, and there are different perspectives on it. But not all perspectives are equal.
John Hick, British theologian is one of the most influential proponents of interreligious
dialogue. He has used a telling metaphor to make his point: Imagine religions as planets

circling the sun of ultimate reality. The perspective of each will necessarily be different,
though there is only one sun. Hick suggests that what is needed is a Copernican revolution
in theology. Ones own planet is not the only one; it is one of many. In each tradition the
others perspectives must be taken into account in ones own theology. What Hicks metaphor
leaves out is the possibility that some planets may not be facing the sun at all; they are facing
the other way: Thus their perspective is irrelevant. One of Hicks best known books has the
title God Has Many Names. I would bet that one of the names is not Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec
god to whom thousands of individuals were routinely sacrificed to feed his voracious appetite
for human blood. Put differently, in dialogue between religions it is sometimes as important to
say no as to say yessometimes for moral reasons (God stopped Abraham from sacrificing
Isaac), sometimes for epistemological ones (Francis of Assisi did not embrace a leper in an
attitude of detachment). Finally, one can readily agree that dialogue will always be an openended exercise, as very different people keep coming to it. There will never be a final summa
theologica.
Dialogue between religions has become a cottage industry in recent decades. Many of its
productsbooks, periodicals, conferenceshave been very useful in terms of intellectual and
spiritual insights. I also think that the project of interreligious theology is both challenging
and worthwhile. Pluralism makes it nearly inevitable. It is important, though, to keep in mind
that pluralism brings about a much broader dialogue between people who dont read books or
periodicals, and who have never attended a conference. This is dialogue between friends and
lovers who come from different religious backgroundsor between neighbors, coworkers,
even children in kindergarten who tell each other about the curious rituals practiced in their
homes. The Apostle Paul knew why he warned Christians against being yoked together with
unbelievers. This means above all not to eat with them and not to marry them (what
anthropologists call, respectively, commensality and connubium). All sustained and
amicable conversation leads to cognitive contamination, especially dinner conversation and
pillow talk. We know all too well how such peaceful conviviencia can be swiftly and brutally
disrupted by propagandists of hatred. Of course there can also be education and propaganda to
support conviviencia, best by religious institutions themselves. Finally religious peace must be
protected, and if necessary, enforced by the force of law.