Lesson 10:

Interfaith
Dialogue:
From
Tolerance to
Understandin
g
 Life
Performanc
e Outcome
I am a credible,
responsive communicator
and team player, building
harmonious community
through active
collaboration.
 Essential
Performance
Outcome
Anticipate where extra
assistance and support for
team functioning may be
needed, and
spontaneously offer them.
 Intended
Learning
Outcome
Discuss the concept of
interfaith dialogue and
anticipate the
conditions to make it
successful.
First Things First
First Things First
First Things First
First Things First
 Processing
• Are you Question:
familiar with their religious
background?

• Is it possible for these young people

[Link]
 Interfaith
• Religion Dialogue
and violence seem to
go hand in hand because of
religion’s inherent social
boundaries and because
religious ideas are often
employed to instill religious
commitment, organize
 Interfaith
Dialogue
• Institutions around the
world
have responded to religious
conflict by initiating
interfaith dialogue as a way
of fostering understanding
between religions, building
peace in the region, and
 Interfaith
Dialogue
• Institutions around the
world
have responded to religious
conflict by initiating
interfaith dialogue as a way
of fostering understanding
between religions, building
peace in the region, and
 Interfaith
• The Dialogue
involvement of young
people in interfaith dialogue is
deemed central because they
do not only “share in the
problems… but they also inherit
the responsibility to sustain the
peace building effort in the
 Interfaith
• InterfaithDialogue
activities should
become part of young people’s
religious socialization because
they afford “gradual
education” for student to
advance beyond “mere
tolerance” toward “true
 Interfaith
• InterfaithDialogue
dialogue is
about
“persons of different faiths
meeting to have a
conversation.”
 The
Laundromat
(Short Film
on
Interfaith
[Link]
8M
Dialogue)
 Conditions to
Make Interfaith
Dialogue
Successful
 1. Individuals must believe
that religion has a
constructive role to play in
resolving conflicts.
2. Dialogues are avenues to
change hostile attitudes
towards other religions in
being able to find
commonalities.
 3. Interfaith dialogue in
itself must be seen as an
avenue for political
change.
Concrete implementation of the
three conditions:
• Working with religious
stakeholders, Steele has
suggested that peace building
stakeholders can take different
roles of observer, educator,
advocate, and intermediary.
Concrete implementation of the
three conditions:
• Peace building aims to prevent
war, resolve existing
conflicts, or help in postwar
reconstruction.
Concrete implementation of the
three conditions:
• Liecthy puts forward
mitigation as an approach
to temper the existing conflicts
between Catholics and
Protestants.
Concrete implementation of the
three conditions:
• Mitigation is the “capacity to
lessen or eliminate possible
negative outcomes of a belief,
commitment, or action – while
still upholding it.”
Concrete implementation of the three
conditions:
• Gibbs, an Episcopalian priest,
believes that their global reach lies
in being able to partner with
grassroots organizations to
facilitate dialogue through the
methodology of appreciative inquiry
(AI).
• AI values personal experiences
and diverse religious traditions
Concrete implementation of the three
conditions:
• Forward, a Methodist minister,
suggests that the main obstacle to
interfaith understanding is the
exclusivist mindset of religious
individuals that treat people of
other faiths as inferior or even
erroneous.
Concrete implementation of the three
conditions:
• He calls for a change not just in
terms of behavior but also
theological thinking in examining
one’s own religious assumptions.
Concrete implementation of the three
conditions:
• Tyagananda, a Hindu monk, notes
that the motives of participants
in an interfaith dialogue should be
checked against attempts at trying
to convert or replace the religion of
others and finds the dialogue
models of mutuality or
acceptance as desirable.
Concrete implementation of the three
conditions:
• Mutuality “is based on the
recognition that religions of the
world are equal partners” through
which relationship cooperation may
be achieved while acceptance
affirms the truth claims of other
religions.
 The Pope
Video -
Interreligiou
s Dialogue
[Link]
Y
 Muslim-
Christian
Youth for
Peace and
Developm
[Link]
HuM

ent
 Active Reading: Muslim-
Christian Youth for Peace
• List and
down Development
important information
regarding MCYPD
• Reflect on this, “Is it not the case
that when individuals subscribe to a
particular religion, they are also
saying that other religions are
inferior, inadequate, or incorrect?”
 Muslim-Christian Youth
for Peace and
• MCYPD Development
is one of the several
interfaith initiatives established by
the Peacemakers’ Circle.
•A local non-government
organization that facilitates
dialogues, peace workshops, and
self-awareness retreats
 Muslim-Christian Youth
for Peace and
• MCYPD Development
is in the local district of
Barangay Tala in Caloocan, one of
the cities of Metro Manila
• The youth group is composed of at
least 20 active Muslim and Christian
youth leaders and members (12-24
years old)
 Young People, MCYPD
and their Interfaith
Experience
• Martin Forward (2001) argues that
to dialogue is to go through a
process that individuals are willing
to risk in order to learn from each
other and in so doing, be
transformed accordingly.
 Young People, MCYPD
and their Interfaith
Experience
• But interfaith is not only about
understanding each other’s beliefs
and practices.
• Interfaith communities can extend
beyond this rote learning of facts by
allowing relationships to form.
 Young People, MCYPD
and their Interfaith
Experience
• There are three areas emergent
based on the study: the
person, and not religion,
friendship, and community
engagement
 Person, Not Religion
• Character of the follower rather than the contents
of the doctrines of the religion
• Some of them described their differences
• But in explaining differences, informants are quick
to suggest that learning made more sense as they
can associate these to specific friends of theirs
 Friendship
• Participating in MYCPD is an opportunity to make
friends
• First, young people in their formative adolescent
years, wherein the need for socialization and
belonging is heightened
• Second, many are relatively new immigrants to the
community.
 Friendship
• Several youth have pointed out, that
the most meaningful memories they
have of the circle involves
interaction with their peers,
including youth from other interfaith
cooperation circles in other parts of
Manila
 Friendship
• Friendship has become the main
motivation for participating in
MCYPD, it has also become the main
reason for trying to understand the
other.
 Participation in the
• It
Community
takes time to finally eradicate
stereotypes, and interfaith communities
are formed at the end.
• But interfaith discussion is most of the
time confined only to the members of the
community.
• Building bridges with the wider community
is therefore necessary to effect change at
that level.