When Truths Collide Ways of Approaching The Religious Other

1. When Truths Collide:
Ways of Approaching the Religious
Other
Jeannie Corbitt, Centre College
ABSTRACT
Though this past summer was one in which the world was
deeply affected by religious conflict and violence, I spent it
working with three very different groups that saw the path
towards a peaceful, better world as rooted in religious
solutions. I first participated in the Camino de Crestone—an
interfaith pilgrimage with the purpose of guiding participants
towards a deeply pluralistic spirituality. I then attended a
conference entitled, “Discerning the Signs of the Times: A
Better World is Possible,” at which influential liberal Christian
thinkers and activists offered solutions that were largely
grounded in secularized activism and political reform
movements. Finally, I spent time volunteering at The South
Asian Friendship Center, a Christian mission located in
Chicago’s Little India. The workers at the SAFC believe the
world will be transformed through evangelism. Experiencing
such different visions of interreligious relationships and goals
offered me insight into the incredible complexities surrounding
these topics.
The South Asian Friendship Center
Chicago, IL
Located in Chicago’s Little India, the SAFC seeks to share the
gospel with the area’s large Muslim and Hindu populations.
The center offers the community Internet access, English
lessons, homework tutoring, and a social space. Through
offering these services, the Christians workers try to make
friendships that they hope will bring people to accept
Christianity. I spent my time helping with paperwork, social
events, and worship services.
WHAT I DID WHAT I LEARNED
The Camino De Crestone
Crestone, CO
Over the course of this week-long backpacking
pilgrimage I visited a variety of spiritual centers from
many faith traditions. These included a Buddhist
temple, Zen center, and stupa, a Carmelite
Monastery, a Lakota sweat lodge, an Ashram, and a
Sufi Dhikr. The leader of the pilgrimage, William
Howell, is a practitioner of all of these traditions and
has a pluralistic and all-accepting vision for
interreligious relationships.
Discerning the Signs of the Times
Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, NM
This conference featured noted speakers Serene
Jones (President of Union Theological Seminary),
Simone Campbell (executive director of NETWORK
and known especially for her role in the Nuns on the
Bus tour), and Rev. Ofelia Ortega (President of the
World Council of Churches from the Caribbean/Latin
America). Over the course of the week these women
gave lectures focused on the social problems and
inequalities our nation and world faces.
The pluralistic vision of the Camino highlighted two
disadvantages of selectively choosing parts of various
religions to incorporate into a particular “all-accepting”
vision: Fallible, finite human beings may simply create
God in their own image, and “all-accepting” visions can
become their own form of exclusive, divisive religion.
The secularized solutions of the Ghost Ranch
conference convinced me that simply removing religion
from the conversation is unlikely to contribute to
solutions to interreligious struggles. And the distrustful
attitudes and actions towards the Religious Other that
frequently arise in evangelical approaches raise the
question, How can commitments to Absolute Truth
manifest themselves justly in a diverse community?
Yet my three experiences did not merely raise
questions, but also prompted insight into how the
questions should be approached. Chief among these is
the realization that individuals—complex and
invaluable human being—must never simply be
reduced to their stated beliefs and convictions. The
ideas I grappled with this summer were of vital
importance to me, but they had little impact on my life
in comparison to the people behind them—their
stories, their struggles, their laughter, and their
friendship. To define a person as a set of beliefs that
one can then refute or applaud is to degrade and to
dehumanize, and it is precisely when religion becomes
entangled with this process that it becomes a force for
destruction.