Challenges facing interreligious dialogs

By B.S. Mardiatmadja

This is the second of two articles from an excerpt of a paper to be delivered next week at a seminar in Oegstgeest, the Netherlands on Religious Plurality and Nationalism in Indonesia. The seminar is organized by the Netherlands chapter of the Association of Indonesian Moslem Intellectuals.

JAKARTA (JP): Interreligious dialog can be compared to self- help groups that have therapeutic intentions. In such a dialog, we mostly encounter very different motives and centuries of sanctioned ways of life which need to be explained.

Here, claims of truth do not stand next to different claims of truth, but life-witnessing next to life-witnessing. Therein lies the dignity and also the challenge of all honest dialog.

Truthfulness in dialog also means not denying the differences that exist but openly confessing them. Whoever actively participates in a dialog knows that there are conflicts and painful experiences. And despite all honest efforts, alienation often remains and further understanding can appear impossible.

Interreligious dialog is a highly complex enterprise for which idealizing theories are not adequate. It is not always possible to simplify this complexity. And the most complex in this question is on a political level.

The present Indonesian political situation is very much stigmatized by the bad economic situation. Both politics and economics are symbolized by one word: credit. No economy is able to live without credit. No politics can live without credibility. No economy and politics exist without dialog and negotiations.

Curious enough, no dialog is also possible without credibility. We have a real crisis of credibility in Indonesia in nearly all aspects of life.

But it is difficult not to admit that the absence of credibility is also the result of our own politics for the past 30 years. We put nearly our whole human investment in economics. People are regarded only as resources to economics.

Humans are untergeordnet to economics. We believe in one another as a nation only when our economy grows. Macroeconomic growth is our main criteria for welfare. Economic prosperity is our actual master. We believe in credit, not people. We are, in fact, very accustomed to distrust, mistrust and suspicion. We make ourselves suspicious of one another.

We also cultivate suspicion within groups in Indonesian cultural, religious, political and professional groups.

Not only some elements in the government practice divide et impera (divide and rule) through disseminating suspicions, but also many intellectuals and religious leaders let themselves "to be divided and to be held captive by economics and politics."

To remove that suspicion from among us, we should find common constitutional principles, to be able to sit together and to discuss our common concern and future.

Those principles should give the whole nation a vision. The founding fathers of this republic have agreed on building the nation's future within a unitary state not based on religion but on the state ideology Pancasila.

The republic acknowledges religion as a value enliven by each citizen in this country and which may well motivate him or her to participate fully in societal affairs. But religion does not function explicitly as a consideration in an authoritative state ruling on measures to be taken as state measures.

If we multiply efforts in making state decisions on the laws of any one religion, we would multiply the opportunities of dividing our people into thousands of sects.

Because the state as a state cannot guarantee that there will only be one valid interpretation of religious law, it would mean discrimination toward those who adhere to other religions.

We should return to the basic principle: Indonesia does not find its state decisions on the laws of any one religion; it does not show indifference but rather expresses a positive attitude toward religion.

The state guarantees freedom of religion and freedom of choosing religion. The House of Representatives functions to provide clear regulations on the role of religion in state affairs: with reverence on the one hand, and on the other hand, without steering our nation to degenerate into a religions state, in which its decisions would be based explicitly on the constitutions of one state religion.

In this respect, the government should only offer service and aid in order to guarantee the safety and security of exercising the people's right to worship.

The role of religions in Indonesia should be as the conscience educator to promote the dignity of people as the One God's creatures.

It is the task of religion to keep perspective alive in terms of ultimacy and transcendence and keep challenging the limited autonomies of other social institutions, just as other institutions will keep challenging religion so that it does not become alienating and otherworldly.

Coexistence of religions, not merely as private belief systems but as having a public role in society, becomes possible only on the following conditions:

* every religion -- a community of believers -- is able to make room for other believers -- other religions -- not merely in the sense of their being tolerated as second-class citizens, but accepted as full and equal participants;

* every religion is able to distinguish between its faith convictions and moral consequences;

* a certain consensus regarding moral imperatives for personal and social behavior can be arrived at by people who believe differently.

In a multireligious community, therefore, every religious group is rooted in its own faith; it accepts other such groups as legitimate; and it is open to dialog with them in view of a common commitment to build up the pluralistic community.

The legitimacy that I ask to be accorded is not primarily to another religion but to another believer. The Indonesian people have given themselves a Constitution, based on the fundamental rights and liberties of the human being, and are committed to a national community guaranteeing freedom, equality, fraternity and justice to all its citizens.

Therefore, we are faced with the challenge of collaborating in the building up of the national community, so that our religions can be positive and constructive and not decisive forces.

It is in our common commitment to a fuller life for the whole of humanity that we would discover our community and complementarity.

What are the ways of promoting a profitable interreligious encounter?

First, we must strive to promote an experiential awareness of one's own religious identity. We should be aware of our strengths as well as our limitations.

Second, we must be really committed to a national human community, based on the freedom and dignity of people and promoting equality, fellowship and justice for all. We must see the role of religions, not as divisive, but contributing in dialog with each other, a common human, moral and spiritual foundation to public life.

Third, an interreligious community is built up by living and acting as one, not just by talking. Theological discussions and sharing of spiritual experiences have a role but only as elements of common projects to promote freedom, fellowship, equality and justice.

It must be primarily a dialog of "me". One could say that it must be circular: from a dialog of life to that of spiritual experiences, back to a dialog of life to be tested in the crucible of praxis. It is our common duty.

The writer is a Catholic priest and lecturer on philosophy at the STF Driyarkara, Jakarta.