Challenges facing interreligious dialogs

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.