Promoting multi-religious education

Muhamad Ali, Hawaii

How serious are we, civic, religious and government leaders, in putting into practice multi-religious education in national and local educational systems? The Declaration of Bali as a result of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) has shown a willingness and commitment amongst a number of religious leaders to pursue inter-religious education in Asia and Europe as well as other parts of the world. This and other similar talks and dialogues have eased the tensions at the elite level, albeit limited, but what they have too often lacked is follow-ups and strategies of implementation. Indeed, it is time to come down from the hill.

First of all, we should have a clear definition of what religion and multi-religious education mean. What we categorize as religion should be objective and inclusive. The definition of "religion" should include any world view that people believe in (monotheistic, polytheistic, heavenly, religious, secular, etc). In this respect, we can look at different aspects or dimensions of religions.

The late Ninian Smart -- the writer of 32 books and religions and an inter-faith dialog -- for example, has offered various dimensions of religion, namely practical and ritual, experiential and emotional, narrative or mythic, doctrinal and philosophical, ethical and legal, social, institutional and material. Different religions and world views can be easily understood within the framework of these dimensions which indicate different levels of human and social existence.

Thus, multi-faith education is a conscious and constant effort to educate young people and the people at large about diversity and different dimensions of beliefs in history and the contemporary world.

Secondly, we should think of why we need such multi-faith education. "What need do we have to consider Buddhism, since it is incompatible with the Gospel, and is the Christian Gospel all the truth we need?" "Why should we as Muslims know about Christianity since the Koran has contained all the truth?" Most people do not feel the need to know or learn religions other than their own.

Religious education has always been exclusive in that most educators only intend to teach their children their own religions. We now have Islamic education, Christian education, Buddhist education and so forth. Here the objective has been to make Christians become faithful and consistent Christians, Muslims good Muslims, and so forth. The textbooks have been written by co-religionist conservatives and the methods tend to be indoctrinating.

Thus multi-faith education itself is a great challenge given the nature and the reality of educational system and culture. It is therefore very crucial from the outset to think of why. Multi- faith education is of great importance not only because of today's world crisis of terrorism and moral destruction, but also of possible common goals of humanity.

We need to seek what values could drive peoples of different world views to think they are sailing in the same boat of the globe and act accordingly? Cross-religious, cross-national and cross-cultural crises (terrorism, poverty, illness, drug abuses) can be unifying factors, but common goals of living peacefully and meaningfully are equally crucial.

Understanding the world's religions and ideologies is important in various different ways. Ninian Smart, for example, proposed three ways:

First, religions are a vital ingredient in the varied story of mankind's various experiments in living.

Second is the fact that in order to grasp the meanings and values of plural cultures of today's world, we need to know something of world views which underlie them.

Third, to make judgments about ways of life we need a comparative perspective. And fourth, I should add, to live together in a multi-religious environment, we need to know different world views.

Yet, the objective is not to stop at understanding, but also to create tolerance and respect of diversity. Scholars and leaders have not agreed on what tolerance entails. For example, there are leaders who are conservative in belief and passively tolerant toward other religious communities (indifferent tolerance).

At the higher level, tolerance is to accept the possibility of other religious individuals to salvation. Tolerance also means to be actively engaged in cross-religious activities. At the ethical level, they are expected to deal justly with each other and to do of what is good for all.

Now, what are the topics and issues to be included in the curricula? The topics can be theological, ethical and historical, albeit often overlapping. Theological issues may include the problem of Salvation, God, the nature of prophets, revelation, and afterlife; the ethical ones could include the meaning of justice, human rights and obligations, poverty, security and peace, drug abuse, health, etc.

For historical issues, we can include multi-religious histories, such as Christian-Jewish-Muslim histories, Buddhist- Muslim history, Christian-Hindu history, and so forth. A world history in which more than one religious community participated is also very important.

Studies such as the Case of Islamo-Christian Civilization (by Richard Bulliet), A History of Christian-Muslim Relations (Hugh Goddard), Muslims and Christians Face to Face (Kate Zebiri) are a few good examples. The main idea of these works is that Muslims and Christians did not live independently and that they influenced each other in many aspects of life. Historical books on other religions have also increased in number.

What are the methodologies to reach such objectives? We have various different methodologies. Multi-faith education can be carried on at different levels (secondary schools and universities), but the method should not be indoctrination; it should be relatively objective, fair and rational, based on scientific criteria. Psychological and ethical dimensions should be considered at well. Regarding educators, still a big challenge is that Islam is far from possessing experts in Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism, as Christianity and Judaism, for example, possess more Islamologues.

In Indonesia, apart from educators, we need more translations of English, Arabic, German or French books on world religions, interfaith dialog and education. Different religious civil organizations and individuals, facilitated by the government, should sit and work out shared understanding of multi-faith education, its definition, objectives, topics and issues, and methodologies, although schools or universities can work out their own multi-faith education.

Not all religious leaders in the world have shared the need to pursue multi-faith education, but the greater challenge now is how many other religious leaders have realized that there must be something done about our existing religious education, and we should implement what they wish and say in inter-faith meetings.

The writer is now pursuing his Ph.D in History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, under the East-West Center fellowship. He is a lecturer at the State Islamic University, Jakarta and can be reached at muhali74@hotmail.com.