Promoting multi-religious education

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.