John Morehead is Custodian of the Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy, and a man passionate about encouraging interfaith relationships. Enjoy his refreshing take on the Evangelical journey to peaceable, faithful relationships with other traditions. -Paul
Paul: The EFRD fosters "religious diplomacy." Compelling term. Why "diplomacy"?
John: To begin, let me set the context for our discussion on this topic. We live in a multifaith world. In the past, an "interfaith" encounter in our culture involved a Congregationalist talking to a Presbyterian or Methodist. That situation has changed dramatically. Now our neighbors, co-workers and even family members are Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Sikhs or Pagans, and many other things. At the same time, America and the West is entering post-Christendom. While there are still significant numbers of people identifying as Christian in America, the church has lost credibility and no longer functions as the defining center of cultural discourse. As well, a younger generation of Evangelicals is much more aware of religious diversity and seeks a different way of understanding and engaging this than we have in the past. So the health of the church is related to this issue.
There have been a variety of responses to pluralism and the multifaith experience. These include things like dialogue, the "co-exist" movement, and interfaith approaches. These responses focus on commonality. The idea is "let's focus on what we have in common in various religious traditions, and work together based upon that." The problem with this is that it ignores the elephant in the room: there are irreconcilable differences between the religions, and many times we are not only in a contest with each other for the hearts and minds of others, but also we sometimes experience conflict and violence.
Many traditional forms of dialogue and interfaith work really don't address the multifaith challenges we face. In fact, they may exacerbate them.
Many traditional forms of dialogue and interfaith work really don't address the multifaith challenges we face. In fact, they may exacerbate them. As Stephen Prothero put it so well in his book God is Not One, religious tolerance is helpful, but he says "the idea of religious unity is wishful thinking nonetheless, and it has not made the world a safer place. In fact, these naive theological groupthinks—call it Godthink—has made the world more dangerous." Os Guinness in his book The Global Public Square has made similar observations about the limitations of "dialogue."
So instead of dialogue and interfaith approaches I advocate religious diplomacy. This involves relationships and conversations across religious traditions, but it does not ignore differences. It recognizes commonality, but also says that sometimes our differences can be more important than our similarities. There are reasons why people choose to be Christian or Buddhist instead of Muslim or Sikh, for example, and people have reasons why they disagree with other religious traditions. We believe it's acceptable to think that your religion is right and others are wrong, or that your way is better than another religious tradition.
So a religious diplomacy model says "let's acknowledge our differences, but in so doing the way we engage each other is significant. Instead of viewing each other as enemies and perpetuating harmful forms of conflict let's pursue our contest over religion in more positive and healthy ways." By practicing religious diplomacy we can still disagree with others but also come to build trust and see each other as rivals in competition in some senses who can also come together to work together for the common good in the public square.
Religious diplomacy is something different than interfaith dialogue, civility, tolerance, co-existence, interfaith, and ecumenical approaches.
Religious diplomacy is something different than interfaith dialogue, civility, tolerance, co-existence, interfaith, and ecumenical approaches. It represents an alternative that Evangelicals should consider. It is based upon good social scientific data and other relevant disciplines, but it also dovetails with a good theology and praxis of interreligious engagement that I'll discuss later. It provides opportunities for Evangelicals to follow the example of Christ, grow in love for their religious neighbors, grow in the fruit of the Spirit, become more persuasive in their witness, and put their faith into practice as peacemakers.
That's helpful. In your experience, what do most Evangelicals miss when considering interfaith relationships?
I think Evangelical pastors and church members miss several opportunities, either by not being involved in interreligious encounters, or by taking a more confrontational approach to the process.
First, we miss out on an opportunity to interact with others in the way of Jesus. Bob Robinson wrote one of the best books I had the privilege of reading in 2012. In Jesus and the Religions, he notes that in a previous generation Christians asked themselves "What would Jesus do?" in relation to various aspects of decision making related to discipleship. Robinson wonders why we haven't done the same thing in regards to how we should related to other religions in the 21st century. Robinson looks at the New Testament texts where Jesus encounters Gentiles and Samaritans. Jesus has much to say and model for us in a multifaith world in regards to our religious neighbors, best exemplified in his call for us to love our neighbors as ourselves and the need for enemy love, the wonderfully subversive story of the Good Samaritan, and Jesus' example of how to do this in his exchange with the Samaritan woman in John 4. So we often miss out on an opportunity to engage those in other religions in the way of Jesus.
Second, we miss out on an opportunity to be salt and light to our culture and those in other religio-cultures, to embody the gospel and extend hospitality, and to be perceived as people of credibility and good will, and thereby providing us with opportunities to be more persuasive in our desires to see others embrace the gospel message.
We miss out on the chance to be transformed by the Spirit of God through our encounters with those in other religions.
We also miss out on the chance to be transformed by the Spirit of God through our encounters with those in other religions. Evangelicals often fear interreligious engagement and think that we might lose our faith in the process. But more often than not we can end up having our faith strengthened and growing in our faith as result of our relationships with those in other religions.
Finally, I think we miss out on an opportunity to have a dramatic impact on the world in terms of peacemaking. When the church recognized certain issues such as poverty or HIV/AIDS we have gotten involved and made an impact in the name of Christ in addressing these challenges. At times we have even created organizations to address them—such as World Vision to address hunger. The church has an opportunity to recognize the importance of interreligious engagement as one of the key challenges and opportunities of in our post-9/11 world and to make it a signature issue for the Evangelical church. My hope is that an increasing number of Evangelicals will recognize this issue and get involved in strategic ways in improving our response to interreligious engagement and conflict. Surely this is in keeping not only with the call to share the gospel, but also to be peacemakers.
Look for Part 2 of this interview tomorrow.
John W. Morehead is the co-editor and contributing author for Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach, and the editor of Beyond the Burning Times: A Pagan and Christian in Dialogue. John has also provided expertise to the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization issue group on "The Church and the New Spiritualities." He has been involved for many years in interreligious relationships and conversations in the contexts of Islam, Mormonism, Paganism, and Atheism. He is the Custodian of the Evangelical Chapter of the Foundation for Religious Diplomacy (http://www.EvangelicalFRD.org).
