DIALOGUE: ITS GROUND RULES

(Taken from The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue, by Leonard Swidler & Paul Mojzes, and edited by Nancy Pfaff, M.A., Instructor in Religious Studies, University of Nevada , Reno )

1.     The primary purpose of dialogue is to learn—that is, to change and grow in the perception and understanding of reality, and then to act accordingly.

2.     Interreligious and interideological dialogue must be a two-sided project—within each religious community and between religious communities.

3.     Each participant must come to the dialogue with complete honesty and sincerity.  Conversely, each participant must assume the same complete honesty and sincerity in the other partners.

4.     We must not compare our ideals with our partner’s practice.  Rather, we must compare our ideals with their ideals and our practice with their practice.

5.     Each participant must define herself or himself. (Only a Jew can define from the inside what it means to be a Jew and each Jew should be able to recognized itself in the interpretation.))

6.     Each participant must come to the dialogue without hard-and-fast assumptions as to where the points of disagreement lie.

7.     Dialogue can take place only between equals—both must come to learn from each other.

8.     Dialogue can take place only on the basis of mutual trust.

9.     We must learn to be at least minimally self-critical of both our self and our own religious or ideological tradition.

10. Each participant eventually must attempt to experience the partner’s religion or ideology “from within.”

SUMMARY

Because humans are thinking, and therefore essentially free-deciding, beings, all individuals and communities should respect this aspect of human nature, granting that all humans have the right to freedom of thought, speech, conscience, and religion or belief.

At the same time, all humans should exercise their rights of freedom of thought, speech, conscience, and religion or belief in ways that will show respect for themselves and all others and strive to produce maximum benefit, broadly understood, for both themselves and their fellow humans.

IN A “NUTSHELL”
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”