If
we were to take a look at the movement for interreligious dialogue
within the Catholic Church and question it as to the meaning of its
existence, its adherents would probably say that the movement was there
to promote understanding among members of different faiths. Many would
stop there, accept this as an acceptable answer and move on. But ought
we to let it go that easily? What does it mean when interfaith
promoters talk about understanding? And, most importantly, is
“understanding” another religion and intrinsic good?
The purpose of fostering understanding is to build tolerance
between persons of divergent religious traditions. I do not have
anything against the concept of tolerance, if we mean it in the sense
that we ought not to be killing and persecuting one another based on
our religious beliefs. From the Catholic side, it is Church dogma that
baptism cannot be forced and that conversions must be based in genuine
love of God and desire to obey and know Christ. Tolerance is good, in
that sense. However, tolerance is not the same as acceptance, and
tolerance in itself has a kind of resentful mood to it. For example, if
I say to you that I can “tolerate” your presence at my home, have I
paid you a compliment or insulted you? What if I am at your house
eating dinner, and your wife asks me how her cooking is? I say, “It’s
tolerable.” What I am saying with these statements? Do you see the
negative connotation?
I approve of
tolerance if we keep this negative understanding of it in mind: when we
say we “tolerate” another faith, it is because we at this time have no
means of getting rid of it, and therefore we have to learn to live with
it. In a perfect world, we would go out and have converted all of the
Muslims and Hindus and pagans and the rest of the motley nations of the
earth. But, that has not yet happened, and since we are still this side
of Heaven, we must learn to “tolerate” the existence of these other
false religions. That’s all tolerance means to me.
But (say the proponents of interfaith dialogue), the more we
dialogue, we need a tolerance that is based not in simple acceptance of
the existence of other religions as an unchangeable fact, but a
tolerance that is based on mutual acceptance of religious traditions.
Again, this word can mean a variety of things. What do we mean by
acceptance? I can accept that people believe Buddhism is true. I can
accept that there exist people in the world called Buddhists who prefer
to live and worship according to a certain standard of belief. But,
what I cannot do is accept that Buddhism is correct, or that it is
good, or that its adherents are better off sticking with Buddhism
rather than Christianity. But this is exactly what people means when
they say that we must learn to accept each other.
But why should we accept? How does dialogue and understanding
lead to acceptance? Here lies the biggest logical error of the whole
argument: proponents of interreligious dialogue wrongly assume that
just because we learn more about something that we will therefore like
it better. The logical argument runs like this: we need to dialogue
with people of other faiths so that we can learn about each other. Once
we learn about each other and our beliefs, we will have an
understanding of one another’s religions. Once we understand one
another’s religions, we will see that they are not that different from
us, and that we ought to admire the similarities and accept the
differences. If we can learn to accept differences, then we can have
true tolerance, and tolerance will lead to a more peaceful world and
happy coexistence between religions.
This line of thought is riddled with flaws. First of all, I would
look at the end: a peaceful world and happy coexistence between faiths.
Since when is world peace an absolute good? Since when is earthly,
temporal peace something that we look to as the goal of our
interactions with other religions? What about conversion? What about “I
come not to bring peace, but a sword?” Second, I would disagree with
the classic interfaith premise that all religions share so much in
common that we ought to just focus on the similarities. Chesterton said
people often say that all religions look different but in reality are
the same, but the truth is that all religions actually look the same
and are different in essence. All religions have altars, vestments,
candles, prayers, holy days, etc. It is the philosophical and doctrinal
elements of religions that are truly different, and it is these that
can lead one astray. Why converge around similarities in the
accidentals if the essential can destroy the soul? And finally, why
ought we to care about bringing about world peace or dialoguing with
people of other faiths at all? World peace is not a good enough
incentive for me, because I am not interested in a pax mundi but only
in a pax Christi. As Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I
give you. I do not give to you as the world gives” (John 14:27). Christ
specifically says that His peace is not the same kind as the peace of
the world. But that is exactly the type of peace promulgated by the
interreligious dialogue crowd.
I think the
biggest error in this line of thinking is the idea that just because we
understand something better means we will like it better. Since when
does getting to know something better mean you like it more? Learning
about something can also make you like something less. For example,
prior to World War II, the Allies continued appeasing Hitler when he
tried repeatedly to take more land and get more aggressive, as the
famous “Peace in Our Time” speech by Neville Chamberlain in 1938
demonstrated. Post-war reflection has come to the conclusion that the
Allies appeased Hitler because they did not understand what kind of a
man he was and what Nazism was. In other words, tolerance and getting
along was the product of ignorance, not understanding (and in this
case, it had disastrous consequences). It was only when men like
Churchill came along, men who understood Nazism for what it was, that
Europe found the courage to fight. In this scenario, we could say that
a greater understanding of Hitler and the Nazis led to a greater
loathing for them rather than tolerance.
I
have to admit that until recently I knew nothing about Hinduism.
Furthermore, I was content to not know anything about Hinduism. Why?
Because I know enough: that it is a false religion and that India is a
horrible place to live. But recently I read a very exhaustive, 500-page
work on India. It covered the religious aspects of India, the in’s and
out’s of Hinduism, the tradition of Indian philosophy, the social
system of India, the doctrines and practices of Buddhism and everything
one could possible want to know about the Indian subcontinent. I now
feel very educated about India since reading this book, but let me tell
you something else: now that I know all about India, I have never been
so disgusted with Hinduism as I am now that I have studied it. It was
knowledge and understanding that facilitated this. Before, I disliked
Hinduism and knew little about it. Now, I have studied it, and find it
utterly repelling and loathsome.
So then, is
“understanding” a good thing or a bad thing? Again, it depends on our
definition. Too often “understand” is taken to mean sympathize,
empathize or even agree with, so to “understand” Islam is to sympathize
with it and feel guilty about attempts to convert Muslims. This is a
terrible way to use the word. I will tell you how I think we ought to
use the word “understanding”: in a way that denotes complete and
intricate knowledge of a thing, the way the Scholastics used the word.
In this sense, I hope Catholic come to understand Hinduism. I hope we
really “learn” about Islam and find ourselves “understanding” it very
well. Perhaps when we have studied Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and all
the rest of the demon-worshipping religions out there, we will truly
“understand” how wretched they are and how bad the world needs Christ.
I could stand for some more of that kind of understanding.
