LIMITS AND LIMITATIONS OF THE INTERFAITH DIALOGUE
Keywords:
religious pluralism, acceptance, tolerance, preconceptions, obstacles, interfaithAbstract
The interreligious dialogue, defined as ‘organized encounters between people belonging to different religious traditions,’ has become a social necessity nowadays due to the pluralistic world we all live in. It is imperative for all religions and confessions to engage such mutual encounters for multiple reasons, as the civil society demands to all its inhabitants and social actors to get together into an agreement for public peace and harmony. Despite the need of engaging the interfaith dialogue, it is essential for the participants and initiators of it to know the best way of doing it, and for that, the first step is to acknowledge what are the obstacles this dialogue has. Many times we will be surprised to see that the normal prerequisites that are used in other types of dialogue are not actually working for the interreligious one due to several limitations. This is not an exhaustive article about these obstacles, but it is a start reviewing the deepest, not necessarily the most obvious ones.
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