Encountering the religious other: Limitations of confining 'religious' conversation in interreligious dialogue in Denver.

摘要

Technology, the Internet, and the ability to communicate with one another instantaneously in any place on the globe, at any point in time have made Dr. King's remarks increasingly evident in the 21st century. We now have the unprecedented ability to communicate with people of all groups, all over the world, but are lacking the proper tools for understanding them. The interreligious dialogue movement has strived to utilize religion as one tool, but its biases have limited its success. Authentic dialogue can only be achieved by moving towards a broader definition of 'religion,' beyond the Protestant Christian paradigm in order to come to a place where one may authentically understand, the 'other'. This paper illustrates this by combining scholarly research with case studies of three interreligious dialogue programs in the Denver area.;1 Quoted in Gustav Niebuhr, Beyond Tolerance, (New York: Penguin Books, 2008), xx.