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Written by Bill Tammeus
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I was privileged the other evening to moderate a "Festival of Faiths" discussion between Dr. Judea Pearl, father of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, and Dr. Akbar Ahmed, an Islamic scholar at American University in Washington, D.C. (The photo here, which I took from my moderator position, shows Ahmed on the left, Pearl on the right and a photo of Danny Pearl behind us.)
I want to share a few highlights from what they said, but first I want to tell you that the most challenging discussion happened not in the sanctuary of Village Presbyterian Church in front of 900-plus people but, rather, at the table where, afterwards, Pearl was signing copies of the book about his son that he wrote with his wife Ruth Pearl, I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl.
When I stopped by that table, Pearl was in an animated discussion with a Muslim man I know who had taken exception to something Pearl had said in the sanctuary. Pearl tried to explain his position but felt he wasn't being given a chance by the Muslim man. In turn, the Muslim man felt Pearl was dodging the issue and had denigrated his religion.
I was standing next to the Rev. Tom Are, pastor of Village Church, and Janet Burton, one of the organizers of the Festival of Faiths, and I said to them that unless interfaith dialogue gets this serious and this intense, it really won't change anything. Much interfaith dialogue, in my opinion, occurs between people who pretty much agree on everything anyway and sometimes don't even have much of a faith commitment. It's what a rabbi once told me amounts to "interfaithless" dialogue.
But what I saw Pearl and my Muslim acquaintance doing was taking the issues seriously. They may not have been using great communications skills to get their points across but they were being as honest as they knew how to be in making their points -- or at least in trying to make their points.
I'm not suggesting that good interfaith dialogue begins and ends with heated shouting matches (this one didn't quite reach the level of a shouting match, but it was intense). Not at all. If that's all that happens, then we haven't made much progress. But somehow it has to get to the point at which there is passion on both (or all) sides and where there is no hesitancy to state and defend a position. What there must be also, however, is a willingness to listen to another position with respect.
Well, enough for today. Maybe next week I'll get back to some of the points Pearl and Ahmed made in the sanctuary.
Bill Tammeus’s “Faith Matters” Weblog – November 16th, 2007
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