Do Interritual Practices Demonstrate Religions’ Theologies of God? Toward a Critical Assessment

Abstract

Can people of different faiths worship the same God and pray inter-religiously? Can this worship demonstrate that the religions believe in the same God? Does the participation in interreligious prayer verify that the participants believe in one God? The essay tackles these inquiries by pointing to theological voices claiming that Christian-Muslim interreligious worship is a reliable basis for concluding that Christianity and Islam believe in the same God. It also offers an assessment in light of a personal interreligious worship experience. The essay shows whether or not there is an authentic, open, epistemic trajectory between religions and their followers’ religiosity, and whether the data collector can certainly rely on this relationship to construct a reliable epistemological perception of the religion’s interpretation of God. In sum, it examines critically whether it is the case that interreligious worship is always a reliable epistemic medium of the religious faith of the worshipping subjects.