Interreligious Dialogue in Conflict Situations

Abstract

Christianity arose out of a conflict situation, and to this day it bears the characteristics of this original conflict. It begins with individuals, families and groups of Jewish sectarians who want to assert themselves in competition with other Jewish sectarians. They withdraw from one another. They outdo one another in part rhetorically, in part in their practice and then sometimes also politically, tactically and on the side of the Christians eventually with acts of violence. The original intrafamilial Jewish conflict between Jewish sectarians mutates from sibling rivalry to what eventually becomes a conflict of religion and power charged with foreign elements. It leads to a final division between the two religions. As we know from individual pastoral care as well as from the controversial history of states and systems, separation always produces new dissonance. One of the characteristics of Christianity inherited from the origins of this conflict-oriented history is what Jules Isaac calls renseignement du mepris (the teaching of contempt) or the traditional upbringing that disdains or at the very least degrades the other religion. That is perhaps the strongest dissonant factor in our relationship. Towards the Jews, this enseignement du mepris takes the concrete form of Christian antisemitism. However, it allows itself to be structurally transferred to all other religions and philosophies of life. Luther's polemics against Islam were not structurally different from his antisemitic outbursts. All through church history, antisemitic polemics are the dissonance resulting from the original separation. A dialogue of the religions has the task of acknowledged and resolute reduction of dissonance. I am purposely not saying 'the elimination of dissonance' because that would end the dialogue and lead to a monologue. But I am speaking of the reduction of dissonance because it is the prerequisite for productive dialogue. Our three monotheistic religions have arisen out of conflicts, with conflicts and through the settlement of conflicts. With so much conflict orientation and