Introduction: Religious Diversity and Interreligious Dialogue

Abstract

In many Western societies, alongside Christians, there are growing shares of the population affiliated primarily to Islam but also to Judaism, Buddhism, and other religions and their various traditions. Besides, an intra-religious pluralization can even be noted within Christianity, with growing numbers of people affiliated to diverse Christian denominations and traditions beyond the established Protestant churches and Catholicism. At the same time, the share of the population without a religious affiliation or faith is also growing in many countries. Therefore, the fundamental question arises as to how religious and worldview differences can be dealt with in such a way that peaceful coexistence within a culture of mutual recognition is possible. In this situation, it is precisely “interreligious dialogue” which is considered to provide a “ray of hope”, and the societal expectations of what it can achieve are very high. As much as it is agreed that dialogue can be meaningful, in the sense of shaping social processes aiming at the recognition of plurality, it is still largely unclear what dialogue means in concrete cases, how it is to be designed in actual practice, and what can truly be expected of it. Based on the assumption that the complex challenges of increasingly plural and secular societies can only be understood and analyzed through an interdisciplinary perspective the book offers multifaceted perspectives from both empirical-oriented social sciences and from normative theologies of world religions. The contributions arise from and were discussed at the international Herrenhausen Conference “Religious Pluralization – A Challenge for Modern Societies” organized by the Academy of World Religions at Hamburg University in cooperation with Peter L. Berger (Boston University) and Jean-Paul Willaime (EPHE, PSL Research University, Sorbonne, Paris) and funded by the Volkswagen Foundation.