The Possibilities and Limits of Inter-Religious Dialogue
This chapter reports on a twenty-year experiment in “scriptural reasoning,” a type of inter-religious dialogue that emerges from places of maximal warmth and potential fire—“hearths”—within each participating religious community. It also explores how this dialogue is being adapted for peacebuilding efforts in regions of inter-religious violence. The goal of scriptural reasoning (SR) is to nurture “hearth-to-hearth” dialogue that summons the warmth of each hearth as a resource for conflict reduction, without at the same time stoking the fire. This is potentially the most dangerous form of inter-religious dialogue. This chapter argues, however, that it is also the one that, when handled properly, is most likely to contribute to long-term conflict transformation.