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Nostra Aetate today: a new era of interreligious relationships - Page 1 |
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07 Nov 05 |
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Page 3 of 6
The Consultation on Interfaith Education:
Like UNESCO, on a smaller scale, the CIE has been interested in mapping the field of Interfaith Education as it exists. The Consultation on Interfaith Education is a consortium of 12 organizations2 engaged in a multi-year collaborative endeavor. Interfaith Education enables us to learn about religions other than our own, while also deepening our understanding of our own tradition, engaging the commonalities that bring us together and the particularities that make us distinct. Interfaith education offers the capacity for profound personal and societal growth, both essential for fostering and sustaining cultures of peace.
Our efforts have uncovered great complexity; with our partnering organizations, we have explored the meaning and implications of this vast subject. Our hope is to establish Interfaith Education as an accepted discipline.
Actually, our exploration accords well with directives from Nostra Aetate (I’ll comment once and for all on the heavily male language of this document. There is a single female reference and that is to the Church. This just demonstrates how our perceptions have changed in forty years): “The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the socio-economic values found among these men”.
I want to acknowledge my indebtedness to the CIE. It is because of our collaboration over several years and three Consultations that our understanding of Interfaith Education has evolved. It has been an enriching partnership. It is this exploration I wish to share today; our future development as interfaith educators is directed (seems to be taking us) toward education for global citizenship. I will begin with the lessons we have learned during the time of the Consultations on Interfaith Education and then I will describe the new perspectives we foresee for the future.
Effective interfaith education fosters respect, knowledge and understanding. The first Consultation on Interfaith Education was held in 2002 in India and New York City simultaneously and the second consultation followed in March 2003 at the United Nations; the 3rd was in Barcelona at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in July of 2004. The early consultations were interested in mapping what is available in interfaith education. We have sought models or best practices that are: 1) inclusive, i.e. models which include a number of religious traditions, old and new, rather than facilitating dialogue between two traditions. 2) models that affirm the value of traditions for their particularity, universality and diversity, encouraging understanding without simplifying the complexities of each tradition; 3) models that recognize that since religions have always been shaped in dialogue with local cultures and immediate contexts, they are not monoliths, but complex and internally diverse, 4) models that foster the development of critical intelligence while holding firmly to a core faith, 5) models that examine distinguishing differences with the express purpose of building relationships and cultivating empathy. At this level a process of self-cultivation/self-realization and deeper faith is involved in which we develop an awareness of our own assumptions and identity through learning about the assumptions and identities of others. Thus as we discover different models, we ourselves benefit from an ever-widening process of growth.
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Last Updated ( 02 Dec 05 )
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