Interreligious Dialogue: Encountering an other or Ourselves?

Abstract

Participants in interreligious dialogue encounter persons who are, in some respects, radically different. Accordingly, appreciating the diversity among and within the world's religions requires that we abandon the attempt to see others as culturally variant expressions of ourselves. The view of persons and of religion my argument presupposes is at odds with the one advocated by revisionist pluralists such as John Hick. After identifying the weaknesses of Hick's theory, I commend an alternative that provides a firmer basis for respecting the other as such and enhances the possibilities of profound individual and communal transformation through interreligious dialogue.