Is Religion Dividing Us? And How to Overcome This?
It is fairly easy to believe that religion is highly divisive, and that its very essence polarizes society into different faith communities, with each believing itself to be the true religion of God and that it will bring salvation to its followers. However, contemporary religions nowadays have come a long way in terms of building bridges and collaborating in many different forms. Inter-religious encounters and interfaith dialogs have been mushrooming in many different parts of the world and regions.
In fact, some of the existing initiatives and programs have become somewhat internationalized and made incursions into the United Nations systems and other multilateral organizations. The Faith Pavilion in the UNFCCC and World Urban Forum (WUF), Religions for Peace, Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) and others are all but a few examples of the recent changes.
These collaborations, encounters and dialogs have all changed the nature of engagement of faith communities, and how they deal with their often supposedly exclusivist theologies, worldviews and views on salvation. Thus, we are seeing a departure from the exclusivist theologies and ideologies embraced by communities of faith to a more open, dialogical and pluralistic view of religion, God and human-God relations, not to mention human-to-human interaction.
In view of the above, politics remains to be a stumbling block. More often than not, politics often plays a determining factor in the way religion is managed and how faith communities deal with one another, causing friction, polarization and conflict in society. Even the definition of religion in one country may cause exclusionary policies and discrimination, causing resentment and a sense of injustice.
The parallel session hopes to generate discussion and debate about how to think about this, given the participants’ different contexts. The session also hopes to find solutions to the problem that beset religion and political polarization.
Facilitators:
ICRS (Dicky)
Birmingham (Nick and David)
IMAN Research (Nurhuda)
Interfidei (Elga Sarapung)
Iser (Ana Carolina Evangelista)