Interfaith Dialogue

The modern ecumenical movement initially sprang from the missionary movement. This led to considerable struggle within the ecumenical movement over embracing interfaith dialogue as a main focus of its ministry. This focus was eventually accepted, and since then the ecumenical movement has done much to promote interfaith relations at the local, national, and global level; to struggle with the theological issues such dialogue presents for the Christian faith; and to collaborate with other religions to reflect on common issues faced by the global community. Current Dialogue has played a major role in promoting the dialogue concern.     

Philosophy for Children and the Reconstruction of Philosophy

In this paper I trace the dialogical and narrative dimensions of the philosophical tradition and explore how they are reconfigured in the notion of community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), the mainstay of the collection of novels and discussion plans known as Philosophy for Children. After considering the ontology and epistemology of dialogue, I argue that narrative has replaced exposition in our understanding of philosophical discourse and that CPI represents a narrative context in which truth comes to represent the best story, in a discursive location in which there are always multiple stories. Finally, I raise the issue of children's philosophical voice. Can children philosophize, and if they can, do they do so in a voice different from adults'? If so, what are the distinctive features of that voice? I assert that it is children's historical marginalization in the Western construction of rationality that now – as that rationality undergoes its crisis – makes of them, like women and other “natives,” privileged strangers to the tradition, who are, through CPI, enabled to enter it through dialogue and narrative.     

意象对话技术治疗老年抑郁症的疗效观察

采用临床对照方法探讨意象对话技术对老年抑郁症的疗效,170例老年抑郁症患者随机分为2组,在应用5-羟色胺再摄取抑制剂（SSRIs）类抗抑郁药物治疗的基础上采用不同心理治疗方法：意象组采用意象对话技术;CBT 组采用支持性心理治疗和认知行为技术。所有患者随访一年,用汉密尔顿抑郁量表（HAMD）进行评定。结果表明意象对话技术对老年抑郁症的疗效与CB T疗效相当,且见效快,复发率低。利用其躯体出现的症状、感觉进行意象引导处理,可快速消除或减轻其身心痛苦,证实了意象对话技术可以在老年抑郁症中应用。     

Listening to Dialogue

In accordance with Progressivism, Matthew Lipman, introduced an educational model for renewal and change by means of the child. With his Philosophy for Children programme he wished to offer an alternative for the intellectualistic oriented education which silenced children. The answer to the search for freedom and change, Lipman finds in the symbioses between ‘Philosophy’ and ‘Children’. Philosophy expressed in critical thinking and communication, was the basis to emancipate the child from the oppression of the adult and to cause change. According to Lipman the main purpose of philosophy is to free every individual from determination. This plea is being elaborated by dialogue. The main issue of our paper concerns the question whether Lipman’s alternative ‘Philosophy for Children’ can fulfil the promise of change and freedom. To answer this question we will investigate thoroughly where dialogue and change in Philosophy for Children stand for. Finally we will propose another perspective of dialogue. A dialogue stressed on listening. Listening to how the world appears to us and how we appear to ourselves. Nancy Vansieleghem is working on a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education at the Department of Education at the University of Gent, Belgium. Her main area of research is philosophy of dialogue and public space.     

Interfaith Dialogue and the Science-and-Religion Discussion

The science-and-religion dialogue has so often assumed that the key issues for discussion are those that have arisen within the Western Christian religious and intellectual tradition that little interest has been devoted to the possible insights that the presence of non-Christian voices in the dialogue might bring. In the following I explore the benefits of a truly multireligious dialogue on science and religion and offer a model for integrating various religious perspectives into the science-and-religion dialogue. Of course, taking the multifaith perspectives of the religions seriously also means making a dialogue between religions a component of the science-and-religion dialogue, and I discuss how such a dialogue might unfold along with key ideas that might emerge in ever more interesting ways once the dialogue begins.     

论五种宗教对话观

宗教对话是国际宗教学界的一个热门话题、一个前沿领域。本文概要评述了五种最有影响的宗教对话观,即排他论、兼并论、多元论、兼容论和实践论,并力求对它们加以比较性的方法论反思。作者认为,这五种宗教对话观不仅各有不可忽视的理论根据,而且均有值得深思的理论得失。因此,从神哲学方法论上反省它们之间的学术论争,并权衡它们之间的理论张力,将有助于我们进而探索宗教对话领域的疑难问题及其理论突破点。     

Variations in Philosophical Genre: the Platonic Dialogue

The primary function of the Platonic dialogue is not the communication of philosophical doctrines but the transformation of the reader's character. This article takes up the question of how, or by what means, the Platonic dialogue accomplishes its transformative goal. An answer is developed as follows. First, the style of reading associated with analytical philosophy is not transformative, on account of its hermeneutical attachment and epistemic equality in the relationship between reader and author. Secondly, the style of reading associated with the genre of commentary is transformative because it is governed by a principle of authority. When the commentary model is applied to the Platonic dialogue, it can be seen that the dialogue mimics the function of the authority principle in transforming the reader into a commentator, that is, someone who reads from a position of detachment and accepts responsibility for himself as moral and epistemic agent.     

The Prospect of a Global Ethic on HIV/AIDS: The Religions and the Science–and–Religion Dialogue

This article introduces essays from a 2001 symposium on a global ethic and the issue of the spread of HIV/AIDS. The symposium began with the assumption that we can determine the possibility for such a global ethic if we both explore the potential of an interreligious dialogue and do so in the context of a science–and–religion dialogue. I argue that while the possibilities for a global ethic, in particular addressing the issue of HIV/AIDS, may be debated, the results of this symposium suggest that the dialogue ought to be continued and that there is significant potential in the interfaith dialogue for creating models for both an ethic and specific strategies for action.     

Doing Dialogue Interreligiously

Abstract : The essay explores the motives for dialogue, the conditions for a meaningful dialogue, and the benefits of a successful dialogue in order to understand the significance of doing interreligious dialogue interreligiously.     

Local Dialogue Heard Around the World

The authors of this article examine deliberative democracy and the value of dialogue in promoting the engagement of communities in deliberation and involvement in public issues. Focusing on the Texas Forum (TF), a member of the National Issues Forum (NIF), the authors discuss how diverse individuals are brought together with the purpose of cultivating public dialogue and discourse about significant policy issues, with a focus on the public's participation in the democratic process. The article addresses changes in civic engagement, dialogue, and the use of technology to mediate civic discourse and create virtual civic communities. The TF and NIF provide practical examples of the work needed in promoting deliberative democracy and civic engagement.     

So what? Profiles for relevance criticism in persuation dialogues

This paper discusses several types of relevance criticism within dialogue. Relevance criticism is a way one could or should criticize one's partner's contribution in a conversation as being deficient in respect of conversational coherence. The first section tries to narrow down the scope of the subject to manageable proportions. Attention is given to the distinction between criticism of alleged fallacies within dialogue and such criticism as pertains to argumentative texts. Within dialogue one may distigguish tenability criticism, connection criticism, and narrow-type relevance criticism. Only the last of these three types of criticism constitutes a charge of fallacy and carries with it a burden of proof. In the second it is observed that a full study of narrow-type relevance criticism would require the construction of complicated, many-layered, dialogue systems. Such a study can, however, be profitably preceded by setting up profiles of dialogue that help us discuss the ins and outs of certain types of move. This is illustrated with an example.     

Observations on Pentecostal Participation in Formal Ecumenical Dialogue

As analysis of the implications of global Pentecostalism for ecumenism continues, we can learn much by examining the formal ecumenical dialogues in which Pentecostals have participated. Among these dialogues, both between Pentecostals and other Christian traditions and between Oneness and trinitarian Pentecostals, the Catholic–Pentecostal dialogue is especially instructive. As Pentecostals continue to dialogue, they should employ the methodology of lex orandi, lex credendi, reflect on the requirements and responsibilities of their dialogue participation, and return to previous topics in their dialogues that may be ripe for reconsideration.     

The Future of Multilateral Ecumenical Dialogue

This article offers an overview of work undertaken in multilateral ecumenical dialogue, as it has been conducted at the international level by the commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches (WCC), to clarify the issues discussed in this dialogue and the methods used. In particular, the article analyzes the statements on unity made at various WCC assemblies. While they demonstrate a certain continuity regarding the key points of church unity they identify, they clearly mark a shift in the overall understanding of how unity is conceived. The second part of the article examines the current ecumenical situation and its importance for this dialogue, to show how Faith and Order has responded and what further progress in multilateral dialogue might look like.     

The effect of the two-chair dialogue intervention on self-compassion - adding an emotional evocative component to a basic Rogerian condition

Objective

How people relate to themselves when facing distress or failure influences general psychological well-being and vulnerability to psychological disorders. The aim of the present study was to explore the effect of an emotionally evocative intervention on self-compassion.

Methods

The data were retrieved from a larger study of Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) utilising a multiple baseline design comparing two treatment phases. The baseline phase consisted of 5, 7 or 9 therapy sessions where the therapist solely adhered to Rogerian relational conditions, as prescribed in EFT. A two-chair dialogue intervention was then added for five sessions. The sample consisted of 18 self-critical clients with clinically significant symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. The “Self-Compassion Scale” (SCS) was administered pre, mid and post therapy.

Results

The baseline phase did not lead to significant changes in self-compassion. However, the addition of the two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant increase in self-compassion. This increase was due to reductions in the negative subscales, especially the isolation subscale.

Conclusion

The emotionally evocative two-chair dialogue was associated with a significant change in self-to-self relating, compared to relational conditions alone. The two-chair dialogue, thus, seems to be a promising intervention for promoting healthier self-to-self relating.     

The Dialogue between Science and Religion and the Dialogue between People of Different Faiths: Areopagus Revisited

Christianity finds itself in a new situation, one that resembles its first-century experience in that it will be shaped by a new dominant world culture. This culture is marked by three factors-the economy, the multireligious situation, and science. The author's discussion deals with the issues that arise in this engagement with culture under three rubrics: dialogue between science and religion, globalization of the religious encounter, and interreligious dialogue in a globalized world. The major assertions are: (1) Science and religions must avoid restrictive and expansionist relationships and work for reciprocal interaction. (2) Globalization is an unavoidable, but ambiguous, historical development; religions should reject responses of "ethnification" and "primitivism" and rather engage in strategies that encourage both productive encounter and critical distance. (3) Interreligious dialogue includes dialogues of life, of intellectual exchange, of religious experience, of common action, and of confrontation; this dialogue will seek to embrace truth (which involves science) and wisdom (which includes the various religious traditions) in the reciprocal interaction that is marked by love.     

Dialogue in Our Cosmic Aloneness

The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is briefly summarized to serve as a background for making the case that, due to the highly exceptional characteristics of the earth's position and motion in the solar system as well as the precarious history of human evolution, we may be alone in the universe. With the conviction that this cosmic isolation enhances our need for dialogue with God, I discuss the nature of authentic dialogue as exhaustively explored by Martin Buber. I conclude with remarks dealing with the importance of understanding and using Buber's insights on dialogue as a way of satisfying our primal need to communicate with a cosmic “other,” in particular, God. Thus, in contrast to the numerous articles that have discussed the theological implications of SETI being successful, I treat here what it might mean if we are alone.     

Interfaith Dialogue in Lebanon: Between a Power Balancing Act and Theological Encounters

This essay explores trends and directions of interfaith dialogue in Lebanon with a special focus on developments since the Ta'if Agreement (1989) signed at the end of the civil war. While viewing the encounters of interfaith dialogue in Lebanon against the background of political and social developments, the particular focus of this study is the ventures and potential of “inter-theological dialogue.” In particular, it explores the new initiatives whose focus is on theological and spiritual dialogue, since they seem to have been virtually ignored by recent studies in the field, even though inter-theological discussions have constituted an important part of inter-religious dialogue in Lebanon. The article proposes that theological dialogue in Lebanon is necessary in order to reach true ta?āyush (living together), particularly because politics and religion are intricately intertwined. Focusing on two initiatives within the past 15 years, it shows how they strive to make theological discourse – sometimes a merely intellectual exercise – relevant for society.     

Revisiting the Antecedents of Interreligious Dialogue

This article looks critically at the trend to connect contemporary interreligious dialogue with certain events and developments that took place in Europe and India during the 19th and early 20th centuries: (i) the comparative study of religion, (ii) the 1893 World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, (iii) three World Missionary Conferences in the first half of the 20th century, (iv) renascent Hinduism in India, and (v) Indian Christian efforts for inculturation. These events/developments are often perceived as the formative factors of dialogue. But this essay argues that they had their own complexities, agendas, and targets and rarely had interreligious dialogue as their objective or focus. Uncritical reading of the history of interreligious dialogue ignores how colonialism and imperialism have shaped these “antecedents.”     

‘A touchy subject’: teaching and learning about difference in the religious education classroom

ABSTRACT

The present article reports research conducted during 2018 in a secondary school in South Yorkshire, England with a class of 11–12-year-old boys and girls and the class teacher of religious education (RE), in consultation with the head and deputy head of the RE faculty. The focus of the project was on the extent to which existing research findings can assist teachers to deal with issues of religious diversity, including how the classroom can be a ‘safe space’ for dialogue and discussion and how media influences can be managed. It was one of a number of projects conducted by members of the Signposts International Research Network, who have undertaken independent studies in the UK, Norway and Sweden, which address issues identified in the Council of Europe publication Signposts. The findings reported in the present article highlight: the need for teachers to be given support in learning skills for managing classroom dialogue; the interest of young people in exploring difference; and the benefits of participation in classroom-based collaborative research.