1.1 ANTECEDENTES DEL TEMA
1.2.3 Desempeño en el Mercado
This chapter deals with various challenges facing interreligious dialogue in Nigeria.
3.6.1 Choosing a Specific Model of Interreligious Dialogue
The first challenge of interreligious dialogue from the Christian perspective is choosing a model. According to Alan Race (1983), in Christians and Religious Pluralism, there is a
tripod model of interreligious dialogue. The first leg of the tripod model is traditionally called exclusivism. Exclusivists are convinced that believers of other religions or non-believers can only be considered to be on the right path when they convert to the one true religion, namely the religion they confess themselves. For Christian exclusivists, for example, this means that people can only be saved when they convert to Christianity and explicitly accept Jesus as Christ and Redeemer. This Christian exclusivism is mostly Christological in nature, but it may also be ecclesiological: “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” “no salvation outside the Church”. Because religious truth is revealed only through Christ and the Church, exclusivist Christians believe that they are obliged to proclaim the Christian message to everyone, that this is a Christian mission. Christian missionary activities have been an important dimension in the history of Christianity.
According to Christians, their central tenet is that God has revealed Godself in an unique mediator or medium and that only through the explicit recognition of this mediator or medium, one can find liberation or salvation. In the course of its history, however, this tenet came to be linked to an exclusivistic theology - accompanied by powerful institutional structures - that sometimes were linked to political ideologies, such as colonialism.
The second leg of the tripod model is called “inclusivism.” An inclusivist position does not deny in advance the value of other religious traditions and theological claims. The central idea of Christian inclusivism, for example, is that salvation outside Christianity is possible, but only thanks to the salvific work of God through Jesus Christ. Christian inclusivism accepts the idea that God wanted salvation for all people of all times and places, and that God’s salvation can take many forms. For this reason, one cannot in advance reject all other religions. Explicit knowledge or recognition of Christ as one’s Savior is not necessary in order for one to be
saved. This approach was initially developed before and during the time of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) by the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner: “But if it is true that a person who becomes the object of the church’s missionary efforts is or may be already someone on the way towards salvation - and if it is at the same time true that this salvation is Christ’s salvation, since there is no other salvation - then it must be possible to be (…) an anonymous Christian” (Rahner 1965). Rahner’s particular form of inclusivism is necessarily linked to the notion of ‘anonymous Christians’.
The third leg of the model is that of pluralism, in which there is a recognition that all religions are equal. All religions are partial expressions of the Ultimate Reality. All these religions are parallel ways to reach Ultimate Reality, or in a Christian language, salvation. Pluralism is the most amenable position for interreligious dialogue.
From the Islamic perspective, there is no model of interreligious but three Muslim interfaith initiatives with varied interfaith theologies and religion-state relations. (Interfaith theology; state-religion interaction; religious actors’ state affiliation or lack thereof; and religious actors’ political, include global, concerns). The Movement, Jordan’s A Common Word and Saudi Arabia’s interfaith efforts. These three prominent cases have attracted much publicity and are likely to influence future interfaith dialogue efforts in the Muslim world. The Gülen movement will be studied because of his engagement on grassroots.
The leader of the Fethullah group offers a very accommodating interfaith theology grounded in orthodox Sunni (Hanafi) thought and informed by his Sufi teachings. Gülen has written extensively on interfaith dialogue. For, “The very nature of religion demands [interfaith] dialogue” (Gülen 2000, 242). This accommodationist approach is built around
three principles: (1) the commonalities among faiths, (2) a history of revelation and prophecy, and (3) the Qur’an’s explicit sanction of interfaith dialogue (Kayaoglu 2010), like other traditional Sunni scholars, understands the Qur’an as calling for universal dialogue primarily — but not exclusively — with Christians and Jews. For, the Qur’an (such as 3:64) provides scriptural support for a Muslim dialogue with the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) stresses the verses in which Muslims are asked to believe “… in what is sent to you [Muhammad] and what was sent before you …” (Qur’an, 2:3–4) and “[d]o not argue with the People of the Book unless in a fair way” Qur’an (29:46).
However, expands this accommodation to non-Abrahamic religions. He holds that Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and even Hinduism and other world religions all accept the same divine source for themselves. These religions, along with the non-theistic religions, like Buddhism, are all in pursuit of the same goals: love, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness (Gülen 2000, 253). This accommodating approach to other faiths is rooted in Gülen’s understanding of the spiral history of religion. Embedded in an Islamic understanding of religion and history, assuming oneness and the basic unity of religions, this spiral view of history suggests that God sends prophets and revelations to establish and re-establish the universal principle of God’s existence. This inclusive interfaith theology constructed from the elements of mainstream Sunni and Sufi tradition is further buttressed by the Ottoman-Turkish tradition. Gülen refers to the teachings of Rumi (1207– 1273), the famous Sufi poet, on universal values; Gülen indicates how religious tolerance encouraged Muslims and non- Muslims to embrace these universal values.