The outcome was uncertain when a group of mostly strangers sat down together for dinner Thursday night at a home in this Dallas suburb. Among the gathering were three Jews, two Mormons, three Muslims, two Bahais, two secular humanists and a Catholic-Baptist.
But over pasta and lentil soup, the guests discussed love, death, forgiveness, compassion and evil, and found plenty of common ground.
“How many times,” said one guest, Nelson Komaiko, a 59-year-old self-described “very Reform” Jew, “do we get in a situation where people from all these different religions can really talk?” Not with superficial workplace chatter, he said, but in a discussion about the big questions of life. “Usually when people of different faiths have a ”˜dialogue,’ it’s with guns blazing.”
What is a Catholic-Baptist? Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.
I’d guess liberal Catholic letting their daughter’s interest in Baptist worship reveal their own weakness of faith. “Hey kids, let’s go shopping as a family!”
I guess this kinda stuff is nice; I just cant get too excited about it. I think that it might be due to the fact that in the final outcome of such an excersize, Christianity loses-in the sense that it is a faith that depends on clear, unequivical proclamation. I dont think that any Christian should participate in such a rigidly controlled “dialogue”, the outcome of which is almost guaranteed to be “Hey-theres really no difference between us-we all really believe the same thing!” Then, is the offence of the cross ceased (Gal. 5:11). The difference between what the Christian and non-Christian believes should never be trivialized; mans’ eternal destiny hangs upon it. I’m not saying that it shouldnt be shared in love and compassion, yes, and even with proper tact when called for. But may we never hold Christianity to be “one of many paths to the divine”, as it has been so described.
Yes, The Christian witness is ultimately compromised when we focus only on finding common ground. Of course there is common ground. I have good conversations with a Hindu at my Just Genesis blog because I talk sometimes about points of contact between Christianity and Hindusim, but I also write a good deal about the saving Blood of Jesus. In the end, that draws a boundary line that I as a Christian can never cross.