Does the world really need interreligious dialogue?

Growing up in what could best be described as a decidedly non-ecumenical Protestant denomination, I was taught to treat “interfaith” like a bad word.

But the negativity around interactions between people of different religious, spiritual and humanistic beliefs always sat a bit awkwardly with my everyday experience growing up in Los Angeles, one of the most religiously diverse cities in the United States.

I couldn’t square the alarming discourse around interreligious interactions with the lived reality of diversity that defined my teenage years (and beyond). My friends were Buddhist and Muslim, Jewish and Christian, Pagan and atheist.

And so, despite the warnings, I stayed curious about different traditions, learning about other religions as I dove deeper into my own.

As I’ve made religion my profession, I’ve also come to appreciate how interreligious dialogue has changed over the years and how it is far from the caricature I was brought up to believe it was.

On the occasion of the 2023 Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago (August 14-18), I shared some thoughts on interreligious dialogue and its role in the contemporary world on my column, “What You Missed Without Religion Class.”

Interfaith dialogue often gets a bad rap as a project concerned with surface level “feel good” conversations. Today, interreligious dialogue (a more widely preferred term) has grown into a multifaceted and critical field of interaction with real-world impact and implications for your life and mine.