On Thursday, November 4, Iona Pacific Director Rabbi Dr. Robert Daum spoke at St. Mark’s College, the Catholic theological college at UBC, as a part of St. Mark’s Theology on Tap series. Entitled, “Interfaith Dialogue in the Twenty-first Century: Imperatives, Challenges, Possibilities,” Dr. Daum’s talk explored the characteristics and necessity of authentic interreligious dialogue in the 21st century. The evening was a great success: Dr. Daum delivered his talk to an attentive audience composed of members of many faith communities and received an overwhelmingly positive response. Fr. John McCarthy, the Chaplain of St. Mark’s, composed a wonderful personal response to Dr. Daum’s words, which we have included below. Iona Pacific Senior Intern Aliya Hirji will speak in the same series on March 4 at 7:00 pm on the topic of “Inter-faith Dialogue and Education for Women in the Qur’an: A Canadian-Ismaili-Muslim Woman’s Perspective”.

Do You See What I See? Inter-religious Dialogue
By Fr. John McCarthy, SJ, Chaplain

St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, is reported to have said that saving words move both the mind and the heart. That’s exactly what happened, I think, as we listened to Rabbi Dr. Robert Daum at the latest Theology on Tap evening this past Thursday. I was personally moved by his strength of mind and his open heart. At one point in his talk, I found myself welling up in response to his desire for truth and obvious acceptance of the complexities of the human heart before the vagaries of personal, religious and political life.

Sibling relations are often the most difficult. Civil wars are often the most violent and reprehensible. So too, the dialogue among the great monotheistic faiths of Judaism, Islam and Christianity can be the most difficult.

Rabbi Daum began by focusing on some general characteristics of authentic dialogue. Dialogue, he maintained, is only possible in an atmosphere of what he termed “epistemological doubt.” In other works, authentic doubt is essential to conversation. Not a doubt marked by nihilism or relativism, but a humble acknowledgement of how much there is to learn from the other. We will always be marked by an “existential distance,” an “incommensurability” and “existential aloneness,” that marks a gap that can never be fully breached. Rather than precluding dialogue, such “distances” invite us to dialogue with respect and not a little trembling. The conversation assumes that we have entered into “holy land” that seeks not necessarily a common theology, but rather a common and familiar vocabulary.

Think of the three terms “Israel,” “Palestine,” and the “Holy Land.” Three terms that cover the same geography, but vastly different conceptual spaces. In fact, these are “contested spaces” that defy a common meaning at present. I experienced the same in northern Labrador last summer. For me, I was travelling in a vast “wilderness” landscape. For my Inuk guide, however, the same geographical landscape was a “lived landscape,” full of memory and meaning. Over there I shot my first caribou s a boy. And there, that’s where our mother took us berry-picking in the fall. The same “landscape” – two very different “inscapes.” Any true dialogue between me and my Inuk guide on the meaning of that same land would require a certain depth of soul and mind not possible in a 30-second sound bite.

Another moment that moved my heart and soul was Rabbi Daum’s reflection on our use of what he termed “the language of shame.” In any neuralgic debate, we are often tempted, in our moral outrage, to employ weapons of shame against one another. Catholics, and other people of God, can so easily resort to the language of “conservative” or “liberal”, or even worse, as we attempt to shame others to our way of thinking. True prophets, however, are never self-proclaimed. Only history will make that judgment. True prophets are both teacher and learner. Let us sit and learn together. Only then will there be hope for a future together.

Are we all not singing a common song of solidarity and communion? Not at all. Rabbi Daum underscored the inherently complex historical, conceptual, cultural, and theological differences that divide us. Many communities of faith are conflicted – both ‘ad intra’ and ‘ad extra’.

My spiritual director, ever patient with my wayward peregrinations, is quick to remind me that “holiness is in the struggle.” I like that. It seems that I have no other choice as I struggle to make sense of my life and its role in the bigger picture. Rabbi Daum, it seems, is called to be in the midst of that struggle for understanding. I like to think that he has chosen well. This past Thursday evening we were invited to enter into the mystery of dialogue and authentic conversations. It’s not a tea party to be sure, but then, neither was the Last Supper.