Interreligious Dialogue For Peace.

 

Interreligious dialogue is a world agenda that is being discussed and has been practiced by countless people from time to time. It has not remained bilateral, or even multilateral, but has also become global . The first, historically speaking, was the founding of the World Conference on Religionand Peace (WCRP)-also known as Religions for Peace-by Nikkyo Niwano in 1970 in Kyoto, Japan, that affiliated 75 countries around the globe, where some activists hold a number of interreligious dialogue events, including Asian Conference onReligion and Peace in 1976.  The events’ topics make us aware that, to some extent, interreligious dialogue is related to peace. As human beings that never stop trying to create a better peaceful world, interreligious dialogue, then, will always keep going. Even dialogue goes far and further until this present time. The current state of interreligious dialogue for millennia religion was at the very heart of all human societies. This, then, is the twenty first-century state of interreligious dialogue. Interreligious dialogue is now spreading in all the societal structures of the globe, moving humanity in the direction of a Global Dialogical Civilization. Interreligious dialogue is no longer a sharing or reflection of religious ideas or perspectives of a person to him/herself, person to person or to a group and so on. It is the global hope that people believe that it can unite and harmonize human beings beyond any background or identity, including religions, where they can learn from one to another across time. The world will always need interreligious dialogue. This ideas relates to Swidler and Mojzes, in Kadayifci-Orellana; at the heart of dialogue is inter-religious dialogue, because religion is the most comprehensive of all the human disciplines.›› “An explanation of the ultimate meaning of life, and how to live accordingly.” Until the slow emergence of inter-religious dialogue out of Modernity, out of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment of the West, religion was also the most absolutist, exclusivist of all the disciplines. Thus, dialogue–fundamentally meaning “I can learn from you”–is a dagger pointed at the heart of absolutist religion/ideology. Kadayifci-Orellana agrees that during the Council in 1964 Pope Paul VI in his first encyclical made it clear that: dialogue is demanded nowadays. It is demanded by the dynamic course of action which is changing the face of modern society. As stated by Eccle-siam suam , no. 78, it is demanded by the pluralism of society, and by the maturity man has reached in this day and age. Whether he is religious or not, his secular education has enabled him to think and speak, and to conduct a dialogue with dignity . Her focus on it leads her to have published more than ten books dealing with interreligious dialogue.   In doing interreligious dialogue, there is a tool that has been worked on by Aulet and Sureda. They mention that one should not honour only one’s own religion and condemn other religions. Instead, one should honour other religions for various reasons. By so doing, one helps one’s own religion to grow and also renders service to the religions of others. Her works presents the phenomenon of the sacred from a conceptual and semantic point of view; to set out the different approaches that have been made to the phenomenon of the sacred; and to propose a definition that will allow us to appreciate how this can become a key tool for articulating interreligious dialogue based on mutual understanding and respect. For Aulet & Sureda, religion is to be studied not from the perspective of society, but from that of the religious individual. They explain further that this is as the sacred stands in opposition to the profane, as the religious person stands in opposition to the non-religious person. The experience of the sacred is the lived experience of the transcendent and the ineffable. Phenomenology has tended to play down the historical context of religions in the hope of arriving at the essence of religion.  As an example of this, in Aulet & Sureda, Nathan Söderblom affirmed that the sacred is the most important concept in religion, even more than the notion of God itself. Rudolf Otto (1965) considered the modes of religious experience as different phases and took the contents of this experience as leading to the conclusion that the sacred is an a priori human category, and that this is what enables the soul to perceive the numinous as an inner revelation, as the ganz Andere. Their reflection to the Knowledge of the Sacred as a Tool for Building Bridges of Dialogue is this. In order for the dialogue to be fruitful and beneficial, it is essential that intrareligious dialogue be articulated with interreligious dialogue; each tradition (or each person) must engage in dialogue with itself. Dialogue is a matter of exploring the identity of the other, establishing an exchange in order to enrich one’s own beliefs and traditions and appreciate the value and the richness of diversity. Then, this relates to the conclusion that the sacred places, with all their symbolisms, with all their power, can serve as bridges of dialogue between people, cultures and religions, always provided they are treated with due respect by those who come to them. Addressing interreligious dialogue, or also understood as interfaith dialogue, it is worth mentioning to see the work of Diana Eck categorizing the areas of interfaith dialogue in which she engaged herself. In her work she writes: “First, there is the dialogue of life dialogue that is not named as such, and that does not involve sitting at tables or joining an organization. It is just the give and take of relationships in the neighborhood, the workplace, the hospital, the PTA, or the town council. This dialogue of life has developed so gradually, so naturally, that it has become part of the fabric of the everyday. Of course, there are constant surprises. It might be unexpected for a young Protestant woman from the Midwest to find herself as a freshman at college with a roommate who is a young Muslim or Jain, also from the Midwest. It may be remarkable, at first, but it is not unusual. Increasingly, it is the norm. There is also the dialogue of learning—the intentional study of another culture and faith. It involves the intellectual energy required to think about and try to understand the humanity, religious life, and ritual expression in communities whose life we do not personally share. There are plenty of opportunities for this in schools and colleges. Students are challenged to think about deeply held values—those of others and, reflexively, their own. For some interfaith initiatives, mutual learning is the most important purpose. Third, there is also the dialogue of doing— dialogue in community—in which people engage one another in a Habitat for Humanity project, a blood drive, or a city clean-up campaign. It is simply about cooperation across the dotted lines of difference. Most of what we have identified as the interfaith infrastructure focuses on the multitude of civic concerns that bring people together across lines of faith. Fourth, there are the more philosophical and theological dialogues in which people engage one another on the deepest and foundational issues of their faith. Some of these are in ongoing dialogue groups like the Buddhist-Christian and HinduChristian dialogues that have taken place for decades in such venues as the American Academy of Religion. Increasingly there are dialogues that involve entire denominations or communities: a national Catholic-Muslim dialogue, for instance, and an emerging national Baptist-Muslim dialogue. The most available done by a figure or leader of religions.  Finally, there is the reflection on what all this means for our own faith. The diversity of spiritual voices and perspectives is not only “out there” in society, but is also in here, within ourselves, we can understand that interreligious dialogue can be categorized into five ways. First, the dialogue of life. She defines it as the ordinary give and take of relationships in the neighborhood, workplace, hospital, or town council. I would rather say this is a living dialogue. The second is the dialogue of learning. It is the intentional study of another culture and faith, involving the intellectual energy required to understand another›s faith. In 4 PRIHATIN many situations today, this is a mutual process of learning and understanding. This is what is probably mostly done in schools. The third is dialogue in the community that refers to the ways in which people engage with one another in shaping their community and society by doing such a Habitat for Humanity project, a blood drive, or a city clean-up campaign. The fourth is philosophical and theological dialogue, where people engage one another on the deepest and foundational issues of their faith. This dialogue is mostly done by the elite, figures, leaders, or academia of religion/religious studies. Last but not least is the dialogue within which is reflection on the meaning of this all for one’s own belief in order to notice that spiritual voices diversity and point of views is not only beyond there in society, but it is actually within ourselves too. This is what I call self-dialogue.  Another theory of interreligious dialogue can be seen from Lattu’s work saying that interreligious dialogue is a way to understand other religions and a vehicle for bringing religious followers to peaceful interactions. Lattu's work on interreligious dialogue is taking local interreligious engagements into account, exploring rituals, symbols, and oral narratives to discover interreligious relationships in Indonesia. He used a cultural sociology approach and indigenous knowledge in folklore studies to test interreligious relationships in Indonesia, his article offers a new pattern of interreligious engagements for an oraloriented society to enrich existing interreligious approaches. Lattu asserts that sign or symbol plays a central role in the life of an oral-oriented society because the society perceives symbols as a means of communication. In Indonesia, where oral tradition remains dominant, symbols and symbolic actions are central in the process of mastering social ethics. He also explains that people›s ethos in many parts of Indonesia lies within the system of symbolic meanings including the significance of interreligious relationships. As a vehicle of cultural meanings, interreligious communities in a given area interact with other spiritual groups through symbolic significances. Therefore, interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, collaborative, active and positive interactions among people of different religious beliefs with the aim of increasing tolerance, respect, and promoting peaceful coexistence. After all, borrowing especially Eck’s work and other scholars’ theory, we understand that interreligious dialogue is possible by learning, which is the intentional study of another culture and faith to understand another faith/belief, as well as by reflection on the meaning of this all for one’s own belief, recognizing that religious and spiritual voices of diversity are not only in society, but also within ourselves so that we can be more tolerant, pay more respect as well as make peace movement. Realizing and relating that to Lattu and Eck’s theories, we will look at how the second type of interreligious dialogue by Eck, the intentional study of another culture and faith to understand another's faith/religion/tradition offered by Peace Journey as a tool or concrete vehicle of interreligious dialogue into peaceful interaction in a unique and fun way with its own advantages and distinctions.  The research aims to introduce a tool for interreligious dialogue, namely Peace Journey. It aims to increase the levels of knowledge about Indonesia›s religious diversity, as well as promote tolerance, respect, and peace. Using a game for interreligious dialogue has not yet been sufficiently introduced or even studied. Most interreligious dialogue focuses on dialogue of life and philosophical and theological dialogue by elites, prominent figures, and religious and belief leaders. But people at the grassroots level can rarely enjoy interreligious dialogue due to the limits of figures, sources or tools. Therefore, offering an interreligious dialogue tool through a game might make a learning interreligious dialogue more widely practiced and accessible for anyone at any level. 

Our research attempts to answer the following questions: what is the Peace Journey Game for Interreligious Dialogue? And How does the Peace Journey Game promote tolerance, respect, and peace?