So, now we know the "mind" of God:

Bebergal and Korb write in the Introduction: “Faith is not, we’ve learned, a private matter at all. We’re tired of faith coming between us. God’s will is that it may live between us.”

I'd ask for substantial proof, and reproducible evidence for such a claim. If there is none, then both Bebergal and Korb are as useful as snake oil salesmen.

This is intellectual dishonesty, and a sure sign of hubris.

anand- i think it helps alot when you actually love the person with whom you're dialoguing

it takes it from the cynical intellectual dry exercise to real relationships and respect

i resonate more strongly to people who share my love of humanity and whose hearts are open and non-judgemental
they might be a different faith than me,
and a person might share my faith, but repel me from dialoguing with their constricted heart and judgemental attitude and exclusive behavior

it may sound trite, but alot of differences can wane in importance when love is a base.

peace

Too bad, Malcolm X didn't live long enough for another conversion: from faith to atheism. To paraphrase that Byzantine emperor, what has faith brought us, except excuses for immoral behavior and murder?

A thoughtful and thought-provoking post.

Some thoughts, then, and not necessarily in any coherent order:

Telling, isn't it, that these calls for interfaith dialogue have arrived only after 'mutual destruction' is very much a possibility for the species? If such weren't the case, we would still be holed up in our respective traditions waiting for It to sort us out. For no matter how communal the interfaith dialoguers try to make it, faith is still very much a private issue, isn't it? Even, say, first and foremost a private issue? That is, after all, the notion on which faith turns: the notion that It can read our individual minds, see our individual hearts, and calibrate the intensity and sincerity of our belief in It, and thus decide our individual eternities.

I attend a university known for its cultivation of interfaith dialogue. It gathers prominent members of the Abrahamic faiths and encourages them to make nice - okay, engage in fruitful intellectual conversation - in a public space.

I suppose interfaith dialogue is useful for its own sake, but we only end up where we began: agreeing to disagree, and agreeing to coexist, which are the *only* honest fruits of any such dialogue.

I think coexistence is one of the noblest ideals of the moment, and interfaith dialogue is useful insofar as it contributes to that ideal, but I confess I've always found something disingenuous about this 'dialogue.' The book you recommend sounds like it's worth a skim, but really, as much as Bebergal and Korb try to find and please God 'together,' Bebergal cannot be a Catholic (can he?) without suspecting Korb has missed something along the way. And no matter how Eboo praises Flannery O'Connor, he must still suspect (mustn't he?) that the It behind creation finds her trinitarian tendencies disagreeable. I'm not saying Eboo doesn't feel genuine respect for her work, and that Bebergal doesn't respect Korb's shared human attempt to seek the Divine - just that the theologies to which each has pledged himself render a completely honest conversation logically impossible.

The most important and illuminating literature of the 21th Century so far is INFIDEL

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Free Press. 353 pp. $26

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020102307.html

"Thus begins the extraordinary story of a woman born into a family of desert nomads, circumcised as a child, educated by radical imams in Kenya and Saudi Arabia, taught to believe that if she uncovered her hair, terrible tragedies would ensue. It's a story that, with a few different twists, really could have led to a wretched life and a lonely death, as her grandmother warned. But instead, Hirsi Ali escaped -- and transformed herself into an internationally renowned spokeswoman for the rights of Muslim women."

Keep them coming. I am hooked.