INTERRELIGIOUS BOUNDARIES

Interreligious boundaries is a concept that tends to be overlooked yet pivotal to the society we

live in today. Not only does it give an amazing opportunity for individuals and communities of different

beliefs to gain positive and constructive knowledge but they also get to experience cooperative interaction

with each other. This becomes very beneficial to our society as it helps to overcome the issue and bring

awareness to religious conflicts that are mostly derived from both imperialism and/or colonialism (Phan

and Tan 2013, 220). It is also a big step towards the acceptance of one another as they gain a deeper and

thorough understanding of other religious beliefs as they would be supported by accurate information and

not assumptions. Recent globalization has also provided a great increase into establishing interreligious

boundaries as it becomes a huge resource for different religious communities and individuals to interact

with one another. The interreligious encounters that have occurred over decades has the essential purpose

to build bridges of understanding, respect, harmony, and friendship among religious communities and

individuals who partake into these encounters tend to focus on common ground rather than what divides

them to overcome stereotypes and historical grievances. In this paper, I would like to address the many

strategies that interreligious boundaries use as a positive impact in our society and give a little of my own

personal insight as well.

One of the main strategies that have been depicted to be very successful, is the concept that you

get to choose your perspective of others, so receptiveness and tolerance play a big role to what makes

interreligious encounters successful. In the article “Interfaith: Risks, Rewards and boundaries”, John

Beckett explains how religious encounters are great for different communities to come together but it is

very important to respect each other’s beliefs while doing so (Beckett, 2013). He explains how a Rabbi

once taught him that there can be a lot of different opinions that can be forced upon you from individuals

of different beliefs but as long as they don’t threaten you as individual, you are to remain open-minded if

you want to be able to gain a full picture of what makes them who they are and how their thoughts are
processed based on their personal or religious background (Becket, 2013). It is the respect that you have

for who those you interact with that makes interfaith dialogues beneficial to both yourself and those

around you. Moreover, he mentions his own personal experience to further enlighten his readers about

this important point by telling us an anecdote of how he was once a homophobic but the personal

encounter of one of his gay colleagues has helped him gain more knowledge about the LGBT community

and “his fear melted away” (Becket, 2013). Thus, you choose your perspective of others and it is key to

keep you mind and heart open to the encounters you come across for it to be fruitful and positive.

The crucial concept of receptiveness and encouragement towards interreligious boundaries is

depicted by “Holi Toledo”, an event that has given the opportunity to students of Toledo University to

engage in the diversity of cultures and religions they’re surrounded by on campus. This event, who have

brought many different religious communities together while giving a focus on a Hindu holiday “Toli” is

another way that depicts that interreligious encounters can be fruitful and positive. Their reach both at the

event and on social media were very important to the success of the event and “[bridged the gap] between

domestic and international students” (Diller and Gad, 2015). Not only did it bring awareness to the

individuals at the event itself but everyone on the World Wide Web, which can make a huge impact on

societies today. Incentives by student organizations is another way that the event was able to encourage

individuals to gain more information on the different religions and the provision of multiple information

booths by the different student organization has also assured an abundance of information that was

available to the students but most importantly, information that is accurate and specific is provided to the

students. This is crucial in a way that with nothing but accurate information transmitted to the students,

there is no room for generalizations/stereotypes to come up and makes interreligious encounters run

successfully.

Another way of that promote interreligious boundaries are stated by Mr. Robinson in his article

“Communal Peace and Conflict in Indonesia: Navigating Interreligious Boundaries”. He states that

personal connections through intermarriage can help individuals involved have no choice to accept and

learn the different cultures. Knowledge will be passed through both families as well as compromises
between their difference beliefs will be made and can very positive and a fruitful process (Robinson,

2016). He also mentions that various government programs that induce the religious encounters between

the different cultures/religions within a community can be easily installed to expose the population to the

various people of their community and work as a united population. He gives the example of the Peduli

program that has been establish in Indonesia to demonstrate how government programs can have a

positive impact by involving minority groups in the community (Robinson, 2016). The final strategy that

Mr. Robinson suggest is a group of individuals can deal with an issue themselves if they are not satisfied

with how an issue has been handled just as portrayed by the nahe biti of Indonesia. This demonstrates

how if a group of individuals can take matters into their own hands used a reconciliation process to

determine peace (Robinson, 2016). Robinson further explains that interreligious encounters can be made

fruitful through the involvement of other aspects other than religion itself, if communities of different

beliefs/opinions share the same political and/or economic interests, they could share that common ground

to help build a peaceful religious encounter (Robinson, 2016).

After the various strategies that have been stated above that demonstrate ways to improve the

interreligious encounters to be fruitful and positive, I think that the most important strategy that would

have to be implemented if not by all than most: is that individuals have to be conscious that religious

boundaries need to be understood as dynamic and permeable (Vishanoff, 2013). I think it is only then, can

we, as a society, truly have a genuine understanding of the other religions we encounter through history.

Through globalization, there are increasingly more encounters that occur within communities and

especially communities of different beliefs. I do believe that our society today have all the tools and

catalysts for religious encounters to be peaceful and positive. However, there are many other factors that

need to be taken into consideration: social, economic, political issues have to be taken into account and

leave the strategies suggested more complicated than what it seems, as well as the numerous depictions of

various religions in pop culture that can initiate generalizations, stereotypes, and prejudice as well as

include false information. I’d like to mention here the video “History of religion”, which consist of a 90

second video that provides its spectators with an overview on how religions have propagated
geographically on a world map: although this video may seem useful, the time allocated to explain the

history of religion, I believe, is not thorough enough to properly inform its spectator with enough

information. It also portrays, in my opinion, “hard” boundaries of different religions geographically when

they aren’t. Therefore, information that is shared need to be cautiously regulated and portrayed in way

that give a thorough understanding. Another issue that may be brought up, there are also the traumatic

experiences of interreligious conflicts that occurred throughout our history that can lead to the individuals

being less tolerant or receptive to the strategies suggested above or even individuals or communities that

are not open to other religious beliefs. All in all, interreligious boundaries will always be an interesting

issue to talk about and can be often be debated to be fruitful or futile.

Bibliography

 Beckett, John. 2013.“Interfaith: Risks, Rewards and Boundaries.” March 19.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2013/03/interfaith-risks-rewards-
andboundaries.html.

 Diller, Jeanine, and Ibtissam Gad. 2015. “Holi Toledo.” Interreligious Studies, March 31.
http://irstudies.org/articles/holi-toledo-by-jeanine-diller-and-ibtissam-gad/.

 History of Religion”. Online. 2006. http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/history-of-

religion.html

 Phan, Peter C., and Jonathan Y. Tan. 2013. “Interreligious Majority-Minority Dynamics.”
InUnderstanding Interreligious Encounters, edited by David Cheetham, Douglas Pratt and
David Thomas, 218-240. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Robinson, Kathryn. 2016.“Communal Peace and Conflict in Indonesia: Navigating

InterreligiousBoundaries.” Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 17(5):475-479

 Vishanoff, David. 2013. “Boundaries and Encounters.” In Understanding Interreligious

Encounters, edited by David Cheetham, Douglas Pratt and David Thomas, 341-364.Oxford:
Oxford University Press.