| Religious pluralism has continued to be a predominant subject in the field of interfaith dialogue and an increasing critical concern among Christian theologians, but it has been an equally less popular subject among faith communities. Scholarship to date has sought to identify and embrace religious commonalities over differences, and the consequence has been to issue a methodology of commonness, a proposal for any faith community to follow in its engagement with other communities of faith. But this kind of approach undermines the freedom and ability of particular identities to bring their own faith response to the problems and promises of pluralism. The notion of commonness and what that project allows has failed to promote interfaith engagement. There is a considerable disjuncture, therefore, between theologians' work on inter-faith relationship and dialogue on the one hand and a community's faith perspectives toward people of other faiths on the other. For the most part, people think that it would be irreligious to be pluralistic because pluralism does not take their particular faith perspective and particular identity seriously. A viable pluralism, as a way of engaging, can only take place when a community realizes that such engagement is none other than the critical substance of their religion itself. Therefore, theologians need to encourage faith communities to explore and invent their own perspectives on inter-faith relationship and dialogue emerged out of their own faith perspectives in the context of living in a plural world.;This research examines the existing approaches, mainly, Jones' Christocentrism, Samartha's theocentrism, and Knitter's soteriocentrism and finds that while they all contribute to our deepening understanding of the challenges of living in a pluaalistic world, they all suffer the same limitation. That is, there must be a common center or a universal proposal to which all communities could adhere. Jones concludes that all faiths should relate with Christ for their transformation from within---religion, culture, economics and politics. Samartha on the other hand, convinced that adherence to particularities such as Christ, Buddha, Rama and Mohammad, would only divide people and never help a cooperation or co-existence among them. He, instead suggests religions to relate to the fountainhead of all religious figures---God or Mystery or Ultimate. Knitter, however, thinks that doctrines, dogmas and God ideas divide people: and that what really could unite people are life-issues commonly faced by all people, like hunger, poverty, threats of war, nuclear weaponry and global warming, and concludes that people of all faiths feel compelled to work together to solve these common problems.;In the course of my research, I realized that there is no meta theory one that can connect all religions and command their allegiance to it. Pluralism should develop from within each believing community, by seriously re-thinking and working on their faith response in the context of living with neighbors of other faiths. Since a search for a common solution cannot be the solution at all, I propose a pluralistic undertaking, a Christo-normative approach, in which each religion becomes its own agent to explore a pluralistic paradigm relevant to its own faith and culture and to its own reality of living among diverse faith communities. Christo-normative pluralism is a model for the Christian community, but it might also serve as a proto-type for people of all faiths to consider their own approaches in responding to their neighbors of other faiths to build a world that affirms life for all, life in its fullness. |
