Here is a wonderful post from Gates of Vienna, and just when I thought all Christian leaders are hiding at multi-faith conferences wondering if turning their churches into mosques would stall the mortgage guy from showing up.

Thanks Baron for this one:

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Rejecting a Toothless Dialogue

by Baron Bodissey

Bishop Emanuel Aydin of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Austria spoke last week at a conference in Macedonia. The conference was one of the usual ecumenical feel-good “dialogues” which are so beloved by the Vatican, Reformed Jews, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Bishop Aydin’s message, however, was tough and uncompromising in its stance about Islam. One suspects that many of the delegates to the conference were not at all happy with what he had to say.

Many thanks to JLH for translating the speech from the original German:

Address on the Occasion of the Conference
“Dialogue of Religions and Cultures”
Ohrid, Macedonia May 6-9, 2010
Emanuel Aydin
Chorepiskopos
Syrian Orthodox Church of Austria

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost of the one God. Amen.

Bism al-Ab wa al-Ibn wa al-Ruhulqudus, Ilah wahid. Amin.

Mr. President, Madame Cultural Minister, honored officials, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.

In the framework of this conference with a circle of outstanding personalities, we have the marvelous opportunity to discuss the dialogue of religions and civilizations. I thank UNESCO for making this task its own. I especially thank the Macedonian government for enabling us to take up this difficult task in such a welcoming atmosphere and inspiring surroundings. In an area where civilizations have encountered one another for millennia, the world community can justifiably be called upon to seek what we all have in common.

So much more is it our responsibility that our answers not remain stuck on the surface as formulas and attractive mottoes. Many here are depressed by the possibility that the oft-expressed desire for “dialogue” will rigidify into mere ritual and cover over the actual problems of people with varying religious backgrounds living together.

Therefore, we should honestly confront some central questions: What is the nature of the dialogue and what does it consist of? What is the meaning and goal of the dialogue? Who are the parties, that is, the partners to the dialogue?

In answer to the first question: The paradigm, the example and the prototype for the “dialogue,” the Socratic dialogue as described for us by Plato. It is the cooperative struggle for truth, for insight into reality. Socrates attempts to draw perception from his interlocutor just as the midwife tries to help the mother at birth. The basic requirement is that both partners of the conversation are guided entirely by reality. In other words, they must both be concerned only with the truth. In regard to questions of justice, piety, and bravery, Socrates and his outstanding student, Plato, try to do just that: recognize and formulate truth. An insight must never be imposed.

The Platonic dialogues instruct us that it is difficult to achieve the truth by natural means. In the dialogue “Phaidon,” Plato expresses the hope that God himself will come to our aid. We find a masterful example of genuine dialogue in the dialogues of Justin the Martyr (Dialogue with the Jew, Tryphon) and the debates of St. Ephraim of Syria with the opponents of his time, especially Neo-Paganism under Emperor Julian Apostata.

Plato’s concern was captured masterfully by the African church father Augustinus in his dialogue “On the Teacher” (De Magistro). St. Augustinus tells us that true insight can never be imposed or “taught.” Individual insight is necessary, which is gladly vouchsafed to each honest seeker.

Concerning the second question about the meaning and goal of the dialogue: The meaning of the dialogue is in the classical sense simply directed at gaining understanding. What could this comprise? With great aspiration, “absolute understanding” could be the goal: insights which lie beyond the insights of the partners to the dialogue and which, at best, even overcome these positions. Is that a realistic demand in the “dialogue of religions” which is consciously committed to differing principles of faith and realities of manifestation? I think not, for it would radically oppose the self-image of all religions, so as to comprehend what each “Other” thinks and wants. Only in a following step could the modalities of a peaceful and fruitful togetherness be considered, by asking whether there are rules seen from a third standpoint — for instance that of the secular state — which are compatible with the convictions of all partners to the dialogue.

Even such an “unambitious” goal assumes at a minimum that one partner to the dialogue not imply that the other would not know or understand his own position.

Today, we Christians must take note that many of the public dialogue forums held worldwide, in which “commonalities,” “solidarity” and “cooperation” are invoked, have not contributed to a better understanding of the Christian faith. In publications from Islamic countries, in concord with Islamic source texts, Christians are still condemned as “polytheists” or “infidels.” The Christian belief in the most sacred Trinity is misrepresented. We Christians believe in Father, Son and Holy Ghost, not in Allah, Isa and Maryam!

We Christians are not “people of the Book.” We are “people of Jesus Christ.”

We think of ourselves as “Christianoi” — “those who belong to the Messiah, as it was expressed for the first time in Syrian Antioch in the time of St. Peter, the first of the apostles.

There must be no Islamic prerogative of interpretation about the Christian faith. It would dramatically contradict the basic principles of dialogue as just delineated.

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