Religious dialogue

Aberdeen, Scotland

A comment on Rick Beaudin's helpful article.

http://mormonismreviewed.blogspot.com/2007/03/witnessing-tips-part1.html

Hi Rick,

A helpful article. It is good to be familiar with documents of other religions in particular when they use Biblical concepts and yet contradict Biblical theology. A general and continual increase in overall, philosophical, theological, and Biblical knowledge is also helpful in any religious dialogue. Another point comes to mind. In 2002 in Manhattan a very educated philosophical friend and I were approached by a Hare Krishna and a debate ensued. I thought my friend and I had made our points and we had reached a place with the Hare Krishna where we needed to agree to disagree, but my friend was forcing the issue trying to win the argument and this upset the Hare Krishna who became defensive. To me there is a point at times in evangelism where once we have defended the gospel message and are facing an obstacle in a person, we should back off and allow God to work with the person we are debating as the Lord sees fit. Basically, personally speaking I need to not try to win arguments as much I need to ask God to help me to witness most effectively.

In addition to the comments I made on Rick's site, I am not stating that my friend was definitely wrong, as perhaps what he did was beneficial, but at times I think that an over aggressive approach is not helpful. It could be that my friend influenced the Hare Krishna to reconsider his position against the gospel, or perhaps he hardened in his mind against it. I am all for Christian apologetics and learning about and debating issues, but ultimately each person must come to their own philosophy and I believe that God influences persons as he wills. I deduce that human beings have a limited free will and God deals with persons and some come to accept the gospel message, but my job as a Christian is primarily to present the message accurately as opposed to trying to win arguments aggressively. I am glad that I live in a democratic Western country where we have a degree of religious freedom and persons are allowed to disagree on philosophical and religious issues agreeably.

Certain texts and types of texts I have found useful for religious dialogue:

-The Bible
-Biblical commentaries
-Theology text books
-Text books on world religions
-As mentioned, texts from various religions
-Philosophy texts with articles from secular and religious perspectives

The following texts have been helpful in my PhD work as well.

BURR JOHN, R AND MILTON GOLDINGER (1976) (eds), Philosophy and Contemporary Issues, London, Collier Macmillan Publishers.

Topics include:

-Hard determinism
-Soft determinism
-Libertarianism
-Does God exist?
-The problem of evil
-Mind and Body

EDWARDS, PAUL AND ARTHUR PAP (1973) (eds), A Modern Introduction To Philosophy, New York, The Free Press.

Topics include:

-Determinism, freedom and moral responsibility
-Scepticism and the problem of induction
-Body, mind and death
-The existence of God
-A priori knowledge
-Meaning

PETERSON, MICHAEL, WILLIAM HASKER, BRUCE REICHENBACH, and DAVID BASINGER (1996) (eds.), Philosophy of Religion, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Topics include:

-The Divine attributes
-Theistic arguments
-The problem of evil
-Life after death
-Religion and science
-Philosophy and theological doctrines

An interesting article on the Jesus Family story:

http://weekendfisher.blogspot.com/2007/02/annual-anti-easter-pageant-2007-edition.html

Russ:)