Читать книгу The Meeting of Opposites? - Andrew Wingate - Страница 7

Foreword

To engage seriously in interfaith dialogue is a complex matter. Too often it has been reduced to one of two distorted forms: ‘arguing for victory’, scoring points over a partner in conversation; or dismissing all serious points of tension in a search for convergence at all costs. Doing it seriously entails something uncomfortably like a spiritual discipline of looking beyond the obvious dualities; which means moving beyond both the aggressive ‘yes or no’ stance of argument and the search for some comfortable consensus that challenges neither party. And if we can’t get beyond these shrivelled versions of dialogue, then, as Andrew Wingate clearly implies, our world will be poorer – poorer in the presence of people willing to be transformed by staying with the challenge of the other, patiently and lovingly. As Scripture suggests, staying with is near the heart of wisdom.

Andrew brings to this issue a really unusual depth of engagement at ground level both in Asia and the UK, in addition to the depth of his knowledge of diverse traditions. He has for decades painstakingly and lovingly created environments where real difference can be faced and thought through together in a transforming way; and in this book we have a digest of what he has learned and taught in the diverse contexts of a devoted and exceptional ministry. Those of us – among whom I count myself – who have learned more than they can easily say from his example and reflection will be delighted to have this work of witness from him; those who have not had the good fortune to sit at his feet will have a deeply valuable and enlarging experience ahead in reading these pages.

Dr Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge