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I write as a Roman Catholic theologian, which has a variety of entailments – in fact three for the purposes of this chapter. First, this means that my theological job, shaped by the Church’s teachings about the role of the theologian, is to convey the teachings of the Catholic Church on the matter at hand.1 I hope this will not put off readers, as it is my conviction that everyone doing theology comes from ‘somewhere’ with specific allegiances and commitments, authority sources and special texts and so on. Even the theologian who says they are not aligned to a church and are simply open to truth, not to doctrines of the inerrancy of scripture, are making strategic decisions about their starting point and the assumptions contained within that starting point. This is one of the great insights from postmodern philosophy, or rather it is an insight that helped call into question one of the ‘idols’ of modernity: that it is possible to do objective research without any presuppositions or biases.2 So please do not stop reading if you are not a Catholic theologian. Why? Because as Christians we are called into special conversation and sharing as we have a call from Christ to discover our unity and this can only be done by being truthful with each other and being open to each other’s criticisms and corrections – which is precisely one of the objectives of this present book. If you are a Lutheran or Quaker or Baptist or a ‘don’t know’, but a spiritually sensitive person interested in the question at hand, I think I will learn from your criticisms and I hope you will learn from listening to the view of the Catholic Church on these matters, or at least one of its (unofficial) theologians explicating it. What is explicated below is my view as well. To ‘think with the Church’ allows ample room for critical exploration and development of arguments and engagement with a wide range of issues and is not a simple act of repetition, although the latter is also part of the theologian’s job.3

If you respond to all this by saying: ‘I want to hear what this person Gavin D’Costa thinks, not what some institution thinks’, I would argue that the attention to what the individual thinks is a preoccupation of the modern period and it is an important intellectual task to find out what an authoritative body such as the Catholic Church thinks and then engage with a person who identifies themselves within this body and who is willing to engage in serious theological argument.

Second, while it is my primary job to outline what the Church teaches, this is not an easy positivist task: here are the texts, the job is done! With every text we have contestations of interpretation so one of my fellow writers in this volume, and friend, Paul Knitter, has offered very different interpretations of some of the texts we both take seriously (teachings by the magisterium – by which I mean the universal councils of the Church, the bishops speaking together, authoritative statements from pontifical offices within the Vatican and also certain teachings by the Pope).4 For the bewildered Protestant reading this I should add that it is presupposed that all the teachings from these bodies just cited have their authority from scripture, or their teachings are implications deriving from authoritative scriptural teachings as they get unfolded over time. Hence, it can never be a matter of sola scriptura, as this scripture actually demands another source of authority to make the judgement. This other source is not a new source of authority but one derived from scripture which after all is a collection of texts that were decided by the Church to be ‘canon’. Hence, there is no scripture without church and no church without scripture.5 There is an intimate reciprocity between these different sources of authority, although all derive their authority finally from Christ; neither scripture nor church nor tradition alone counts.

Third, and finally, you may ask: but what of your experience Gavin? Does it not sometimes call into question the teachings of your Church on these matters? I have to be honest and say that there is a productive tension in ingesting some of my Church’s teachings, but in terms of dogma, nothing in my experience has called into question the teachings of the Church on other religions. Rather the contrary. I have found the teachings of the Church deeply illuminative of what I have experienced in some fifty years of interreligious dialogue. It should be said that first and foremost the question about ‘other religions’ is about dear friends and companions, people I have known. Sometimes, in looking at the formal teachings we can lose sight of human friendship, but that is not the intention of Catholic teachings, for Christ’s central gift is that of the command to love one another, to form friendships. Hence, the question about other religions might be simply one of how do we learn to love, honour and serve our neighbour who may be a Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist? Given the personal nature of dialogue, I should say a few words about myself.

I was born Roman Catholic into a religious pluralist society in the Asian community of Kenya, East Africa, and had Sikh, Hindu and Muslim neighbours. My family shared in their festivals, and as a child, I specially delighted in sharing in their sweets and celebration. But I also became aware of the goodness, kindness and deep compassion present in these ‘non-Christians’, a word that I would never have thought of to describe Inderjit, Ravi, Sunder and Mrs Patel, to name a few. In 1968 I came to England with my mum, dad and sister. I have been more ‘formally’ involved in interfaith theology and practice since I did my first degree at the University of Birmingham under the guidance of John Hick, who theologically stimulated me by criticizing my Catholicism vis-à-vis other religions in always respectful but incisive ways. In Birmingham I worked on schemes to teach people English, and this involved close contact with Chinese and Indian families. I continued interfaith activity through my doctoral days at Cambridge, where I worked on the interfaith approach of John Hick and the Hindu philosopher Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan. I travelled to India for this research and was involved in Cambridge interfaith groups. I was also involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, where I worked with many Buddhists and Hindus who belonged to the campaign. After Cambridge I moved to London to teach and was involved in the Catholic Bishops’ Conference on interfaith matters and the West London Interfaith Group, which covered an area, Southall, often called ‘little India’ because of its huge numbers of Hindus and Muslims. Friendships always made me realize that theology of religions was about friends whom I respected and from whose spiritual practices I learnt so much, not least their faithfulness in friendship. Finally, I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life in Bristol teaching at the university. With a young family I spent less time on interfaith activities, but a lot of time in nourishing friendships with Hindus and Buddhists within my workplace. One of these friends, Paul Williams, a Buddhist of many years, converted to Catholicism, which was both a surprise and a great joy.6 One of my best doctoral research students in Bristol, from whom I learnt greatly, is a co-writer in this book, Daniel Strange. It is a great privilege to work with him in this capacity. That is enough on method and certainly enough on me.