Inter-Faith

Rev Kumar Rajagopalan leads the LBA's work on Inter-Faith issues. This page will give news and information about this work.

In the Baptist Times of 19 November 2009, Kumar Rajagopalan wrote as follows:

"Inter-faith dialogue raises many questions but I’ll address two. Given the pressing need to evangelise people of faith and no faith, can we afford the time and energy to engage in inter-faith dialogue? Could other faiths and wider society misunderstand such dialogue as Christian endorsement of religious pluralism?

"One cannot evangelise anyone without engaging in genuine dialogue. Dialogue requires us to listen to others. I sense a reluctance to listen to people of other faiths because some feel an urgency to proclaim while others feel that it may undermine their faith and expose their inadequacy to share. Yet being slow to speak and quick to listen will pay dividends. We’ll learn what others believe, earn their respect and gain the right to speak. We’ll discover how God has been at work in other faiths and hopefully become sensitive and gracious in how we share. We will be challenged to consider why we fail to be imitators of God, while others seem to manage it. Our fears and inadequacies should never curtail our willingness to listen to others, for only by listening, learning and being challenged will be better equipped to share the Gospel.

"Fear of being misunderstood will paralyse all activity because someone somewhere will always misunderstand. The Lord Jesus was consistently misunderstood as he engaged with those considered to be beyond the pale, but other people’s misunderstanding never stopped him. Dialogue always presents us with opportunities to share what we believe and correct misunderstanding while disengagement is always fruitless.

"If you don’t have one, then initiate a friendship with someone from another faith. Not only will you have the opportunity to share, you will also experience unexpected blessing as through deep listening you encounter God’s infinite grace and mercy in other peoples’ lives."

Inter-Faith downloads