From September 2018 to May 2019, the Boston Bridges interfaith cohort met in the Walker Center in Newton, MA. It is a fitting place to host interreligious dialogue, as to “foster ecumenical and interreligious communities” is the center’s primary mission. To join the cohort for interfaith dialogue in this place is especially fitting for me. In 2014, I was a visiting scholar at Boston University from China. The Walker Center hosted me for one year in this interreligious community. Coming from a Communist country, I was officially atheist, culturally Confucian, and academically immersed in Jewish tradition as a professor teaching Judaism in China. When I left the Walker Center in 2015, I was a member of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), shortly converted a half year before. Last September, when the cohort first met in the Walker Center, I came back as a Presbyterian and a seminary student at a Methodist school: Boston University School of Theology. I saw myself returning to the same place where my ecumenical and interreligious journey began four years before.

I ended my interreligious journey and anchored myself in the Presbyterian tradition. Now, how do I dialogue with friends whose journeys arrived in different places? Is this a dialogue aiming to find a common ground on which to stand, where we can hold our hands together marching forward? I’ve been pondering these questions since the dialogue started. After one year meeting with my peers in the cohort, I realize that to seek a theological agreement probably is not what we strive to achieve. Our theological views are too diverse for them all to converge at a certain point; there are people who are not willing to be defined in theological terms at all. Neither are we envisioning ourselves to form a united front for social justice. The nation is becoming more and more divided on politics. To let politics dominate interfaith dialogue does not seem to be beneficial.

I ended my interreligious journey and anchored myself in the Presbyterian tradition. Now, how do I dialogue with friends whose journeys arrived in different places?

What are we doing here in interfaith dialogue, if it is not seeking theological commonality or working together for social justice? My experience at the Walker Center prompts me to connect interfaith dialogue with hospitality. This interreligious community, predominantly American and Christian, welcomed and hosted me as an atheist Chinese in this space. For me to live in such a community, the everyday life is an interreligious dialogue. The Walker Center provided me with food and shelter, but its hospitality went deeper than mere economic assistance. During my stay, the most precious gifts I received from the community were trust, respect, and love. In the interreligious dialogue of real life, we upheld each other’s unique personalities and common humanity. And we were all spiritually enriched and transformed coming out of the dialogue.   

I believe hospitality can serve as a good model for interfaith dialogue. In fact, the ancient practice is not new to us. It is a key biblical tradition shared by the Abrahamic family of religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Also, to welcome strangers into the home and treat them with hospitality is practiced worldwide among major ancient civilizations. The fact that hospitality is universally practiced shall not surprise us. It springs out from our common humanity, where compassion and love for our fellow human beings are found.

Just as it is fitting in the biblical tradition to extend hospitality to strangers, it is fitting for us to treat our partners from other religions with great hospitality. Apparently, our dialogue partners are strangers to our religion and our community. For thousands of years, their traditions and communities might never intermingle with ours. To perceive interfaith as a practice of hospitality can inspire participants to treat their dialogue partners as distinguished guests. When we share with our partners, we are inviting them to our spiritual home and feasting them with the best we can offer.

As we all know from our experience, to be a good host is demanding and difficult. Besides all the cooking and household labor to get the dinner table set, good hosts are sensitive and considerate to their guests’ needs. They must try their best to treat every guest with dignity and make them feel respected. The same sensitivity and consideration are required of us who engage in interfaith dialogue, to which we are committing our best efforts. For all of us who are involved, accompanying that commitment is also our deepest conviction: that our labor will not go in vain. In our practicing of hospitality, we open our homes and share our stories with our guests. When guests open their hearts and share with us their stories, they bring joy and blessings to our hearts. From that mutual sharing, a deeper understanding and connection emerges. And as I believe, this deeper understanding and connection is also what we hope for interfaith dialogue.

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