The Age of Global Dialogue

Thinking beyond the absolutes Christians and other religious persons increasingly find ＂deabsolutized＂ in our modern thought world, Swidler reflects on the ways we humans think about the world and its meaning now that increasingly we notice that there are other ways of understanding the world than the way we grew up in. In this new situation we need to develop a common language we can use together both to appreciate our neighbors and enrich ourselves, what the author calls Ecumenical Esperanto, because it should serve as a common language without replacing any of the living languages of our religious and ideological traditions. Of course, such thinking anew about the world and its meaning must necessarily mean thinking anew about all of our religious beliefs--but this time, in dialogue.

Leonard Swidler is Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University (1966-) and founding editor (with Arlene Anderson Swidler, d. 2008) of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, as well as founding president of the Dialogue Institute. His numerous publications include The Ecumenical Vanguard (1965), The Study of Religion in an Age of Global Dialogue (with Paul Mojzes, 2000), Confucianism in Dialogue Today (coedited with Shuxian Liu and John H. Berthrong, 2004), Jesus Was a Feminist (2007), Trialogue (with Khalid Duran and Reuven Firestone, 2007), and Dialogue for Interreligious Understanding (2014).