What I learned at the Interfaith Symposium-- trolls under every bridge
First, the good news: a Muslim Imam, Lutheran minister, Jewish lay leader, and retired Baptist minister came together in mutual respect and friendliness and gave interesting brief presentations. I arrived with a bias against preachers, Baptists, and Lutherans, but the preachiest of the lot was the Imam and the two preachers were very un-preachy in their presentation. (Part of my bias has to do with right-left divisions among the Baptists and Lutherans, and in these cases the more liberal branches of each were represented.) I saw more eye-to-eye with the Jewish lady than the rest, and when we spoke afterwards she didn't take long to denounce Netanyahu, which was endearing.
Second, the bad news: there were thirty people in attendance of whom only four got in a "question" during the "question and answer" period. The first three were dogmatic, divisive Christians trying to provoke quarrels about Jesus; the third was a Muslim who gave a long preachy statement. Not one asked a genuine question or seemed to have any interest in learning anything despite the array of religious learning on display.
Third, the mixed news: there was uproarious applause in the audience every time one of the conciliatory speakers responded diplomatically to the divisive troublemaking faux-questioners, defusing the antagonism and trying to get the program back on track. So the audience was at least 90% in support of the speakers and unappreciative of the divisive dogmatists. And yet-- they never got a word in edgewise because those who saw "Interfaith" as an opportunity to disrupt dialogue rather than promote it completely dominated the discussion.
This sadly relates to my observations of online "discussion" over many years. In many different contexts, the argumentative dogmatists were always a minority, but always so aggressive that they drowned out all conversations except their own mutual congratulations for having the right opinions and silencing dissent. Of late I've observed the same phenomenon in entirely different context, even more discouraging.
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