Primarily, for the last fifty years, the tone and vision on dialogue with other religions by the church has been set by the short and yet revolutionary conciliar document, Nostra Aetate. However, I do intend to call attention to some limitations inherent in the document, that continue to hold captive any new vision one intends to embrace when one encounters non-Christian religions.

            It is true that the document calls for dialogue among religions and the advantage such dialogue will bring to the church. What must be said is that the call is one done from the location of power. Dialogue, by the very meaning of the word rejects power and grounds the encounter and process it originates in hospitality, friendship, and respect. When the same document that calls for and speaks of the advantages of dialogue presents its dialogical partners as simply possessing a reflection of a ray of that [Catholic] Truth which enlightens all men,” it is no wonder then that dialogue done in such spirit will always reflect characteristics of a monologue. There can be no dialogue when one refuses to allow the other to be the decider of what she brings to the discourse.

Many theologians are today faced with the realization that theologies of religion as a means for constructing legitimate encounters and dialogue with other religions is at its end. I want to argue that this is the case because of the biased self-understanding of the church in relation to other religions. This biased self positioning of the church as an unequal partner in its dialogue with non-Christian religions is reflected so clearly in the curia document Dominus Iesus, when it argues that “objectively speaking they [other religions]  are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those of the [Catholic] Church.” Though the language is less dismissive of other religions as is the case with Pope Gregory XVI’s encyclical, Mirari Vos, there is still an innate resistance to authentic and open dialogue with other religions done not simply by the terms defined by the church but by the very process of the dialogue itself.

When one reads the papal and curia documents on dialogue with other religions, one notices three possibilities from dialogue and noticeably the lack of a fourth possibility. The first possibility is that entering into dialogue with other religions can help confirm one in one’s faith. The second is that mutual edification can occur without necessarily leading to conversion to the other’s faith. Third, the followers of non-Christian religions can eventually come to the realization of the fullness of the truth of Christ in the church and consequently bring about their conversion. I ask, what about the forth possibility, one where the Christian partner engaged in dialogue will eventually embrace the other religion?

I am of the view that this fourth possibility is currently absent in the church’s expectations because not much attention has been given to the phenomenon called conversion. If I may use my own experience to address this reality; my conversion from Islam to Christianity was because Islam for me as a young boy did not address my life experiences. I had to seek a religion that engaged them. It was not because I had a profound religious experience as was Paul. It was for the pragmatic reasons that I never wanted to study Arabic and also because in the Roman Catholic Eucharistic liturgy bread and wine were offered. I was fascinated by the fact that I get to eat something while I was at church. There is sometimes the utilitarian aspect as was my case. Whatever the situation, in my work with converts to Islam, Christianity, and African Traditional Religions, I have always noticed a common trend; conversion occurs when one finds in the other religion answers to one’s experiences. If dialogue is controlled by God and not by the church, this fourth possibility, whenever it happens, ought to be celebrated as God’s gift to the agents engaged in dialogue. This becomes a necessary conclusion the church should appreciate because of the fact that it has concluded that dialogue involves searching for a greater truth that transcends covert proselytization. When one finds that truth in any religion one is in dialogue with, it should always be seen as God’s gift to us.

The way forward for the church is not a reinvention of theologies of religion or founding other new theological schools that appropriate a narcissistic sense of church at the expense of other religions. The church ought to re-engage its history and see what factors have led it to embrace a universalist mentality. The fact that Judaism reveals an eternal covenant between God and Israel validates the argument that God has and continues to engage humanity outside of the boundaries of Christianity. It took two millennial for the church to come to this realization after seeing the effect of anti-Semitism it perpetuated and benefited from. Does the church need such a long time to come to the realization that religions are themselves God’s gift to humanity?

Finally, if the church must necessarily re-engage its approach to dialogue with other religions, it should begin with the premise that dialogue should not be restricted to what both parties hold in common. If I can boast of anything I leaned during my years as a missionary working in Nigeria, it is the experience of being drawn to the religious other by the fact that they shared different faith traditions and in that very difference I was able to experience a new form of conversion.