Introduction: Interfaith on the World Stage

Abstract

In the wake of the events of 9/11, there has emerged a now significant body of literature that seeks to account for the “return” or “resurgence” of religion in international relations. Insofar as this literature typically focuses on particular religious traditions, however, a critical blind spot has developed whereby the contemporaneous proliferation of transnational interfaith initiatives-that necessarily rely on the collaborative efforts of two or more religious traditions-has often been overlooked. This introduction to the special issue highlights this oversight and explores the role of interfaith actors, organizations and initiatives in the broader narrative of the ‘return’ of religion in international relations.

Keywords:

• international relations
• faith-based diplomacy
• interfaith dialogue

Although the interfaith movement can be traced back to the late 19^th century, it gained unprecedented prominence in the years following 9/11. In Western liberal democracies, interfaith initiatives have been enlisted as part of wider multiculturalist responses to the threat of radicalization (Halafoff 2013). In the Middle East, interfaith gatherings have come to represent important platforms for the promotion of what is often described as ‘true’ or ‘moderate’ Islam, and serve as valuable opportunities to counter the ‘clash of civilizations’ discourse that continues to inform relations between the Muslim world and the West. The interfaith movement has also garnered attention at the highest diplomatic levels; the United Nations has passed several important resolutions, for example, on “the promotion of religious and cultural understanding, harmony and cooperation” (2003) and “the promotion of interfaith dialogue” (2004). There have been several similar resolutions that encompass both interfaith and intercultural dialogue, on “the global agenda for dialogue among civilizations” (2005), for example.

There are today dozens of interfaith actors, organizations, and initiatives whose activities transcend national borders and whose agendas are conceived in terms of international rather than domestic politics. While their goals are as diverse as peace-building, conflict resolution, combating extremism, tackling poverty, promoting global freedom of religion and belief, and addressing climate change, these interfaith initiatives share a common commitment to the idea that the world's most pressing issues must be responded to not by side-lining, but by engaging, the world's religious traditions. “Interfaith” engagement (sometimes also called “multifaith” engagement) has come to represent a particular mode of faith-based diplomacy (Johnston 2003), or what we might call ‘faiths-based diplomacy’, wherein religion occupies a privileged rather than a peripheral place in international relations. There remains, however, significant disagreement as to the effectiveness of interfaith initiatives and the political motives of those who take part. In contributing to debates that cohere around the broader resurgence of religion in international relations, this special issue fills an important gap in the literature by exploring the emergence of interfaith on the world stage.

The ‘Return’ of Religion in International Relations

The challenges—both theoretical and practical—of integrating religion into international relations have received a lot of attention in recent years. Scholars looking to account for the ‘return’ or ‘resurgence’ of religion in international relations all agree that 9/11 marked a watershed moment. For some, it delineated a “new era in world politics” (Fox and Sandler 2004, 1). 9/11 has become a universal point of departure across the various attempts to explain the importance of religion in world affairs, which typically engage with broader historical processes such as globalization, modernization, and secularization (and de-secularization). Aside from 9/11, other popular examples include the 1979 Iranian revolution, conflict in Northern Ireland, or the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan (Fox and Sandler 2004). Lebanon, Sri Lanka, the Balkans, and the Middle East broadly speaking are also often put forward to exemplify the need to better understand the various ways in which religion influences international relations today.

Across a now sprawling body of literature that seeks to integrate religion into international relations (IR) theory, a general consensus has emerged as to what are the historical processes that explain its marginalization. Secularization theory in social science (or the broader category of modernization theory in political science) is often presented as the main culprit. That religion was widely conceived as a “primordial remnant that was fading away” (Fox and Sandler 2004, 12), and was therefore no longer taken seriously in either academic or political circles, is often attributed to secularization theory. While secularization theory, at least in its simplest evolutionary form, is today widely discredited (see Casanova 1994), IR theory, it is claimed, is still heavily informed by “dogmatic secularism” at the expense of religion (Johnston 2003, 4). Timothy Shah and Daniel Philpott, for example, argue that IR theory “is secular in good part because it reflects the profoundly secularizing historical transformation that established modern international relations itself” (2011, 29). Jonathan Fox and Shmuel Sandler similarly suggest that “the discipline of IR is a microcosm of the Western social sciences, which for most of the twentieth century ignored religion” (2004, 2). 9/11 has apparently signaled a profound, if not necessarily paradigmatic, shift. “Although there is a long way to go before the international system realigns itself to accommodate religion's increasing role,” write Douglas Johnston and Brian Cox, “the slavish devotion to secularism and to the rational-actor model of the past is clearly on the wane” (2003, 14).

Not everybody, however, agrees. In her recent book God on Our Side: Religion in International Affairs (2016), Shireen Hunter casts doubt on the narrative of the ‘return’ of religion. Hunter argues against the facile tendency to reverse the script on secularization, highlighting that despite its Western origins, secularization has been a dominant discourse in societies around the world. Hunter notes that “the inescapable reality is that for three centuries religion's influence in the lives of societies was in decline, albeit to varying degrees and at varying speeds in different parts of the world” (2016, 10). Hunter goes on to suggest that despite the ubiquitous insistence that IR theorists need to find ways to accommodate religion into their theoretical frameworks, the examples that are offered as evidence for its importance often do not in fact belong in the field of IR at all. A lot of the case studies presented, Hunter correctly points out, deal with domestic rather than necessarily international issues. She concludes that “most works proclaim how important religion's role is in international affairs, but fail to demonstrate why and how” (2016, 8). Religion, Hunter summarizes, “influences international affairs more by being used as an instrument to advance various actors’ policy goals than by playing a key role in their formulation” (2016, 228).

Elizabeth Hurd (2017) has recently argued that what she calls the “restorative narrative” of de-secularization should be understood as an ideological as much as an empirical commitment, much like the secularization thesis it aims to dethrone. Hurd warns of the need for analytical distance from the restorative narrative that “proponents must work feverishly, uphill, and against the odds to recover and reincorporate religion into a cold and desiccated secularist field of global theory and practice from which religion had been unjustly excluded” (2017, 98). Those proclaiming the ‘return’ of religion, in other words, are as invested in their own moral narrative, as they argue secularists are in theirs. Notwithstanding ongoing debates about the place of religion in international affairs, discourses and developments around the theme have garnered a lot of attention beyond academic circles.

Faith-based Diplomacy

“One of the most interesting challenges we face in global diplomacy today,” wrote John Kerry in 2015, “is the need to fully understand and engage the great impact that a wide range of religious traditions have on foreign affairs … We ignore the global impact of religion at our peril.” Kerry goes on to give the examples of the role of Buddhist nuns in Nepal in natural disaster recovery efforts or the part played by religious organizations in providing humanitarian support to Syrian refugees. He also cites Pope Francis’ Laudato Si, a document that advocates for wide-ranging efforts to combat climate change. The importance of religion in international relations, however, is perhaps nowhere more evident than in the US itself. In 2013, Kerry announced the establishment of the Office of Religion and Global Affairs at the State Department. Its goal, in his words, was “to expand our understanding of religious dynamics and engagement with religious actors” (Kerry 2015).

This was not the first time the US had acknowledged the importance of faith in international relations (Johnston and Sampson 1994; Albright 2007). Religion has long been a focus of diplomatic efforts for the US, although it has not always been labeled as such; often coming under the broad rubric of human rights. The State Department has included a section on religious rights in its human rights reports since the early 1970s, and in 1998 established the Office of International Religious Freedom. Since 2002 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has also had an office dedicated to engaging faith-based actors on developmental issues around the globe (see Mandaville and Silvestri 2015).

There have also been several high-level initiatives outside of the US in recent years that attempt to engage religious actors as part of broader diplomatic solutions (see Petito and Thomas 2015). In 2013, following in its neighbor's footsteps, Canada established its own Office for Religious Freedom. Alongside similar initiatives throughout Europe, in recognition of the role faith-based organizations can play in international development, the UK's Department for International Development published a policy document entitled “Faith Partnership Principles: Working Effectively With Faith Groups to Fight Global Poverty” (2012), the purpose of which was to outline and enhance collaborations with religious actors across the globe in reaching developmental goals. In 2008, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair founded the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, whose mission was to “provide practical support to counter religious conflict and extremism in order to promote open-minded and stable societies.”¹ Interfaith and intercultural cooperation, as we have already seen, had also become a focus for the UN. In addition to the resolutions already outlined, 2010 was proclaimed the “UN International Year for the Rapprochement of Cultures” and the decade between 2013 and 2022 is the “International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures” (which includes the promotion of “reciprocal knowledge of cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious diversity”).² Since 2011, the first week of February every year has been designated as “World Interfaith Harmony Week.”

While it may have appeared that advocates of faith-based diplomacy were making headway, the challenge of integrating religion into state or diplomatic apparatuses within an international system that is founded on secular principles has proven difficult. In the same piece cited above, John Kerry offers a caveat that addresses the ambivalence with which faith-based diplomatic initiatives are often received; “I understand that there may be concerns about the US government engaging religion in this way. Some may worry we will mistakenly see religious influences when only political and social ones exist, or we will overstep the separation of church and state laid out in the First Amendment” (2015). Despite the apparent momentum that advocates of faith-based diplomacy have pointed to, there are also signs that both the impetus and the opportunity to integrate religion into the international system may have come and gone. Just three years after its establishment and amidst much criticism, Canada's fledgling Office for Religious Freedom was closed and replaced by the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms, and Inclusion in 2016. The Tony Blair Faith Foundation that once focused explicitly on religion, now operates under the new aegis of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, and centers its efforts on the apparently more marketable subjects of “globalization, technology, and the rise of a new false populism.”³ Even in the US, where faith-based diplomacy finds its most vocal champions, there are plans to fold the Office of Religion and Global Affairs into the Office of International Religious Freedom. Citing the ‘Muslim ban’ and the increasingly strained relationship between the White House and the Vatican, former Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs, Shaun Casey, has publicly criticized recent developments under the Trump administration.⁴ Casey's concerns reflect a widespread uncertainty amongst advocates of faith-based diplomacy about the future place of religion in international affairs. In addition, the Trump administration works closely with a group of 20 right-wing evangelical Christians who, unofficially, form Trump's ‘religious kitchen cabinet.’ Confirming this preference, in January 2018, former Kansas governor, Sam Brownback, was confirmed as America's new ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom in a move which delighted the evangelical right (Shellnut 2018).

Interfaith on the World Stage

Around the same time that faith-based diplomacy seemed to be gaining unprecedented attention, the interfaith movement itself also began attracting attention at the highest levels. Much like the broader narrative of the return of religion to international relations, the interfaith movement's heightened visibility can be attributed first to the events of 9/11. It was in the wake of 9/11, argues Patrice Brodeur, that “the global interfaith movement had suddenly moved to the center stage of world attention” (2005, 42). While this is undoubtedly an overstatement, the movement did gain newfound prominence, as religious extremism once again made headlines around the world. Today the global field of interfaith comprises thousands of initiatives, from small local grassroots efforts to national-level conflict resolution and transnational organizations that span the globe. Some initiatives are more overtly theological, focusing on dialogue, with the goal of identifying and promoting a set of common values. Others bring together religious leaders and communities to identify common social and political goals that transcend religious difference, such as climate change, social justice, nuclear disarmament, and poverty alleviation (Halafoff 2013). Despite its relatively recent prominence, however, the interfaith movement has a long history.

While it is possible to identify what could be described as ‘interfaith’ in the history of any of the major world religions, the field of interfaith that emerged in the late 19th century and developed over the course of the 20th century, is a distinctly modern phenomenon. The 1893 Parliament of World's Religions in Chicago is commonly held to be the beginning of the interfaith movement. The Parliament brought together representatives from the world's major religious traditions, including a range of Christian denominations, along with Hindus, Jains, Buddhists, and some smaller new religious movements. The Parliament was a one-off, but has inspired the interfaith movement for more than a century, and continues to be an important point of reference in interfaith circles. The first interfaith organization that can be traced to the Parliament is what is today known as the International Association for Religious Freedom, convening in Boston for the first time in 1900. Then there was the World Congress of Faiths, a deliberate imitation of the Parliament in Chicago, which first met in London in 1936. While World War II made transnational interfaith collaboration difficult, if not impossible, it would also reinvigorate the movement, which enjoyed a period growth in the second half of the 20th century. The Temple of Understanding, referred to by the press at the time as “the spiritual United Nations,” was established in 1960 and a decade later what is today known as Religions for Peace was established. The movement's momentum can also be attributed to another important milestone in the 1960s, Vatican II, and in particular, Nostra Aetate. While it is probably best known for its revision of the Catholic Church's 2,000 year old charge of deicide against the Jews, Nostra Aetate also profoundly recalibrated its relationship with other religious traditions, including Islam. To support its new interfaith agenda, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue was set up in 1964.

The interfaith movement had another period of growth in the late 20^th century, with the establishment of the World Faiths Development Dialogue (1998) and the United Religions Initiative (2000), for example. As is the case with the broader resurgence of religion in international relations, 9/11 marked a particularly important watershed in the proliferation of interfaith initiatives around the globe. In Western liberal democracies interfaith initiatives were presented as antidotes to the threat of radicalization. Accepting the narrative that if religion was part of the problem, then it must be part of the solution, Western governments funded interfaith initiatives in the hope that they could combat religious extremism within their borders. Although having previously been reluctant to partake in interfaith initiatives, Muslims in the West began both attending and initiating interfaith dialogues, as the need to dispel common misconceptions about Islam grew.

Beyond relatively small-scale local and national initiatives, however, the movement also saw the emergence of several high-profile collaborations that sought to elevate the interfaith agenda to the level of international diplomacy. Whereas throughout the 20^th century interfaith initiatives were predominantly initiated by Western and typically Christian actors, since 9/11 the interfaith agenda has found new champions in the Muslim world. Jordan has long since been a regional leader in this regard (see Markiewicz, this issue). As well as establishing a range of high-profile interfaith institutions, Jordan was behind the annual UN Interfaith Harmony Week and the widely-endorsed Common Word initiative in 2007. Qatar too has been active in the field of interfaith since the early 2000s, for the most part through the efforts of the Doha International Centre for Interfaith Dialogue (see Fahy, this issue). And in 2012 Saudi Arabia funded the establishment of the intergovernmental organization, the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz International Center for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID).

The interfaith movement shares a lot of common ground with the field of faith-based diplomacy. Advocates of faith-based diplomacy call for the inclusion of religion, and religious actors, in international diplomacy while advocates of the interfaith agenda essentially make the same case, the main difference being that interfaith efforts necessarily involve representatives from two or more religious traditions. Furthermore, while interfaith initiatives are conceived in terms of improving understanding and building better relationships between members of different religious traditions, faith-based diplomacy more straightforwardly seeks to include religious voices in key global conversations about specific global issues. Differences notwithstanding, the interfaith movement today can be productively understood as a type of faith-based diplomacy; or, given its reliance on a plurality of faiths, ‘faiths-based diplomacy.’

As the interfaith movement has evolved in response to the events of 9/11, it has assumed an increasingly international agenda, embracing a range of initiatives that closely align with what advocates of faith-based diplomacy have long since been calling for. Despite the deep similarities, however, the two are typically considered as separate endeavors. This is reflected in the comparative lack of scholarly engagement with the interfaith movement's international agenda. The field of interfaith is the subject of a now significant body of literature, which includes historical accounts of its development (Braybrooke 1992; Kirkwood 2007) and case studies that center on particular geographical contexts (McCarthy 2007; Halafoff 2013; Knutson 2014; Chia 2016; Swamy 2016). Unlike faith-based diplomacy, however, which advocates present as belonging to the broader field of international relations, relatively little attention has been paid to how interfaith initiatives have been conceived in terms of, and have contributed towards, global politics. In the context of the wider ‘resurgence’ of religion in international relations, this special issue looks to fill this gap by exploring the emergence and development of interfaith on the world stage.

The question remains however to what extent has the ‘interfaith movement’ made a difference to outcomes in international relations? On the one hand, we are seeing today a plethora of initiatives that come under the rubric of ‘interfaith dialogue,’ a trend noticeable at least since 9/11. On the other hand, this array of scattered, uncoordinated initiatives would struggle to present itself as a ‘movement’ or as a definitive new turn in international relations which is making a clear and beneficial difference in terms of outcomes. In sum, interfaith initiatives are a novel turn in international relations geared towards diminishing conflict, building peace, and promoting social flourishing and freedom, yet so far it is unclear the extent to which they make a practical difference in relation to such issues.

Contributions

The articles in this special issue offer an array of perspectives on the issue of interfaith dialogue and its impact on ending conflict and building peace in international relations. In their article, Stensvold and Vik look to account for the role of ‘religious diplomats’ on the international scene. Situating religious diplomats between the secular and religious realms, the authors critically evaluate a range of sometimes competing attitudes and approaches to interfaith dialogue, ultimately concluding that pervasive assumptions about the category of ‘religion’ in the field hamper the effectiveness of interfaith initiatives. The next two articles, respectively by James Patton and Christopher Hrynkow, look at non-state based interfaith dialogue initiatives. Patton analyzes the activities of the Washington DC-based International Center for Religion and Diplomacy while Hrynkow presents a case study of Christian Peacemaker Teams. They both explain from an insider perspective what such entities do, why they do it, and what they hope to achieve. Together the articles provide a useful overview of interfaith initiatives from the bottom up rather than the top down, with the latter being the province of individual states and multilateral actors, such as the UN.

Jeffrey Haynes looks at the establishment and development of a UN entity, the Alliance of Civilisations (AOC), created in 2005. Following 9/11, the UN announced that it was increasing its efforts to stimulate productive interfaith dialogue via establishment of UNAOC. Haynes’ analysis shows, however, that in keeping with the UN's long-established suspicion of religion as an actor in international relations, the UNAOC has been poorly financed, poorly focused, poorly organized, and poorly led. After nearly 15 years, there is no evidence that it has made a clear and beneficial difference to conflict resolution and peace building.

Lee Marsden examines the impact of an initiative championed by the eminent historian of religion, Karen Armstrong. Marsden traces the creation and development of Armstrong's “Charter of Compassion.” The Charter has found widespread interfaith support and, in a sense, has become a successful interfaith initiative. Yet, like the UNAOC, there is little or no evidence that the Charter, despite its well-meaning intentions, has been able to make a difference to outcomes in international relations linked to interfaith conflict. One reason for this, it appears, is that despite the apparent recent intrusion of religion into international relations, power still lies squarely in the hands of states and there is little evidence that their national interest and foreign policy concerns are being molded by interfaith initiatives, such as the Charter of Compassion.

John Fahy shows in his article that states may well use involvement in interfaith dialogue initiatives to try to bolster their own international and diplomatic positions. He focuses on the Gulf state of Qatar and finds that its government has been keen to express its support for interfaith dialogue as a means of demonstrating its own diplomatic credentials at a time of both heightened awareness and concern about Islamist terrorism. Sarah Markiewicz examines two recent initiatives, also emanating from the ‘Muslim world’: the Amman Message and A Common Word. Her aim is to contribute an observation based on many years’ fieldwork and research in Jordan, in the context of the apparent growing profile of both inter- and intrafaith initiatives. She concludes that while measures for improving relations between peoples, cultures, and religions and for overcoming stereotypes and prejudice should be encouraged, overall top-down initiatives have limited beneficial impact.

Continuing with the theme of the relationship of state power to religious influence, Shireen Hunter is very sceptical that religion makes a beneficial difference in terms of conflict outcomes in international relations. She explains that state power is rarely if ever dominated by religious issues and while some governments may well try to use religion as a way of bolstering their own position, ultimately it is secular power concerns which are dominant, including building and furthering a country's international position in relation to its neighbors and rivals.

ORCID

John Fahy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7669-4913

Jeffrey Haynes http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8434-6951

Additional information

Funding

This research was made possible by NPRP grant #7-585-6-020 from the Qatar National Research Fund (a member of Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the authors. The Enhancing Life Project, under auspices of Profs. Bill Schweiker, University of Chicago, and Gunter Thomas, University of the Ruhr at Bochum (http://enhancinglife.uchicago.edu/). The funding came from the John Templeton Foundation.

Notes on contributors

John Fahy

John Fahy is a Research Fellow at Georgetown University, Qatar and the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, where he leads a comparative project that focuses on interfaith initiatives in Delhi, Doha and London.

Jeffrey Haynes

Jeffrey Haynes is emeritus professor of politics at London Metropolitan University. He is the author or editor of 45 books, 80 peer-reviewed articles and 120 chapters in edited books. His most recent book is The United Nations Alliance of Civilisations and the Pursuit of Global Justice: Overcoming Western versus Muslim Conflict and the Creation of a Just World Order, New York and Lampeter, Edwin Mellen Press, 2018.

Notes

1 Source: http://tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/foundation/our-mission

2 Source: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002211/221198e.pdf

3 Source: http://institute.global/making-globalisation-work-many

4 Source: http://religionandpolitics.org/2017/09/05/how-the-state-department-has-sidelined-religions-role-in-diplomacy/