An elephant in the room: university chaplains cultivating healthy religious diversity through respectful dialogue

ABSTRACT

Finding Common Ground (FCG) is an inter-belief dialogue program hosted in the Multi Faith Facility of Swinburne University of Technology. FCG is a voluntary program that offers Swinburne students a safe space to discuss their religious faith, or alternative value base, and to learn from those of others. Two iterations of this program were evaluated in 2018. We argue that nurturing healthy religious expression and cultivating respect for diverse religious and other belief frameworks is essential in today’s multi-religious and pluralist world. Furthermore, we suggest that such exploration in the diverse (secular) university context is addressing something of ‘an elephant in the room’ in student life and learning in contemporary universities. We also recognise the reality of unhealthy expressions and fundamentalist assertions that fuel wider community aversion to a focus on overt religious conversations that tilt towards controversial debate and polarisation. This article principally analyses the experience of one student participant ‘Antoni’ to highlight significant themes reflected in the overall student responses: why FCG was a ‘safe place’ for dialogue, and how it cultivated empathy and humility, inter-faith community and pastoral support, healthy religious outlooks (rather than ‘spiritual bypass’) and personal formation.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious pluralism
• interreligious learning
• interfaith dialogue
• social inclusion

Acknowledgments

The authors appreciate Glenda Ballantyne, Marie Brennan and James Haire for peer review feedback on the research project design and human research ethics application, the helpful comments of the two blind peer reviewers for this journal, Angela Daddow and Ruth Sandy as colleagues and co-researchers for the larger project, and especially the 28 Finding Common Ground student participants in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Darren Cronshaw

Darren Cronshaw DTheol DMin is Head of Research and Professor of Missional Leadership with Australian College of Ministries (Sydney College of Divinity). He is a member of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Commission on Interfaith Relations and the BWA Commission on Human Rights, Peacebuilding, and Reconciliation. He is also Pastor of AuburnLife Baptist Church, Chaplain with the Australian Army (Reserve) and Honorary Chaplain at Swinburne University, and is particularly interested in the wellbeing and pastoral care of international students.

Newton Daddow

Newton Daddow is Senior Chaplain at Swinburne University. A strong advocate for interfaith understanding, he is an active participant in the Parliament of World Religions program, the Baptist World Alliance Commission on Interfaith Relations, the Jewish, Christian, Muslim Association of Australia (JCMA) and is also on the Executive Committee of the Council of Christiana and Jews Victoria and the editorial committee of its periodical Gesher.