Critical Conversations about Religion

A volume in Transforming Education for the FutureInterfaith initiatives are increasingly prevalent on college and university campuses around thecountry. In large part, this trend responds both to ongoing religious violence throughout the worldand to increasing religious tension in the United States. As such, these interfaith initiatives oftenattempt to bolster interfaith collaboration and increase awareness of different religious cultures,identities, beliefs, and traditions. In this book, Edwards reviews the various goals and processes associated with the interfaithmovement, and offers both warnings and suggestions for those who are interested in pursuing an approach to interfaith dialoguethat is oriented toward social justice. In doing so, this book fills a critical gap in academic literature surrounding the impact ofreligious identity and interfaith relations on pedagogy, educational experiences, and campus climates.Through three descriptive case studies set in a large public university in the United States, Edwards explores the use of IntergroupDialogue as a pedagogical model for interfaith dialogue. While the goal of this pedagogy is to increase student understanding ofprivilege, oppression, and social injustice pertaining to religious identity, the cases in this book demonstrate how and why socialjustice oriented interfaith dialogue can be easily derailed and, if so, may potentially have harmful implications for religiousminorities. Accordingly, Edwards offers five necessary conditions for assuring that social justice oriented interfaith dialogue (whichIntergroup Dialogue is intended to be) succeeds. By focusing on the unique perspectivesof four particular student participants (all of whom have religious identities outside ofthe three dominant Abrahamic religions) Edwards also highlights the experiences ofthose from religious identity groups that are the most overlooked and underrepresentedin the discourse on interfaith dialogue.