A Contemporary Model for Interfaith Dialogue in Contemporary Society

The 21st century is an era which faces political, economic, cultural and many other effects of globalization. Whether you like or not, it is still inevitable. Religion does also face the same effects and problems with the changing and developing of the society. Contemporary religious issue of interfaith dialogue faces the challenge of religious diversity. This is not the simple understanding as we have known before and religious dialogue cannot maintain only some models as we have known before as well. With the interaction between ideology and culture, the relations of each religion also undergo subtle changes. These changes influence the harmony and development of the society. As we all known, the traditional model of interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. However, in contemporary society religious dialogue does not only try to achieve the common ground but also for self-understanding through dialogue to understand itself through the other. In ancient China, Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism had a very drastic struggle with each other, but became harmony finally especially during Han to Tang Dynasty. This paper tried to use a critical and historical study of Chinese religious history during Han to Tang Dynasty to rethink how to make religions from conflict to harmony under the religious pluralism.