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Inter Faith Encounter: Luxury or Necessity?
The first Peter Bell Memorial Lecture was given in Leeds in March 2010, by Dr Elizabeth J Harris of Liverpool Hope University, formerly Inter Faith Officer for the Methodist Church. It is an excellent read.
Elizabeth opened with a quote;
"But it is better to honour other religions for this reason. By so doing, one's own religion benefits, and so do other religions, while doing otherwise harms one's own religion and the religions of others. Whoever praises his own religion, due to excessive devotion, and condemns others with the thought "Let me glorify my own religion," only harms his own religion. Therefore contact between religions (sometimes translated as ‘concord’ between religions) is good. [1]
At the heart of these words is the statement that those who speak against religions that are not their own do not promote their own religion but damage it, diminish it. Although similar things have been said in the last half century, the quote is from the 12th Rock Edict of King Asoka, ruler of much of what is now India, in the 3rd century BCE."
[1] 12th Major Rock Edict of King Asoka, translated by Ven S. Dhammika.
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