Virtue in Dialogue

Religious diversity is a persistent theological predicament for Christian thinkers. Historically, theologians have wrestled with the relationship between believing Christians and religious others. The clash between the Christian doctrine of salvation and non-Christian belief systems often comes down to the question, can non-Christians be "saved"? In a pluralist world, a second question arises: can believers of divergent traditions reconcile their theological differences? Is the logical answer that one believer abandon her faith convictions and promote a relativistic mindset? This book draws upon original research, documenting conversations by women in an interreligious dialogue group, to show that when believers converse in honesty, empathy, and patience--in short, when engaged in virtuous dialogue--they can bridge the gap left by theory. When believers from different faiths come together in open conversation, it need not lead to relativism but, instead, can lead to strengthened belief. Sharing convictions with people who believe differently, sincere believers find they often come to hold their own core beliefs with newfound strength. "With her textured study of a women's interreligious dialogue group, Brecht offers a refreshing epistemology of religious belief attentive to how people actually believe. She allows her reader to learn not from abstract theories alone, but from these live and lively women. Through them we are introduced to the virtuous practices that might allow us to truly converse across the lines of religious difference. From them we learn the value of forming religious beliefs in interfaith contexts. By taking seriously both current epistemologies and these women's experiences, Brecht offers an epistemological theory accountable to the practical exercise of interreligious dialogue. This book is a significant contribution for interfaith studies and epistemology alike." --Jeannine Hill Fletcher, author of Monopoly on Salvation: A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism "In this important argument for a new way of doing religious epistemology, Mara Brecht ranges widely and deeply to make her case. . . . Contemporary theories have moved to a 'best practice' approach, a 'naturalized' epistemology that looks at what people do when they know. But when the naturalized epistemologists turn to religious belief, they fail to analyze religious practice, but apply norms from science and common sense--and religious faith is neither of these. . . . Rather than leaving her theory in the abstract realm, Brecht argues for four cardinal virtues and some necessary 'meta-level' dispositions that are required for a virtue epistemology of religious belief in the context of diversity--as exemplified by the group she studied for years." --Terrence W. Tilley, from the Foreword Mara Brecht is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in Green Bay, Wisconsin.