Pluralism towards Authentic Communion: Theology

and Religious Education in Dialogue

Document Analysis

Members:
Basaya, Wayne
De la Vega, Heather Rae
Villanueva, Alexandra Louise
 In the event that this is the truth we are into as of now, how can one turned out to be certain
with what he has faith in? How can he make himself conceivable to other people? Could there be
convictions and qualities that one could impart to other people? Especially, how does the truth of
a "pluralized truth" influence crafted by a scholar who considers reality of confidence? To all the
more likely outline these worries, an assessment of the wonder of innovation and its impact on the
idea and routine with regards to individuals will be investigated.

- Modernity Pluralizes

Decisions were produced using the most commonplace, (for example, decision of garments
style) to the most wonderful answers they look for on more profound issues of life, for example,
"Who am I?", "What is life's signifying?", "What is living accepting there is a God?" All these
become thinkable. Max Weber, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim anticipated that religion, with the
happening to Modernity, will stop to exist as commonness will supplant the powerful and religious.
As perspectives contrast and decisions were made out of the various perspectives about the real
world, a majority of decision additionally turned out to be genuine. The explanation behind this,
as indicated by Weber, is that in Modernity levelheadedness will illuminate the obscurity realized
by the shadows of religion and superstition. The marvel of the truth is apparent as individuals from
varying backgrounds would have various perspectives on various issues. Innovation did not prevail
with regards to making society into the normal mainstream quality its advocates anticipated.

-modernity relativizes

Individuals in Modernity started to challenge, if not address, the current convictions,

qualities and practices, as the current circumstance reveals to them that there are presently different
convictions, qualities and works on existing that vary from theirs. They are presently presented to
new and different types of convictions, practices and revered qualities realized by the contact they
made with different people groups. The respected qualities, convictions, practices and standards
are presently tested by new qualities, convictions and practices which were unfamiliar to the
previous disciples. Placing it in another manner, when innovation liberates one from enthusiast
absolutism, the liberated individual promptly looks for increasingly stable "foundations" to
coordinate his life. The marvel of social trade, an impact realized by the advancement in
movement, travel, media and correspondence, made these plausible. Modernity made the world
littler, as globalization (a neo-expansionism) extended. So while advancement pluralizes and
makes one a relativist, it also, thus, makes a similar individual aficionado to the new found
followed truth. In any case, as majority of decisions liberates the individual from the "absolutes"
of the past, once liberated, this equivalent individual would try to discover groundings that would
determine him throughout everyday life.

I. - Fundamentalism as a Reaction to Modernity

Anyway these “absolutes” wound up weakened in view of relativization, the inclination

from the individual to absolutize them again to have groundings would endure. Such type of
adherence when extraordinary is the thing that fundamentalism is about. Harping more on the
previously mentioned, Berger and Zijderveld recognized two sorts of followers to this
conduct. These are the individuals who by birth, and not really their decision, stick to the
conviction framework and practices of a specific gathering or society. This isn't to say, in any
case, this was made out of coercion. The second sort of disciples, then again, could be depicted as
“converts”. If “locals” or “traditional” are portrayed as claim individuals, “changes over”, by its
name, were changed over individuals. These are the individuals who by their decision turned out
to be a piece of the gathering . These are the individuals who chosen from the bunch of decisions
picked such specific conviction framework or religious organization, dissimilar to the “
traditionals” who acquire the lifeworld on the grounds that it was served to them ,with the end goal
that, a Filipino is Catholic since it is the religion of his family.

-plurality’s implication to theology

-a

Be that as it may, allocation of philosophy isn't the main organization one needs to consider
in the horde of qualities and convictions. Consequently, in a more extensive setting, we could state
this is consistent with all aspects that worry themselves in the clashing pressure among relativism
and fundamentalism because of the majority of convictions and qualities.

-b

Here, Stephen Bevans clarified the purposes behind contextualizing philosophy. After the
colonization time frame, African and Asian nations started to understand that there are esteems in
their way of life that are similarly tantamount to those of their colonizers, if worse than them. The
need to express this new awareness of freedom and self-esteem, in the zone of religious practice
and philosophy, is especially significant. Subsequently, endeavors at logical theologizing must be
made.

"Saying these, Bevan citing Bernard Lonergan stated, "Philosophy is the thing that intervenes
between a social network and the criticalness and job of religion in that lattice. Moreover, the
elements that would provoke for the need to contextualize philosophy could likewise be found
inside the Christian confidence itself. This incarnational standard in Christian religious philosophy
is at the core of its ideology, where it educates the incarnational procedure of God getting to be
unmistakable, graspable, and comprehensible in Jesus. Through our office, we are called to
proceed the incarnational procedure of making the Gospel a message contextualized in culture.

Second, there is the sacrosanct idea of the real world, where the manifestation convention
announces that God is uncovered not in thoughts, however inconcretereality. So if Christianity
needs to get itself, it must probably "unload" its "holiness". Third, there was a move in the
comprehension of the idea of awesome disclosure just like an inner factor deciding the logical idea
of philosophy. In religious philosophy composed before the Vatican II, disclosure was considered
to a great extent as far as propositional truth.
" According to Jose de Mesa and Lode Wostyn the elements of disclosure and confidence are "in
type of unceasing realities passed on to us from Christ and the Apostles. Confidence was
comprehended to be the scholarly consent to those facts. " All these were efficiently organized and
exhibited as the Catholic Faith."15 At the beginning of Vatican II, philosophical idea started to
move. Disclosure is comprehended and spoken in increasingly relational terms – God's self-
correspondence to people.

Confidence, thusly, was comprehended as an individual reaction too. Fourth, a Christianity that
requires a relevant way to deal with doing religious philosophy is the catholicity of the
congregation. "Fifth, contemporary understandings of God as Trinity talk about God as a dynamic,
social network of people, whose very nature is to be available and dynamic on the planet, calling
it and convincing it toward the totality of relationship that Christian custom calls salvation. " Paul
VI's , aggregates this up when it says that proselytizing is something that must address each part
of human life.

Following from these propositions, it focused on the instructing about the need of Church to
accomplish salvation. Interreligious discourse, for it to be mission promotion gentes, as the Church
must keep on declaring the need of transformation. Chia's exploration analyzed the response and
gathering the archive had incited, and its criticalness in the Asian Church. Dominus Iesus got an
overwhelmingly negative remark, as per the investigation.

The Federation of Asian Bishops Conference proposed an elective model of proselytizing –

Dialog. Regardless of whether this was discourse with societies, with different religions, or with
the poor of Asia, the requirement for an inculturated and contextualized articulation of confidence,
with attendant religious philosophy to manage it was upheld by FABC.

-c

The likelihood for Religious Education to train pluralism was put in the correct points of view by
the inquiries set by Sara Lee, a Jewish religious instructor, and Mary Boys, a Catholic religious
teacher. Religious Education (Theology) instructed in the Christian setting alone would not be
sufficient.

Also, as religious philosophy is to be contextualized, the dialogical way to deal with proper and
inculturate it, is the way to accomplish this end. Saying these, we had supported the need to
contextualize philosophy. What's more, this is the place Interreligious Dialog in Religious
Education and Theology turns out to be genuinely basic and fundamental. Gabriel Moran, a
Catholic teacher and scholar who has shown Religious Education in Jewish and Christian
establishments, gave an extremely well-suited depiction of the connection between Religious
Education and religious pluralism in our present time. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist
priest, depicts this procedure of discourse like an "organic product plate of mixed greens", found
in a characteristic part of the religious life or life when all is said in done: Religious Education and
Theology are not new to numerous partisan schools and colleges. (Habermas) Other than the frame
of mind or manner one conveys, foundational structures are additionally factors that are of most
extreme thought to bring interreligious discourse conceivable, if not feasible. Our Asian area has
consistently been religiously plural in setting contrasted with different locales on the planet.
D1

Supper table sharing indicates luxurious friendliness, veritable transparency and upbeat
festival together. To begin with, feast table sharing speaks to a dream, an expectation, and a
fantasy. Nourishment and eating have relations to educating. Such pictures identify with our
requirement for shared understanding, common regard and common receptiveness in the present
plural world. Second, the feast table sharing additionally symbolizes opportunity. Here in the
Philippines, it is frequently the poor who might exhibit such rich cordiality. Third, the dinner table
sharing speaks to a sharing of appreciation and a festival of bliss .Third, supper table sharing can
be an image of warm accommodation in light of its enticing trademark. Thanksgiving customs are
constantly bested with feast table sharing. Compromise and harmony making can likewise be
closed with dinner table sharing. Fourth, the dinner table sharing is likewise an antecedent to
compromise and harmony making. Laslty, a dinner table similitude depicts an open and inclusivist
character, once more, a characteristic Filipino attribute. Near feast table sharing, there is this
Filipino maxim known to heavy drinkers: "Ang alak pumapakla, o sumasarap, depende sa
kaharap".The "boodle-battle" is a dinner table sharing managed without utilizing any eating
utensils, i.e., a long eating table is set utilizing banana leaves as plates, rice and viands are put
inside and out, and individuals share from the supper table in uncovered hands.In eating for
example, a Filipino behavior of welcoming anybody to share in one's filling, anyway pitiful the
sustenance one is having, is as yet being rehearsed.

D2

Structure Meal-table sharing as contended above can be a perfect methodology/model for

interreligious comprehension and discourse. While Religious training (Theology), as likewise
contended, is the milieu in any case. Expectation Antone proceeded by giving us a structure on the
most proficient method to realize the supper table sharing methodology. In planning for a
certifiable Religious Education, a basic responsibility to one's confidence custom and a basic
receptiveness to different religious conventions must be incorporated.

Facilitators and players need to build up the point of view, frame of mind and way of life of
religious pluralism. He ought to be prepared to go out on a limb, to leave his defended exclusivism,
to remain with the other and even to wind up helpless before the other, for this is the best approach
to see God's picture in the other, even as one insists it in oneself.

Like sustenance to be shared, pluralism harps on assortment, luxuriousness, and dining experience.
The Religious Educator should be reminded that "similarly as nourishment is there for all to share
and appreciate, the sustenance of knowledge and otherworldliness is additionally there for
individuals to experience and share". It is by this sharing and joint effort that studying of what is
severe in a religion, particularly all alone, while featuring what is freeing which must be finished
with a great deal of consideration, affectability and politeness.
Religious Education in Asia is best helped out through the sharing and joint effort of instructors
from the diverse religious gatherings. The Religious instructor ought to likewise be open towards
the individuals who are unique, and must have a frame of mind of resistance towards the
individuals who see life in an unexpected way. It is through this that the personality of the supper
just as the partaker are improved by the various fixings and supplements, while simultaneously,
the partaker of the dinner is fed by the existence the feast table sharing gives. Common studying
ends up successful when made not by fault pointing of one another however by a legitimate and
willful offering of one's self-scrutinize. It improves the dinner to be shared, similar to life itself by
obtaining and changing the formula to suit the flavor of the person who eats.

-the methodology

In like manner, the sharing of religious lessons from the various religions must be done in a
confession booth mode, similar to a proclamation of affection, not as presentation of obstinate
absolutes, as indicated by Krister Stendahl. It is the point at which the sharing of religious lessons
that individual experience of a devotee to his religion turns out. Another technique in doing
Religious Education is recommended by some Asian ladies who have taken an interest in various
projects on interreligious discourse. To dodge the allurement of having "strings connected" in
showing Religious Education in a plural setting, there must be a sort of straightforwardness of the
objectives and motivations behind the dinner table sharing. One method for doing this is through
sharing of stories, for example of individual just as public religious encounters by the diverse
confidence networks. A supper table analogy where individuals assemble around it delineates the
substance and sustenance Religious Education tries to get ready and serve that is, the instruction
forever. As C.S. Melody recommended, stories join together while precepts estrange, any training
that manages the Christian confidence and the religions of others ought not be "laid on the table"
through a lot of teachings and suggestions yet through stories. It ought to be well disposed,
welcoming, warm, and inviting climate, these ought to be reflected all the while and rehearses that
Religious Education would like to take.

-conclusion

Still, real communion, like dialogue, only becomes real when there is compassion. Religions
should be life-giving like food; they should bring communion like food being shared. To live in a
compassionate life is the only way one could encounter what people called “God”, “Nirvana”,
“Brahman” or the “Way”, for it is in compassion that one “de- thrones” oneself in the centre of
one’s life, while at the same time, embracing the other as one’s own. This is what it means to have
a genuine dialogue, a communion, and it begins with compassion. As food comes in different
flavours, life as well is of colourful variety. Overall, the image of meal-table sharing is what all
religions and Religious Education should consider and value now that we are in a pluralistic world.
All this being said this, I believe, is what theology should be amidst the plural reality – a
dialogos. As food to be shared (communion), the sharing of life together entails an adventurous
spirit, a willingness to try, to experience, and appreciate something different, an adventure into the
unknown, a journey into the unfamiliar, a journey to the world of the other.