At the International Association for Religious Freedom (IARF) Congress in Korea last summer, I had the wonderful opportunity and responsibility to co-lead an RE Study Group, "Teaching the Faith Traditions of Other, " with participants from many different faiths and cultures. At our first session, four of us -- a Rissho Kosei-kai, a Won Buddhist, a Ramakrishna, a Unitarian Universalist -- engaged in dialogue around two questions: How do you define your own faith tradition to others? How do you welcome the participation of children in your faith community?

After more than a year of respectful communication and negotiation, we agreed on the following commitments to our dialogue. The dialogue experience itself was illuminating and genuine. We built relationships that will grow and develop as our opportunities for interchange through IARF (and international education forums) expand and deepen.

Commitment To Interfaith Dialogue
We bring to this interchange the following commitments:

1. The primary purpose of dialogue is to LEARN, to change, and to grow in perception and understanding. Each participant comes with the intention of learning from the others so that he/she can change and grow in understanding.
2. Each will define her/his own faith. Each of us defines what it means to be an authentic member of one's own faith tradition/community. Conversely, we must be able to recognize our own faith tradition/community in the interpretation made by the other.
3. Dialogue takes place on the basis of mutual trust. As our IARF community of trust deepens and expands, we can proceed to teaching about the others' faith traditions.
4. Persons in dialogue bring integrity and they need to be critical of themselves and their own faith traditions/communities. The integrity, conviction, and dedication we bring from our own faith traditions/communities need to be held in balance with a healthy self-criticism and an openness to the others' faith traditions/communities.
5. Each of us must attempt to experience the others' faith tradition from within. A religious community/faith tradition is something for the head, but also something for the spirit, heart, and "whole being." It is individual and communal. We operate in three areas: practical, where we collaborate in service, advocacy, and action to help humanity; cognitive, where we seek understanding; spiritual, where we attempt to experience the faith tradition of the other "from within."