This is an interview section with practitioners of interfaith dialogue. In this issue we feature Alfred Tay (Orthodox Christian) who is the leader of the IUNUI Cooperation Circle in Singapore.
TCC: What is your faith tradition?
Alfred: I am a newly baptized Eastern Orthodox Christian. I was baptized only last January this year.
TCC: What are your experiences in interfaith dialogue?
Alfred: Since I was young I have always been interfaith because I was brought up in the Buddhist and Taoist tradition. And then in my youth I first studied in a Methodist school, and then later on in a Catholic school. So it’s like I had half of my feet wet in the different religions already. It was only recently when I found out about the Eastern Orthodox Church that I fully embraced Christianity as my religion.
Now I am engaged in interfaith dialogue through the URI. I got to know about URI last year when my ex-boss went back home to Korea. She was involved in working with volunteers of URI for the 2005 Global Assembly in Seoul. As a Baha’i' she was active in encouraging as many people from different faiths to participate and so when I mentioned to her that I was currently in between jobs she suggested that I volunteer for the event. And so I flew over to Korea to volunteer and there I got to know URI.
Meeting the URI for me was like going back home to family because URI’s attitudes have always been exactly my attitudes. I’ve also always been a strong proponent of interfaith dialogue. Most of the time, when it comes to talking about their own religion, people tend to be very defensive and their not so willing to risk the concreteness of their own faith and expose it to attacks or merely to other ideas. For me, I feel that if my own faith and belief is strong enough it doesn’t matter what other people say or how they try to convince me. But if your faith is weak, of course you would be afraid to go out into the wild winds and have attacks coming your way. If you are not be able to withstand such attacks, your faith will break down. This is the difficulty with other people whose faith is not strong enough.
TCC: What are teachings from your faith or some or your personal insights that inspire you to engage in interfaith dialogue?
Alfred: It is probably too early for me to be able to cite the teachings because I’m still very young in my faith. I can share more on insights from personal experiences in the past on interfaith dialogue.
I do believe that interfaith dialogue is the only way to go. People have to understand other people’s perspectives. The more you try to hide or try to defend a position, the more difficult it is to maintain peace. We need to open up in order to see the core of each other, person to person, to be able to clear away any misunderstanding.
People often use religion more as an excuse not to open themselves up. They hide behind the view or shadow of their religion—which offers them security. They are not open to expose their own religion out into the world, such that when people criticize their religion, they get angry or defensive about the whole thing or the other. But as a true practitioner of faith, such anger or defensiveness should not creep in. We should be tolerant of other people no matter what they throw at us. We should welcome them with open arms at the same time that we are standing firm to what we believe in.
I think it is best and most beneficial when people openly talk to one another—not only to know something from the other but also to discover more about themselves. Some people think they believe in something when deep at its core they actually don’t. Sometimes they are not aware of this aspect of themselves. It is when they encounter questions from others or criticisms that their belief is tested and the truth will be revealed. If they are not truly deeply rooted in their faith, it may easily crumble as they encounter challenges. But if people have strong faith they can never be affected by whatever anyone else says or does. They can never be afraid to face others however different they are. Sometimes when we talk to others who are of different faith, we gain a deeper understanding of our own. This is how meaningful interfaith dialogue is not only as a social approach to peacebuilding but also as an inner process of self-awareness and personal transformation.
