Does God want religious harmony?

God must feel real good when we sit down at a table to play nice about religious diversity.  I may be a fool but I find it hard to identify any positive fruit if interreligious dialog.  Sure, our conversations with others who claim to be Christian, to esteem Scripture, and to confess the Gospel might be worthwhile -- not to promote understanding but primarily to call each other to account.  When you sit down with others, you probably better begin by having a realistic and historical view of who you are and what you believe.  But when you sit down with other religions without a common Word of God or history or values or identity, what is to be gained?

For example, do we really need to understand Islam better?  Will mutual understanding really calm down the tinderbox of Palestine?  Will Lutherans or Roman Catholics actually find some sort of common ground with Muslim faith and practice?  Maybe we could agree on climate change but will we ever agree on who God is and is not?  Do you think there is any way to such a common answer to the burning question of who God is?  Yeah, I thought so.  Neither do I.

Is God glorified knowing that people are trying to play nice in the sandbox of this mortal life but who do not bat an eye to defame and desecrate the Word of the Lord that endures forever in order to do so.  What have we gotten wrong about Islam, for example?  Is this somehow a deep and dark religion that has been falsely characterized over the years and its informative texts and leaders secret to us?  Does Islam really misunderstand Christianity because there are hidden things of the orthodox and catholic faith which are not in Scripture or creed or confession?  Is there the expectation that Christianity and Islam can coexist and respect each other's own exclusive paths to salvation as just as much true as their own?

I have volumes in my library that address Islam as well as its primary text.  I also have volumes in my library which tell me how to respond to Islam.  There are also copies in the parish library.  Perhaps Islam has their own similar books.  So what do we talk about in dialog which we cannot know from such written treatments of each other's faiths?  After such a dialog will Christianity disown the exclusive statements of Christ that no one comes to the Father except through Him?  Will Islam reject its own exclusive statements.  

Although I have focused on Islam,  you could substitute any other religion and ask the same sort of questions of those who believe a Christian/Buddhist dialog could be fruitful or a Christian/Sikh conversation or, well, you name a religion and fill in the blank.  The sad reality is that it is more likely that such dialogs will result in misunderstanding of their own faiths as well as the faith's of their dialog partners precisely because they are seeking common ground where none can possibly exist.  I am not saying that we should be open and hostile enemies toward one another but neither do I believe that our cause or the cause of humanity is furthered by presuming that the world will be better if we all just dilute our convictions enough to make a joke of what we say we will believe.  I shudder every time a Pope meets with the leader or leaders of another world religion.  Inevitably he will end up misrepresenting Christianity or misunderstanding the religion he hopes to accommodate.  But we are all at fault here.  No table is big enough for us to come let us reason together if such reasoning requires us to abandon what we believe.  Christianity invites such scrutiny from skeptics and opponents because we believe the Word of the Lord will bring faith from the hearer much to our own surprise and even chagrin.  But if we are apologizing for Jesus or His Word, we have no business sitting down with anyone and saying we would like to talk about how we are able to promote respect and toleration.  As I write this we have just celebrated the Exaltation or Triumph of the Holy Cross -- or did we not mean it?