ABSTRACT
Religious education has the potential to be an interpretive space between faith communities and the public space, as an activity of both the private and public sphere. The role of religious education in this 'between' space is both hermeneutical and communicative. The challenge, then, is to develop a language that can speak respectfully in this space. For Hans-Georg Gadamer, conversation entails commitment to the two principles of reciprocity and charity. Reciprocity begins with treating people with respect, an existential openness to the other rather than a dogged insistence on one's own perspective. The second principle is charity, which assumes that both dialogue partners are reasonable in their communication of claims and therefore merit a presumption of coherence and truth. The religious dimension of intercultural education has its roots in the premise that the more people know about and understand each other, the greater the potential for social cohesion. Religious education exists because faith, the response to the religious impulse, exists.
