ABSTRACT
The majority of critical scholars would most likely make the argument that the term “dialogue” is probably not all that relevant to the methods that they may use to study religion. There are, however, plenty of other scholars who instead argue that their work is directly involved with promoting mutual understanding among differing groups, hence the term we now hear with some degree of regularity, “interfaith dialogue.” Yet others emphasize that such conversations should also include the dialogue that opens up between scholars and the people they happen to study. The effort to establish the ground upon which this might come about often goes by the name of promoting or engaging in dialogue or, more specifically, facilitating some kind of interreligious dialogue. Although they likely do not see their work as either encouraging (or hampering) such efforts, the generally liberal attempt to bring about such pluralistic understandings among what might otherwise be competing or conflicting groups is indeed a legitimate area of research for the critical scholar. We might inquire, for example, into such things as the techniques used by the parties involved, the practical ends sought, and, just as importantly, the inevitable limits of those shared understandings and the tolerance that such dialogue is said to achieve. Nevertheless, the presumed distinction required to carry out such work—between scholarship, on the one hand, and, on the other, the practical effort to facilitate common understandings—might itself be criticized by yet other scholars, notably those who, for a variety of reasons, fail to see a sharp line of demarcation between being religious and being a scholar of religion.
