All Nations before God's Throne: Evangelicals in the Interfaith World

Nicholas M. Price in Cross Currents on his experience as an evangelical Christian at the National Conference on Interfaith Youth Work.

Before long the question was no longer, "Why don't religious conservatives participate in interfaith dialogue?" but became "How do we make sure that we set a place at the table for religious conservatives?" While these two questions look similar at first glace the truth is that they operate with a totally different set of assumptions. The first of these questions assumes that religious conservatives have an inherit aversion to participating in interfaith dialogue, much less the religiously plural atmosphere of modern American society, and that we must somehow strong arm them into dialogue or go over their heads and build a society around them which will, ultimately, force them to accept more "moderate" or "mainline" ways through which to view their own faith.

However, I would argue that the problem is not that most religious conservatives do not want to participate in interfaith dialogue, but that they do not feel welcome in the places of public discourse.