With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps and Mistakes ed. by Lucinda Mosher, Elinor J. Pierce, and Or N. Rose (review)

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Reviewed by:

• With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps and Mistakes ed. by Lucinda Mosher, Elinor J. Pierce, and Or N. Rose
• Daniel F. Polish

With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps and Mistakes. Edited by Lucinda Mosher, Elinor J. Pierce, and Or N. Rose. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2023. Pp. 240. $35.00, paper.

A radio advertisement that plays with annoying regularity talks about how the advertised product can help us overcome our distress at being awakened in the middle of the night by recollections of our social blunders. Clearly, the ad is predicated on the reality that all of us are finite, fallible, and prone to mistakes. It is a truth that extends to every aspect of our lives. This book addresses the mistakes that people have made and can make—and can learn from—in our engagement in interreligious settings and interfaith dialogue. Each reader can recount their own litany of tales about the gaffes, inadvertent slights, and embarrassing remarks that they have witnessed, participated in, or committed. I still cringe at the recollection of the lovely buffet that was offered at a Muslin-Jewish colloquy—during Ramadan. Given the humanity of all of us who participate in one form of interreligious work, such "missteps" are inevitable. The book is made up of a series of short articles in which the authors discuss their own experiences of what we would call mistakes and the lessons they learned from them.

The subtext of the book is that such mistakes are almost inevitable. After all, as Anthony Cruz Pantojas reminds us, "Interreligious work requires us to be present with and to probe the uncomfortable, the unfamiliar, and messy terrain of difference." As Christopher Leighton puts it, "In the jumble of the dance, we get close to one another. I do not know how to avoid mangled toes." For people new to working in interreligious settings, the apprehension of saying, or doing, the wrong thing may be intimidating, even petrifying. Yet, as Hans Gustafson teaches, that should not inhibit us from the work: "In spaces of intentional collaborative interfaith encounter striving to form relationships across differences [End Page 283] in service of common aims and goods, effective and authentic leaders emerge by taking risks, being vulnerable with their (non)religious values, visions, and practices, and by trusting others to accept them for who they are today."

Mistakes are seen as a positive opportunity for participants to learn and to grow. We are encouraged not to be over-polite. Instead, we are challenged to make mistakes rather than shrink from them, since our mistakes offer us the opportunity to engage in real dialogue. Heather Miller Rubens looks at one particular experience and advises, "We did not give ourselves enough time and moved too quickly [from the experience]. Creating friendships, building trust, and gaining new literacy (both learning and unlearning) are slow work." The book contains, as well, suggestions for how to avoid some more common errors. One idea repeated frequently is that "Religions don't meet. People do." A corollary to that is that none of the people we meet represent or embody the tradition from which they come. Each of us appropriates our tradition in our own way. This is put succinctly by Rachel Mikva: "The most obvious strategy … is to ask questions. Invite people's stories. Model how to speak within rather than for … a religious tradition."

The book makes especially useful reading for people considering, or new to, working in interreligious settings or engaging interfaith dialogue. Some of the chapters are engaging vignettes of the author's own experience, while a few seem more tangential and less germane accounts of the author's projects than reflections on the subject of the volume—and some reflect deeply on the complexities introduced into the dialogue by the political realities of the Israel-Palestine conflict, a subject that seems tragically relevant and profoundly challenging at this moment. Those chapters are even more compelling now than when they were written.

Daniel F. Polish Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY Copyright © 2024 Journal of Ecumenical Studies ...