Today’s democracies often exclude religions from public debate, but encourage them to legitimize causes; He accuses them of starting wars but relies on them to resolve conflicts; He describes them as divisive but draws on them as a source of social cohesion. This ambivalence reveals its instrumentation and raises an uncomfortable question: Which interreligious dialogue really contributes to peace and which is suitable for manipulation or self-promotion?
Interreligious dialogue is not about memorial or protocol meetings, but about ethical generators of meaning that require the renunciation of convenience, superficiality and complacent discourses. It cannot be based on avoiding conflict, but on the responsibility of a transformative calling. It is justified not by its symbolism but by its demonstrable fruits. There the truth is the condition of their possibility and not a communication strategy, because it is loyalty to God and stands above political or institutional conveniences.
This demand for truth presupposes a realism that interreligious dialogue usually avoids, taking refuge in pleasantries, general exhortations, formalities and strict communication; all very aesthetic, but ethically ineffective. History shows that peace does not arise through appeals to benefactors, idealized images of humanity or religious teachings, but through concrete measures that concern the interpretation, transmission and manipulation of these traditions.
The biblical tradition is clear: There is no peace without justice and no justice without truth. Zechariah makes this clear (8:16) and the Psalms confirm it (85:11-12). Any peace that renounces the truth is just a morally empty truce. Ezekiel warns that God will accuse the one who sees the sword coming and does not alert the people (33:6), and the Talmud specifies that the one who can prevent injustice and remains silent is also responsible (Shabbat 54b). Jeremiah denounces the false peace that hides the wound instead of healing it (6:14), and the Talmud confirms that this simulated harmony is more dangerous than open conflict because it disarms moral vigilance (Sanhedrin 6b). Even from a secular perspective, silence in the face of injustice represents a form of moral complicity.
One fallacy that needs to be dispelled is the “peaceful majority” that seeks to limit the problem to the marginalized. The existence of a peaceful majority of Germans was irrelevant to preventing National Socialism; the Russians against Stalinism; of the Chinese before Mao’s massacres; or by Japanese against crime in Southeast Asia. History teaches that morality is measured by the effective ability to stop eviland that requires that peaceful majorities be translated into active responsibility so that they do not become morally irrelevant.
Thus, the appeal to the peaceful majority of Muslims loses ethical force if it fails to delegitimize and eliminate radicalized minorities who carry out terrorist attacks in the name of Islam on various continents, such as those against AMIA and the Israeli embassy on September 11, Madrid, London, Paris, Brussels, Bombay, Nice, Manchester, Barcelona, Cambrils, Sri Lanka, Kabul, Israel on July 10, recently Sydney and others.
Calling this scourge Islamist terrorism does not mean stigmatizing a religion, but rather taking a moral responsibility towards reality. The distinction between Islam and Islamism is conceptual and ethical. It prevents the demonization of peaceful believers, but forces us to recognize the religious interpretation that terrorists and certain theocratic states rely on in their crimes. And that requires more than simply mentioning abstract principles of Islam that contradict its actions and creating effective internal mechanisms to stop these practices.
However, in many interfaith spaces, truth has been replaced by political correctness and ceremonial avoidance. The result is a moral fiction that confuses gesture with obligation, word with action, and encounter with transformation. Sincerity does not mean insult, because what undermines coexistence is not the truth expressed respectfully, but the hypocrisy that disguises injustice as cordiality.
Religions do not need apologies or sympathy, but rather self-criticism in order not to lose moral conscience or become ideologies. Your strength lies not in disguising conflicts, but in dealing with them truthfully. The prophets were not concerned with simulations or applause, but with loyalty. Likewise, the honest clergyman and academic must challenge power, especially his own, and not serve it by abandoning his mission.
Every religious tradition has uncomfortable areas where the truth hurts but allows for mature dialogue.
In Judaism, the excessive empowerment of some organizations results in leadership based on merit, wisdom, and responsibility being displaced by deceptive representative bureaucratic roles, diminishing leadership quality and damaging the collective. The law requires wise, sincere, and experienced leaders (Deuteronomy 1:13) and prohibits making the Torah an instrument for one’s own benefit and exaltation (Avot 4:5).
Institutional Christianity usually resorts to ambiguous and inconsistent diplomatic language, without clear subjects or recipients, and avoids naming the executioners of its persecuted and massacred communities in Africa and Asia, reducing the phenomenon to “social conflicts” and thus diluting responsibilities. His moral restraint obliges him to clarify, not to conceal (Matthew 5:15).
In Islam, while various leaders reject violence, they avoid taking responsibility or even referring to the religious dimension that the terrorists themselves claim. Their circumvention allows God’s name and faith to be abused by those who desecrate them, even though the Qur’an forbids hiding the truth or mixing it with untruth (2:42).
These observations are not accusations, but rather acts of honesty necessary to act with the same integrity with which one prays. Self-criticism does not weaken religions, it honors them. No tradition becomes great by hiding its shadows; They all grow when they recognize them and act accordingly.
Maintaining this honesty comes at a cost, as the truth breeds resistance, especially among those who prefer convenience over ethics. Experience shows that peace is not achieved with euphemisms, but with concrete actions that contain hostility before it turns into violence.
For years, we worked with academic clergy from various denominations to produce documents that resulted in verifiable public policies. statements about the beginning and end of life; protecting the elderly; triage protocols and allocation of vital resources; Algoretics projects, religious identity in adoptions, institutional objections and living wills, among others. This is what these experiences show Interreligious dialogue can be a real tool if it abandons frivolity and assumes historical responsibility.
Argentina has built an interreligious coexistence that is more sociological than theological. Its stability is explained not by agreements, but by the fact that religions were subordinate to the rule of law and religious and demographic diversity did not lead to subjugation, disputes over power or public space. However, this coexistence is not guaranteed because we are not immune to uncontrolled immigration, religious nationalism, ideological colonialism or hate speech. Therefore, training, ethical leadership, and courage are required to speak the truth when it is uncomfortable.
The function of interreligious dialogue is to take moral responsibility in the face of reality and to bring about change. When religions remain silent to avoid causing discomfort by maintaining convenient fictions, they abandon their ethical authority and become passive accomplices to injustice. It is not about avoiding tensions, but about practicing justice through a truth that does not humiliate but does not hide either. Because a dialogue that avoids the truth does not create peace, but rather creates silence.
This belief guides my work, where truth is a religious act, productive dialogue is a public service with demonstrable responsibility, and peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of justice. Everything else, cordiality without truth, consensus without justice and neutrality without civil courage, is not dialogue, but simulation.
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