The subject of "inter-religious dialogue," frequently pronounced at the international level, is a result of this need for mutual visits and the exchange of ideas. Some people assess mutual visits between different religions as part of conspiracy theories and either interpret them as an attempt to serve a dubious purpose such as "combining all the religions" or try to portray these meetings as the Christian world's efforts to fool the Muslim world. Both theories are incorrect because except for the quintessential unity of the true Abrahamic religions, it is impossible to unify all religions given their current forms, teachings and sacraments, and to establish a new religion that will be a mixture of all of them; only naive humanists or deists can believe this may happen. On the other hand, Muslims are not credulous people who will take such bait.The ethnic and religious conflicts in certain crisis-prone regions of the world are getting deeper by the day. And unfortunately the legitimacy of an important part of these conflicts is based on religions. Many fascist leaders and murderers claim that they kill their enemies in the name of their religion. The most recent and horrific example of this is Serb ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. But on the other hand, we know that some sincere clerics from the Orthodox Church did oppose the massacres perpetrated by those abusing Christianity. Some priests openly declared that the war in Bosnia was in no way tolerable or legitimate according to Christianity and declared their churches as against the war in Bosnia. What harm could it ever bring upon anyone for Muslim scholars to exchange views and ideas with such Christian clerics?
In addition, many clerics from the Catholic world want all religions to adopt a common stance against atheism, pornography, prostitution, the dissolution of the family, homosexuality, drugs, alcoholism, the culture of consumption and nihilism into which people are rapidly sliding. Undoubtedly, this cultural and moral degeneration is dangerous also for the religion of Islam. Islam does not aim for the sole salvation of Muslims; it is a message of salvation for the entire humanity.
We should, on the other hand, bear in mind that the Christian Church in the past helped colonialists and played a great role in the establishment of the deeply rooted prejudice against the Islamic world by inciting the Crusades. However, as some Christian theologians put it, bringing up this historical fact over and over again does not serve any purpose except to create further enmity and more rifts. The process we, as humanity, are going through threatens all religions and beliefs and causes humankind to decay.
Looking from this angle -- and in terms of the attacks made on all religions and the subjects that are of concern to all religions -- inter-religious dialogue and cooperation are initiatives that point to the spirit of the new times.
There is something that has recently caught my attention: When we take a close look at the identity of the people who launch such sincere initiatives and who make painstaking endeavors in this great cause, all are, regardless of their religious identity, people who take their religion seriously and firmly believe that their religion is a means of salvation. And the underlying reason for people from secular segments to be against such initiatives is that they are indistinctly disturbed to see religion being taken seriously. And without a doubt, the idea that religions can be saviors is one that can never be taken into regard by people feeding on traditional French secularism. However, nowadays, strangely enough, the Catholic Church claims that secularism, with extreme practices and borders, is causing social values, and the family in particular, to collapse. Leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy confirm this. Moreover, Sarkozy also says that secularism will not be able to efface France's Christian identity.
