I have been teaching Inter-religious Dialogue (IRD) for several years now. While teaching it, I teach several different list of “rules” associated with IRD. However, the one I tend to focus on is the 7 Rules compiled by Max Warren. But as I have been thinking about it, it occurred to me that I should make my own list, or at least my own model for IRD. However, I am not sure that I am suitably experienced in IRD to ignore others and simply create my own list.

After thinking about it, I decided to use the various perspectives of several to come up with a model. So I am taking several lists and bringing them together and inductively creating a model… or a list of rules.

Here is the background information of the Who, What, Why, and How of this project:

1. Who am I doing this for? I am doing this for Christian missionaries first of all who work in multicultural and/or multi-religious settings. As such, I am not seeking data from sources at the extremes of dialogue. I am ignoring data that views dialogue in terms of argument or debate. I think argument has little value in missions. However, even if it does have value in some rare circumstances, I feel it really stretches the meaning of dialogue. Dialogue in my view is more focused on mutual discussion rather than a more adversarial relationship. On the other hand, having a role where one brackets one’s own beliefs and enters the conversation without presuppositions with regards to faith, may be valuable to some, but seems hardly of value to missionaries, whose role is, in part, proclamation.
2. Who am I using as informants? For the most part, people or groups who are viewed as experts in dialogue who have created lists of rules regarding IRD are used. The lists are rules that are deemed by me to be valuable to Christian missionaries. As such I chose to use experts who would describe themselves as Christians. (One at this time would no longer consider herself to be a Christian.)
3. Method of Analysis? I am using Ground Theory Analysis. I am utilizing lists from 11 experts in IRD with a total list of statements being 78. Each of these statements goes through three levels of coding— open, axial, and selective— to ultimately produce an model that is grounded in the data.

Grounded Theory Analysis is sometimes thought a bit… “soft” in that it does not have the rigorous statistical checks that are associated with Quantitative Analysis. In my view, this is not true. Quantitative analysis is rife with problems that qualitative analysis lacks. I am not saying that GTA is always better, but it is certainly better in these circumstances. But people are often concerned with the Reliability, Validity, and Generalizability of GTA. With that in mind, for GTA:

Reliability: In Quantitative Analysis, reliability is demonstrated by randomness of the sample population. For GTA, reliability is established by the diversity of the interviewees (especially in terms of perspective).

Validity: In Quantitative Analysis, validity is demonstrated by careful definition of the target population (ensuring one is not analyzing two or more populations by mistake). For GTA, validity is established by expertise of the interviewees.

Generalizability: In Quantitative Analysis, generalizability is demonstrated by having an adequately large sample size. For GTA, generalizability is established by achieving data saturation.

This research project is not for peer review (probably) but I still don’t want to do something that lacks rigor. In terms of reliability, I chose a pretty good range of experts in terms of IRD. These range from relatively conservative (Warren, Stott, and Neill) to fairly liberal (such as Panikkar and the World Council of Church). I have not included all views, as I noted above, centering on Christian practioners in IRD who tend to value clarification over argument or common-ground. The range should be adequate for the reliability I am seeking.

Validity is no problem. I am using established experts in IRD. Generalizability is the most uncertain thing. Because of the range of perspectives and the limited number of interviewees, it is quite likely that I will not achieve data saturation. However, I believe that I will be able to achieve a model that is grounded in the data and plausible based on the data. I am will to accept the possibility that there are issues not addressed in the informants.

I will give more info as things develop.