I like to promote the 7 Rules of Interreligious Dialogue that was put forward by Max Warren (Anglican Missiologist) back in the 1960s. In my Interreligious Dialogue class, I asked my students to explain the 7 Rules in their own words. I stopped in the middle of grading because I began thinking. They did a great job of explaining the rules, but the first rule I felt like some missed the point. Or maybe it is not primarily that but rather that my thinking has gone in a bit of a different direction. (This tangent of mine won’t affect their grades, if you were worried.)

Max Warren says that a key rule of interreligious dialogue is that of “Common Humanity.” When we speak to someone of a different religion, we are NOT talking to a representative of that religion. By that, I mean a person who identifies as a Muslim is not a representative of the religion of Islam, in terms of its scope of beliefs, norms, and practices. The same is true of someone who identifies as a Buddhist, Hindu, Mandeist, Druze, Neo-Pagan, Atheist, Objectivist, or anything else. That person represents himself or herself, much as you and I only represent ourselves. I, for example, am a Christian of the Baptist Tradition. That being said, my views are not necessarily consistent with “Christianity” (if that title can be said to align with a single invariant set of dogma). Since one of the characteristics of Baptist is its diversity, my views may be more consistent with the term “Baptist,” but would obviously be even less helpful in explaining what “All Baptists” believe.

Common humanity should lead us to see ourselves in the other, and recognize that our conversation is human to human, not religion to religion, party to party, ideology to ideology, or stereotype to stereotype.

I see in this a bit of Anton Boisen— a Presbyterian theologian of the early 1900s, and commonly seen as the founder of the clinical pastoral movement (CPE or CPT). He described the role of a chaplain or pastoral counselor as theological but grounded on the concept of “Living Human Documents.” Boisen was averse to labeling people. His early work was in a mental hospital— both as a patient and as a chaplain. He saw how the use of diagnostic labels stifled communication and supported unhealthy presuppositions or stereotypes. The chaplain needs to view each person as a living human document— a unique book that must be explored through listening and observing. A temptation of people is to “look at the cover” of the book and decide what the book contains. Covers can reveal some things but conceal even more. Humans create a persona, a facade, that hides what is going on inside. It takes time, interest, and lots of listening to find out what is really going on between the front and back covers.

To me, the two images, from Warren and Boisen, go well together. The idea of “Living Human Document” reminds us to ignore labels, stereotypes, and presumptions when dealing with another person. Warren points toward a similar understanding, but with the small addition of reminding us that this is a “Shared Condition.” We share a common humanity. I and the one I speak to have a shared uniqueness, a common diversity.

I do spend some time with Warren’s rules in my book Dialogue in Diversity: Christians in Conversation with a Multi-faith World.

I do speak some on Anton Boisen in my book, The Art of Pastoral Care.

However, a better book in looking at Boisen in terms of Living Human Document is Robert Dykstra’s Images of Pastoral Care: Classic Readings