‘A Rose by Any Other Name?’

Navigating through the Maze of Religious Dialogue Descriptions

Abstract

The field of religious dialogue is fraught with a bewildering variety of names to describe essentially four basic interrelationships, namely: (a) interreligious dialogue, (b) intrareligious dialogue, (c) interideological dialogue, and (d) intraideological dialogue. These taxonomic relationships, other naming variants, and a survey of evaluative dialogue labels were identified and briefly explicated. It was concluded that academic precision requires a more thoughtful consideration of what one actually means by “dialogue”. General nomenclature recommendations were proffered.