At the appropriate time, and with my best smile, I raised my hand and said something like this: "I appreciate the funding that allows us to survey our churches, and I think it is helpful to use similar questions and metrics for better research. But I am not here to form a partnership to help one another. I want to help the churches I serve, and part of the reason they exist is to convert some of you."

I paused, smiled, and worked hard not to sound menacing (it was probably too late). Some participants in the room looked at me as if I had just uttered a string of profanities. Others nodded in agreement. Then the Muslim imam seated next to me said, in effect, "I feel the same way."

Though the imam and I were in a minority in that group of predominantly liberal Protestants, we represented the movements among us that are actually growing in numbers. Both he and I believed in sharing and enlarging our faiths. We did not think we were worshiping the same God or gods, and we were not there under the pretense that we held the same beliefs. In other words, our goal was not merging faiths, combining beliefs, or even interfaith partnership.

The imam and I had a good laugh after the meeting. At the same time, we acknowledged that we were not of the same faith and, honestly, that we would each be overjoyed if we could bring the other to the truth-not just our truth but the truth, as we firmly believed it.

Without using the word, we were acknowledging that in such a context, we are multi-faith. When people of different faiths are found together, in a conference, neighborhood, or nation, they are best described as multi-faith, representing different faiths.

Worldwide trends indicate that multi-faith is both a current reality and our future. The number of people who claim adherence to the major world religions is growing. German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and other post-Enlightenment thinkers predicted the death of God and the decline of religious belief over 100 years ago, but their predictions were premature. In fact, secular thinking has long embraced the idea that religion was the socio-political problem, not so much the solution.

If anything, "God is dead" has been replaced with "God is back." Economists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, an atheist and a Roman Catholic, wrote a fascinating book in 2008 with that title. In it they noted that while statistics about religious observance are notoriously untrustworthy, most surveys seem to indicate that the global drift toward secularism has halted. Quite a few surveys show religious belief to be on the rise. They reference one source that says that "the proportion of people attached to the world's four largest religions-Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism-rose from 67 percent in 1900 to 73 percent in 2005, and may reach 80 percent by 2025."

"Multi-faith" might sound strange to some, yet the idea gains traction if peaceful coexistence and mutual understanding in a crowded religious world are important-and I think they are. To see why it's important, we need to look at alternate ways of framing our religious situation.

Moving Beyond Interfaith

For years, many people of various faiths have promoted "interfaith dialogue" in order to discover common ground and work together for humanity's sake. That sounds good, until we start digging below the surface.

Many of those involved in interfaith dialogue approach it as if there are no fundamental distinctions or differences between them. By way of contrast, in a multi-faith world, we recognize that we are not worshiping the same God or gods, nor are we pursuing the same goals. And we are not offended by our mutual desire to proselytize one another. (I use the term proselytize instead of evangelize, as evangelism is a distinctively Christian term having to do with the proclamation of the Good News.)

The central assumption of many in the interfaith dialogue business has been that at their core, all religious people-Hindus and Buddhists, Muslims and Jews, Christians and Animists-are striving for the same thing, and are just using different words and concepts to get there. We should therefore be able to cooperate around common beliefs to improve society, the reasoning goes. But how true is that assumption?

Let's take a closer look at the four world religions that represent about three-quarters of the global population. (Recent population surveys indicate that worldwide there are 2.1 billion Christians, 1.5 billion Muslims, 900 million Hindus, and 376 million Buddhists.) And let's start with the most basic belief in each religion: the idea of God. Within the various streams of Hindu thought alone, there are multiple answers to the question, "Who or what is god?" Hindus can believe that there is one god, 330 million gods, or no god at all. The Vedas, the most ancient of Hindu scriptures, which are accepted by most Hindus as normative, teach that atman is Brahman, or "the soul is god," meaning that god is in each of us and each of us is part of god. The common greeting Namaste, which means, roughly, "The god within me recognizes and greets the god within you," reflects this belief.

In his apologetic for the Buddhist faith, Ven S. Dhammika, the author of several popular books on Buddhism, writes, "Do Buddhists believe in god? No, we do not. There are several reasons for this. The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origin in fear. The Buddha says, 'Gripped by fear, men go to the sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.' " So, for most orthodox Buddhists (in the Theravada tradition), the concept of a personal supreme being is at best unimportant, at worst an oppressive superstition.

What about Islam? In the Qur'an, sura 112 ayat 1-4, we read, "Say: He is Allah, the One and Only. Allah, the Eternal, Absolute. He begets not, nor is he begotten. And there is none like unto him." This passage in a primer for Muslim children puts it simply: "Allah is absolute, and free from all defects and has no partner. He exists from eternity and shall remain eternal. All are dependent on him, but he is independent of all. He is father to none, nor has he any son."

In contrast, Christians believe that there is one God who is creator of the world. He is a personal God, a conscious, free, and righteous being. And he is not only a personal God but a God of providence who is involved in the day-to-day affairs of creation. He is a righteous God who expects ethical behavior from each of us. He expects his followers to live out their belief by loving him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and by loving their neighbors as themselves. God, while one in essence, also reveals himself in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So according to the four largest world religions, God is one with creation and takes on millions of forms, God may or may not exist, God is one and absolute, and God is one but exists in three persons.

If we cannot agree on even the basic definition of God or his character, how can we say that all the major religions are on the same path toward the truth about God?

Pretending that we all believe the same thing does not foster dialogue but in fact prohibits it. By assuming that all religions teach the same thing, how are we to explore, consider, and dialogue concerning differences? How can we discuss humanity's responsibility to each other, the eternal destiny of those with whom we share the globe, the nature of truth, or the meaning of life? For us to talk about these things, we must acknowledge that our answers are different. We must acknowledge that we are in fact multi-faith-with radically different visions of the future, eternity, and the path to getting there.

On the other hand, admitting that we are multi-faith is only a beginning. We also need to be willing to live together with those whose beliefs are different from our own. This means allowing adherents of other faiths to live out their convictions without creating constant conflict. The world has seen too much pain and suffering as the result of followers of one faith using political or military means to impose their views on followers of another.

So how do religions that are mutually exclusive peacefully exist side by side? In the spirit of multi-faith dialogue, I would like to propose four foundational commitments that the followers of the world's religions could agree to make. We commit to do the following:

* Let each religion speak for itself.
* Talk with and about individuals, not generic "faiths."
* Respect the sincerely held beliefs of people of other religions.
* Grant each person the freedom to make his or her faith decisions.

What would each of these look like in practice?

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