Our notion of dialogue brings together individuals from different backgrounds, faith traditions and worldviews, with formal discipline and yet encouraging all participants to connect with their inner world and thereby experience the inter-relatedness and interdependence of all human beings and of all life in the world. In this way, we can show and reflect on how spirituality and religion may have an impact on human values, as well as on the assumptions that underpin science, morality and economics.
Deep Dialogue is one of the concepts that the GHFP has been developing. It features the following:
- Deep Dialogue is valuable in itself, which means that it is not instrumental.
- Deep Dialogue contains an implicit commitment to the equal value (and reality) of all persons.
- Deep Dialogue requires being willing to enter this space of the other.
- Deep Dialogue processes are aimed at transforming the basic self-identifications that would otherwise permit the formation of antagonistic social identities. It can enable the person to self-identify non-derivatively in more spiritual ways, that is as human.
- Deep Dialogue consists in transformative sharing, and the aim of such listening and sharing is that people can transcend the victim and aggressor dichotomy as part of a healing process. If it is successful, this may express itself as some form of forgiveness, but it need not. Entering a deep dialogue doesn’t require the powerless to deny these injustices nor to forgive them.
- Deep Dialogue makes spiritual ‘we’-ness possible, which can engender a deep connection with one’s own and the others’ common humanity.
- Deep Dialogue processes can enable people to explore together the roots of violence at micro and macro levels.
- Deep Dialogue can encourage people who were formerly in antagonistic relations to explore violence as symptoms of deeper systemic causes, and imagine institutional, cultural and even structural shifts toward positive peacefulness.
Dialogue in Practice
The Foundation has put Deep Dialogue into practice across a number of long-running international forums and convenings, bringing together leaders, scholars and practitioners from different faiths, generations and worldviews.
The G20 Interfaith Forum, of which the Foundation has been a long-standing partner, has provided a platform for dialogue at the intersection of religion, policy and global governance, producing education policy statements and listening initiatives addressed to G20 leaders. The Spirit of Humanity Forum offers a global platform for leaders and change-makers seeking lasting transformation through values such as love, respect, solidarity and compassion, exploring new forms of governance underpinned by care, trust and relationship.
Intergenerational Dialogue
In more recent years, dialogue work has extended to focus on the relationship between generations — recognising that younger and older people each carry distinct insights, memories and ways of imagining the future, and that bringing them into facilitated encounter is itself a healing and transformative practice.