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Talking over the Fence From Toleration to Dialogue

Christoph Schwoebel 1

1독일 튀빙겐 대학

ABSTRACT

In his Inaugural Lecture as Chairman of the Department of Religion at Boston University with the title 'Religious Diversity and Public Reason' John Clayton has elaborated the image of the fence in order to point to the rules of engagement that must be observed in a situation where common ground has been lost or where the search for common ground may lead to ignoring and restricting difference and diversity. Clarification of defensible difference, not identification of common ground, may be what is required to gain the cooperation of disparate religious interests in achieving pragmatically defined goals that enhance human flourishing. This is rephrased in the conclusion of the lecture with reference to the New England Poet Robert Frost: it is not so much common ground as good fences that make good neighbours. The line "Good fences make good neighbours" is taken from the poem "Mending Wall" from Frost's collection North of Boston, first published in 1915. The poem relates to the situation where after the ground swell of frost in the Winter and the destruction caused by hunters two neighbours come together to restore the wall between them. "Talking over the fence" while "mending wall" is clearly an image for the cooperation Frost had in mind and which still contains a vision for a relationship of religious communities in which, in John Clayton's words, "the recognition of cultural and religious diversity" is "a positive good".

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