Of course, they couldn’t hold it. As she said: “At home we have freedom of speech, but not freedom after speech,” meaning a constitution guaranteeing free speech but also allowing restrictions to be imposed pretty much at will. While she was here, my parishioner watched as the internet penetrated a country that couldn’t tolerate its borderless freedoms but couldn’t turn its back on its immense economic promise.

Our multicultural communities, friendships and even families have broken the self-containment of religious communities. Religious people can no longer hold a monopoly on truth in any practical sense, any more than Malaysia could keep the internet at bay.

At St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York, we have a rabbi on our staff. His job is to nurture the obvious reality that New Yorkers live side by side with people of faiths different from their own, and now know what they don’t know and what they need to know. The rabbi offers dialogue, courses in other religions, public lectures and explorations that search for truth.
As Christians and Episcopalians, we have a tradition that gives us a road map to explore truth. Our lives are shaped, hallowed and energized by the truth we find through faith in Christ. But most of us do not think that our tradition assumes only its truth or denies the possibility that other traditions can lead to underlying truth.

We do not have to wonder about the benefits of such a conversation. The difficulties pale beside the richness of the talk. We are already on common ground, and I don’t believe we’re alone. The monopoly has been broken.