It is when tensions begin to develop and manifest themselves as animosities that one can usually tell when a broad discussion such as the one we had at Oxford is beginning to touch the neuralgic point that is really at issue. This obtains not only among elites in the multicultural cities and societies of the West, which have their counterparts just about everywhere in today s world, but in rural areas and border regions which might once have been described as mono- or bicultural. This, I submit, is how the witness at the heart of evangelisation is going to look in the global network of interreligious communication that is now coming into being. I quite agree that this focuses on a crucial issue at the heart of the conference and indeed of mission studies as a whole. Still, I think the insight needs to be explored further.
Communication needs to be tested.
Faith is more than a matter of instinct. The knowledge of God and his ways is not self-evident to even the most sensitive observer. This, as Moltmann had it, is why we don't know anything without dialogue. Dialogue, a meeting of minds, an exploration of hopes and fears, is essential for our own integrity. Dialogue will inevitably involve a measure of dialectic, of disputation.