Interfaith Dialogue 2022: False Dichotomies in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality

A priest, a minister, a church director, and a psychologist walk into a conference . . . and create interfaith dialogue. For the fourth year in a row, an Interfaith Dialogue is being held at the annual APA Convention, the largest psychology convention in the world, where clergy and faith leaders from various religions are invited to speak about how to create interfaith dialogue between and within different faiths. Interfaith Dialogues are conversations with clergy about the psychology of creating interfaith dialogue, harmony, and social justice about false dichotomies in the psychology of religion and spirituality. (See https://aitheros.wixsite.com/interfaith to learn more.) Our theme for APA 2022 is “Interfaith Dialogue 2022: False Dichotomies in the Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.” As a field, we have many false dichotomies creating unnecessary tension, such as Clinical Practice vs. Research, Science vs. Theology, Religious Freedom vs. LGBTQ, the Old Guard vs. the New Guard, Traditional Values vs. Social Justice. These dichotomies are sometimes imposed from the outside and sometimes we impose them on ourselves, but they shape our field in many ways and often serve to limit us by reducing our viewpoints to opposite extremes at odds with one another, instead of enriching our field by giving us multiple viewpoints and multiple perspectives. This year, we have a Catholic priest, a Protestant minister, a spiritual church president, and a Christian psychologist. The Catholic priest is presenting on a Catholic perspective on the importance of dialogue in countering an “us vs. them” perspective in religion. The Protestant minister is presenting on deconstructing infrastructural racism in U.S. seminaries. The spiritual church president is presenting on supplication as an alternative spiritual perspective to the false dichotomy between the human and the divine, drawing on a Native American perspective. The Christian psychologist is presenting on Jesuit and APA civility guidelines for managing increasing divisiveness and polarization. In a world of polarization and politics, extremism and hyperbole, we need civil dialogue.