Le Duc - The Way, the Truth and the Life: Asian Religious Communication in the Post-Truth Climate

Abstract

The term “post-truth” has in recent years been widely applied to the state of Western society, especially in Europe and the United States. Post-truth is an adjective describing circumstances where emotions and personal beliefs rather than objective facts play the dominant role in shaping public opinion. A consequence of this disregard for objective facts is the dissemination of misinformation and untruths in order to infuence public perceptions, especially in political matters. Although the focus has been primarily on the United States and Europe, the reality of a globalized, hyper-interconnected world means that Asian society is also susceptible to post-truth dynamics. Because Asia is extremely diverse in terms of cultural and religious landscape, the post-truth mentality and practices can potentially bring great harm to interreligious relationships in the region. This paper proposes that Asian religions can address the challenges of the post-truth mindset by resorting to powerful images within their traditions to communicate within and across traditions in order to promote religious unity and harmony. It asserts that the images employed by Jesus to refer to himself, namely, the Way, the Truth, and the Life are images that hold not only rich spiritual signifcance for Christians but can also resonate deeply with the Asian religious and spiritual outlook. These images may be explored by religious traditions in their own particular contexts and communicated to adherents (intrareligious communication).  These images can also serve as the foundation upon which Asian religions can enter into dialogue with one another to build mutual understanding and collaboration (interreligious communication). The thesis is when Asian religions are able to employ shared images to communicate within and across religious traditions, they are able to reafrm the important role of religion/spirituality in the present social milieu, at the same time resist the negative impact brought about by trends of thought that seek to degrade and relativize religious and spiritual truths.

Keywords: Post-truth, interreligious dialogue, religious communication, Asian religions