Several years ago I received a book edited by the convener of a conference at which my wife was presenting a paper. I have browsed its pages over the years, but only just now came across this well-written passage from Francis X. Clooney, S.J. (whom I had met at an earlier gathering with Andrew Walls):
Many of us instinctively think of evangelization (along with a steadfast commitment to and retrieval of the Christian tradition as enduringly true) as a mission prized by conservatives while dialogue (along with the range of interreligious issues and literacies) is a favorite of liberals, a friendly alternative to evangelization. But it never made sense to me to think that some of us were to witness to Christ and preach the gospel while others were to learn from people of other faith traditions – as if preaching the gospel were a kind of monologue where we talk but never listen and dialogue were conversation from-and-to-nowhere: Christian lite. But how can you talk and not listen? How can you converse if you have nothing to say? Surely we do not believe that it is conservative to talk and liberal to listen! I have found that dialogue and evangelization are necessarily interconnected. This is why dialogue – and the required interreligious literacy – is no less a Christian value and duty that is evangelization (246).
From Clooney’s chapter “Reading the World Religiously: Literate Christianity in a World of Many Religions,” in Theological Literacy for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Rodney L. Petersen with Nancy M. Rourke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).