The representation of religious and ethno-nationalist conflicts in Sri Lanka as an Orientalist-Occidentalist divide has concealed the hegemonic politics of interpretation of collective identities. In this representation, cultures and religions have been reduced to a fixed un-changing consciousness without noticing the historical changes that the cultures and religions undergo through multiple interactions and socio-political dynamics. This categorisation, in its Occidentalism, reduces biblical faith to belief in an abstract reality even as it ignores the concrete and existential meaning that faith in a transcendent God has for Semitic culture and its peoples. Correspondingly, a racialised particularistic ethic has been constructed out of Buddhism in a way that undermines its universal appeal. This article explores how Buddhism and Christianity can contribute to resolving religious and ethno-nationalist conflicts in Sri Lanka by appealing to the soteriological idioms of liberative truth and love in a dialogical mode.
