This photograph — from a series on South Africa's Motouleng Caves, a sacred site for
many different religious communities — is of Mofokeng's brother, a traditional healer, shortly before his death from AIDS.
First of all it has to be said that, even if a real understanding should be impossible, a good acquaintance with the teachings and practices of a religious group already marks a great step beyond the prejudices born of ignorance which have so frequently tended to poison the relations between members
of different religious communities.
The question of providing spiritual fellowship to those committed to Christ
in different religious communities is a peculiarly Indian ecclesiological problem which has been with us for many decades and needs to be faced squarely.
The theses assumes that the peaceful coexistence of
different religious communities is possible only if religion and politics will make a preferential option for the suffering victims of this suffering earth.
Recent developments have shown that this framework has failed to unite
the different religious communities, rather, it has divided them, generating antagonistic feelings, violent conflicts and even bloodshed.
For instance, just as the church takes form in different cultures, can Christ - centred fellowships around the Lord's Table and the Word of God get formed within
different religious communities, as in the case of Keshub Chunder Sen of Bengal in the 19th cent and Subba Rao of Andhra Pradesh in the 20th century.
In other words, internet dating sites accommodate Christian singles, Jewish singles, Asian singles, Black singles and many other people of
different religious communities.