Inter-faith Dialogue and Peace Development in The Movie The Kingdom of Heaven

Introduction

The movie The Kingdom of Heaven a movie directed in 2005 by Ridley Scott. The movie is basically the religion movie between Christian and Muslims. In the movie, characters are kept on talking about Jerusalem that they need to go to Jerusalem to have better opportunities and a better life. However, in Jerusalem Muslims were living and able to pray if they pay and have an agreement in between that Christian (Crusades) does not kill Muslims (Saladin). Mostly, the movie goes based on the perspective of the blacksmith named Balian and he decided to go to Jerusalem when he met his father Godfrey after his child and wife’s death. The movie is basically talking about the middle age, Crusades. In the film Balian met Godfey who is his father and decided to go to Jerusalem to amend his sin and his wife. The movie showed the journey that what Balian experienced love, faith and others. Also, the movie handle the war between Muslim and Christians that happened during that period. The movie helped to understand about inter-faith dialogue and peace development. Inter-faith dialogue by allusion the commitment between Saladin and Crusades and peace development. Also, movie featured the brokerage of peace development and inter-faith dialogue when Reynold killed Saladin people. So, with the usage of the movie The Kingdom of Heaven, the paper will discuss mainly about inter-faith dialogue and peace development, and in Philippine Context.

Analysis

So, until now sometimes, Muslim and Christians do not have a good relationship with each other. Like what the movie The Kingdom of Heaven showed, Muslims and Christians still had the fight in the Philippines like Mindanao and the Philippine government. But, the biased about the Muslims from Christians are first related to the war. They consider Muslims as violent since they had lots of wars and terrors. The balanced opinions about Christian and Muslims, with inter-faith dialogue and peace Muslims, have disadvantages since Christian have a bigger population than Muslims. Like even in the film, Saladin said, before he became a master Muslims were the side always got lost in the army. For Christian, they have a bigger population and army but sometimes cannot gather together like in the film, Reynold did not like the commitment and government that his king made so the conflicts started.

Jerusalem is an ancient city of the Middle East where from 1967 ruled by Israel that it has a central role for those who are spiritual of three monotheistic religions. For example, Jerusalem is the center of national renaissance for Jews, Jerusalem is a place where Jesus got buried so it is Holy Space for Christian and it is a place where Prophet Muhammad’s journey happened for Muslims. In a simple way, Jerusalem is the faith / holy city for pilgrimage for three religions. At first, it was curious why the title is The Kingdom of Heaven and it was found out that Kingdom of Heaven is what people called for Jerusalem. So, Jerusalem is the place where all the people who believe God wants to go either to have a better life or to amend their sin. According to the Crusade Godfrey, the “Jerusalem” in the movie is the new world, the land of eternity, the place has equality, where people can amend their sins, and the land has conscious because it is the land that everyone can live together whether they are Christians or Muslims. And for Saladin, he mentioned nothing at the end of the movie to the Balian when he asked Saladin “What is Jerusalem” and what Saladin answered was nothing but also everything. So, the film did not really show the allusion of Jerusalem in a way how it defined since most of the scenes were fight scenes and the only scene that shows about Jerusalem from Christian was when Balain went to the place where he buried his wife’s necklace.

Inter-faith Dialogue

My understanding of inter-faith dialogue is the interaction or relationship between two or three religions having a good relationship with each other. So inter-faith is like interaction of faith with different religion believers. In my opinion, in the Philippine context, this can be achieved since there are lots of foreigners in the Philippines these days and I do not really hear about the Mindanao Muslims case news that much. But, aside from the Mindanao, in Manila and Luzon, there are different types of religions in the Philippines brought by the foreigners who migrated to the Philippines, there are Christian, Catholic, Buddhism, Hinduism, Muslim and more. However, they are living together without a fight or irrespective of each other’s faith. So, to have inter-faith dialogue peace is needed. Peace is the term used when people do not separate the difference between each other and no violence, and to see the issue without any inequality or violence. The inter-faith dialogue since it is the term to use when the different religions coexist together, peace will be needed to develop interfaith dialogue. So, this peace development can contribute to the Philippine context in a way that people in the country those who have different religions, personalities, or nationalities to live together in one land/country. By understanding each other, not considering separately to each other. The faith of Christian and Muslims, are essential since the discussions on this paper are about interfaith dialogue. They have different faith and different God, both Christian and Muslim but the inter-faith dialogue is about even if they have different faith they can still live together with gaining benefits to each other. The advantages of the interfaith dialogue in the Philippines are

Conclusion

The Christian faith will have challenges when they are in the midst of Muslims it is possible to follow and practice their religions. However, the scene in the movie The Kingdom of Heaven showed, which Muslims were able to pray in Jerusalem if they pay for the taxes for the praying area. With the same concept, the challenges might be how they can practice their religion. According to the film, it was difficult to remain faith commitments since there are some people who do not agree with the idea of having faith commitments and who cannot accept the religion that differs from what they believe. And the challenges were to remain that commitment for a long time and to be sure on another side like in the movie when Reynold hit the Saladin people without permission from the king of Crusades. So Saladin came with the army but eventually had no war since the king of Crusade Baldwin came but later scene Saladin attack Jerusalem when the king died. Similar to the real-life here in the Philippines, even if now Muslims are living in the Philippines with commitment and being independent in the area not sure how long that commitment can last. Personally, inter-faith dialogue in the country and peace development is important. Not even in the Philippines but even in Korea there are different types of religions living in one country and each of them is respecting their own religious faith and try not to do violence reactions to each other’s religious faith. It is the 21st century that everyone should know how to coexist with each other and prevent war.

Works Cited

• The Kingdom of Heaven. Dir. Ridley Scott. 20th Century Fox, 2005. Film
• Wasserstein, Bernard, et al. “Jerusalem.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 17 Sep. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/place/Jerusalem.