How can Christians and Muslims Defend their Own Faith without Resorting to Mutual Mockery?

Sa？etak This paper was prepared as one of presentations at the Interreligious Conference in Ljubljana, 25 October 2017. It consists of three parts: Adult believers, after they have acquired sufficient knowledge of belief in divine revelation, can rationally explain it; In time of dialogue we study shared values and respect differences without mocking; From Muslims in Southeast Europe to European Islam. The author concludes: Based on my experience of living in Sarajevo as a city with an absolute Muslim majority, while striving to implement the guidelines of Vatican II in dialogue with present-day Muslims in my country and elsewhere in the world, my response to the question in the title of this presentation is positive. Yes, it is possible to defend rationally Christianity and Islam after we, as adult believers, have accepted our membership in a faith community, read our sacred books and received sufficient instruction from imams, priests and religious teachers in our own faith. This requires that we cherish the shared values as citizens in secular and plural societies and respect mutual differences. This also supposes that we do study our own faith and are open to being informed about the faith of others. We should allow each other to present ourselves as we see ourselves. In the Catholic theology of interreligious dialogue the accent has been moved from religious truth per se to human persons maintaining their human dignity and fundamental rights even if they remain different in faith, culture and political conviction