Religious Tolerance and Education

Religious Tolerance is very much in the news at the moment, particularly following Tony Blair's recently well publicized comments on the subject, including his statement that "The promotion of religious tolerance, both within and between countries will be key to fostering peaceful outcomes around the world in the 21st century."
Of course comments like this inevitably fuel quite a bit of vitriol around Blair's own actions as Prime Minister, along with equally vitriolic comments calling to abolish the so called fairy tales and myths that we call religion. But such comments are really unhelpful. The past is past. Yes we must learn from it but we cannot alter it. And like it or not, the vast majority of the world's population hold a faith which is dear to them, and they are by no means all fundamentalists or ill educated.
Also, the world's great faiths have very much more in common than they have differences. 

It is certainly true that inequalities, and injustices, often revolving around poverty and hunger and health issues fuel political angst which all too readily becomes tainted with religion, and we certainly have to work towards eliminating global injustices, a huge issue in its own right.

Blair is right when he says we must encourage education and religious tolerance if we are to bring about peace in the Middle East and the rest of the world. I believe that education is key to securing a peaceful future for us all. With education comes opportunity for the world's marginalized, and this in its turn helps tackle injustices and inequalities. Reliable data is hard to find, but a massive proportion of the world’s children, by any standards, receive little or no education at all.
If we include within that education a knowledge of the world's different religions then we promote understanding of those different religions and around that understanding can be built not only religious tolerance but more importantly respect for other people's views. We should all have respect for others' views, even if we cannot agree with them.
In this brief interlude from my recent blogs about our pilgrimage to the Holy Land I thought I would mention a few other important interfaith initiatives in addition to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, which is doing its own good work to further its aim "to promote greater knowledge and understanding between people of different faiths. This is not a call to faith – it is a call to respect those of all faiths and not to allow faith to divide us but instead to embody the true values of compassion and humanity common to all faiths". 

Another initiative is the Cambridge Interfaith Programme - in the word's of its Director, Professor David F Ford: "Few things are likely to be more important for the 21st century than wise faith among the world’s religious communities. That calls for fuller understanding, better education, and a commitment to the flourishing of our whole planet." Out of the Cambridge Interfaith Initiative has grown the idea of Scriptural Reasoning.
Then there is Eboo Patel's IFYC...

And more recently there has been the Common Word Initiative.
I have written about all these and more from time to time in my blogs and elsewhere.

But I also believe that spiritual literacy is essential for the future; that all young people need to be educated in the ways of spirit and respect and love, because this will be the world’s healing force. 

The former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and later Chancellor of Costa Rica’s Peace University, Robert Muller, wrote in the 1980s of the need for a global education that “must transcend material, scientific and intellectual achievements and reach deliberately into the moral and spiritual spheres.” After extending the power of our hands with incredible machines, our eyes with telescopes and microscopes, our ears with cell phones, radio and sonar, our brains with computers and automation, he wrote, we must now also extend our hearts, our feelings, our love, and our soul “to the entire human family, to the planet, to the stars, to the universe, to eternity and to God.”

Kairos: Time for Action, Call to Action

Driving this afternoon over to my garage to have my car serviced, there is a queue on the other side of the road that must be over a mile long. And it is going nowhere, at least for the time being. The cause of the hold up: just one car broken down in the middle of the road at the traffic lights. Several drivers are already getting impatient and turning around to go back or find an alternative route. One driver negotiating this impatient and dangerous move nearly hit me. No one seems to be doing anything about the real problem – a car which could be simply pushed to the side of the road if there were sufficient man power and will power; if people stopped thinking just about themselves and looked for a solution for all.
Many of us after a long and tiring day of work have the frustration of sitting in traffic queues, or waiting for trains and buses, sometimes for hours when things go wrong, just to get home. Imagine, though, if the queuing and long waits are part of an oppressive controlling regime, every single day, and if they are a reflection of a severely limited freedom, and if there simply is no other route to take? Because that is the reality every day for the many weary workers waiting to return home to Bethlehem through the Birqat es sultan gate in the Separation Wall after a long day’s work in Jerusalem on the other side of the divide. Sometimes in the morning they cannot get to work on time, even get to work at all, because of the same humiliating system. We saw this separation wall several times on our travels through Jerusalem and it is a striking and potent symbol of the prolonged occupation of the West Bank and the suffering of so many of these beleaguered citizens. Sometimes eight metres high concrete, heavily covered in graffiti, sometimes nasty touch sensitive wire topped with razor wire, it is there for “security” or so Israel says.
After decades of suffering Israeli occupation, in 2009 Palestine Christians published the Kairos Palestine document: A Moment of Truth- a word of faith, hope and love from the heart of Palestinian Suffering, an appeal for Christians everywhere to sit up, take notice and actually do something.

The Peace Pole in Jerusalem

In 2012 a group of over 60 Christians gathered on the Hebridean Isle of Iona to consider their response to this appeal for help. The document that was finally produced out of this gathering, Time for Action, is a call to the Churches of Britain to respond faithfully and courageously to the situation in Israel and Palestine.
In June 2011 a group of U.S. clergy, theologians and laypersons inaugurated a similar movement for American Christians. Their document is Call to Action .

I have been and seen for myself the injustices and humiliations that Palestinians face daily and I urge my readers to take a look at these projects and to do something! The booklets are different, but the messages broadly similar: Go and see for yourself if you possibly can just what is happening in the Holy Land, follow up with political action, challenge the theology and misuse of the Bible behind these injustices, and pray. The American booklet includes a very useful study guide as well.
Why Kairos? “Kairos” is Greek for “favorable time,” “crisis,” “decisive epoch.” It demands urgent response, a change of mind and direction. Jesus invoked this urgency in his mission in Galilee when he says “The time has come.” Other Kairos moments were when the injustices of Apartheid and slavery were tackled and overcome. A more recent Kairos moment came with the launch of A Common Word, about which I have written in a previous post.

Pilgrims to the Holy Land take with them the gifts of joy, trade, prayer and hope. 

looking across from the Shepherds' fields to Israeli occupation
settlements beyond the fence

That is just a beginning. They also take with them the opportunity to be educated about what is going on over there. I believe that education is the key to many, if not most, of the problems of this damaged and wounded world.

As I write this I notice coincidentally in the media that Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, seems to be going about face on his previous attitude, and now says that it is time to do a deal. He is still unrepentant, however, about the settlements still being built and expanded in the occupied West Bank, only too visible to us on our visit, and illegal under international law.
(UK reporting in the Telegraph is here).

A Common Word...and World Interfaith Harmony

In September 2005 Pope Benedict XVI gave an address at the University of Regensburg, where he had once been Professor of Theology, on Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections. Part of this Regensburg address, as it became known, was taken as provocative and insulting by certain parts of the Muslim community, and sparked mass street protests in many Islamic countries. Pakistan called on the Pope to retract what it called “this objectionable statement.” The Pope apologized to Muslims and assured them that the passage quoted did not reflect his own views. 

Relations between Muslims and Christians at that time were stormy and deteriorating. Into this climate a letter was launched, printed in The New York Times in October 2007, signed by 138 leading Muslim intellectuals and scholars. It extended a hand to the leaders of the world’s Christian churches and denominations, including His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, in a call for peace and harmony between the two religions worldwide. The letter, “A Common Word Between Us and You”, outlined the basis of this offering, in the spirit of the shared doctrine of love of God and love of neighbor on which dialogue could be opened.

The handshake was symbolically returned within just over a month, in a letter known as the Yale Response, also published in The New York Times (accompanied by the release of an Arabic translation in the United Arab Emirates). It was written originally by four Christian scholars, and then endorsed by more than 500 Christian theologians and leaders, representing many hundreds of millions of Christians across the globe. 

From this exchange of handshakes has grown an organization based on the expressed purpose to find common ways, in Christianity and Islam, to work together for the social good of all. Grievances are recognized on both sides of the faith divide; it is acknowledged that there are some irreconcilable differences of interpretation on both sides, some difficult questions to deal with.

Sixty leading Christian figures including H.H. Pope Benedict XVI responded to the document in the two years following its issue. A Common Word has been the subject of major international conferences at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, Lambeth Palace, Georgetown University, and other venues. University and college courses have been built around the initiative, it has spawned hundreds of articles and books, won various awards and led to the launch of the UN World Interfaith Harmony Week. Nearly half a million people have visited its official website to date. However, while millions will view the latest YouTube frivolity within hours or days, less than 13,000 have signed up on the Common Word site since 2007 to endorse its intentions and less than 600 people "like" its Facebook page. Now isn't that a tragedy?

We must all hope and pray that the momentum of this initiative is not lost and that the movement continues to fulfill its promise of ever more understanding and respect between these two religions.

Recent events yet again remind us that relationships between the Muslim and Christian worlds are undoubtedly of the greatest importance in forging a more peaceable future for us all, given the sheer numbers involved, and the grievances, differences, prejudices, and caricatures forged out of misunderstandings, which both religions can claim. Nonetheless, other faiths and belief systems must not be ignored. As Professor David F. Ford, Director of the Cambridge Inter-faithProgram has said:

“Our society is not simply secular; nor is it simply religious; it is both religious and secular in complex ways. If it is to work well there need to be huge numbers of conversations and collaborations across religious and secular boundaries.”

From the founding of the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 to the latest A Common Word initiative in 2007 and beyond, has much changed? We have certainly failed to prevent dreadful wars and mass genocides, and we live under greater threats than could have been conceived possible a century ago. We have to continue promoting and forging peaceful dialogue between religions, so that we may come to understand that we are as one in our beliefs to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. This will need plenty of work by religious leaders, who bear an awesome responsibility for ensuring that this unifying message of love and peace trickles down to the mass population: because trickle down it must! And it will need responsible media. We need their cooperation and support in spreading awareness of the good work being done by religions across the world, in informing the general public of this huge social capital that seems to be largely unappreciated.

As individuals we are not let off the hook either. We have an equally vital role to play: in building on empathy and compassion, and love for all, seeking our own ways of bridging gaps, building up from grass roots. Think of stalactites and stalagmites meeting, of ideas trickling down through the hierarchies, and growing upwards from the masses, until we reach a point of coalescence, where there is a total fusion of ideas and actions, coming from different directions: 

all working towards the same common good.

World Interfaith Harmony Week

It doesn't seem possible that a whole year has gone by but here we are again in the first week in February which every year is World Interfaith Harmony Week. This is based on the pioneering work of the Common Word Initiative, which all began in 2007 and which
I wrote about at some length on 3rd and 5th December last year.
Relationships between the Muslim and Christian worlds are undoubtedly of the greatest importance in forging a more peaceable future for us all, given the sheer numbers involved, and the grievances, differences, prejudices, and caricatures forged out of misunderstandings, that both religions can claim. 
That is why this initiative is so important. We must all hope that the momentum of A Common Word is maintained and that the movement continues to fulfil its promise of ever more understanding and respect between these two great religions. 
So let's all recognise and support World Interfaith Harmony Week and A Common Word. 
The Tony Blair Faith Foundation  is celebrating the week by " showcasing personal stories of interfaith encounter – of people from diverse faiths living and working together, and learning from one another...These stories of "My Friend of a Different Faith" can come from anyone & anywhere in the world. We want to provide the world with powerful real-life snapshots of what religion, faith and belief systems really look like - behind the headlines."
Now that's a great idea - let's all put our thinking caps on and contribute using the link to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation site.  It doesn't matter where we are in the world, I'm sure we all have stories to share.

Interfaith dialogue then and now

"From now on, the great religions of the world will no longer declare war on each other, but on the giant ills that afflict [humankind]."

Charles Bonney, 1893 Parliament of the World’s Religions

"World Scriptures will become a shining light,…a precious textbook for educating the younger generation who are to live together as one global family…to overcome barriers between religions, between races, and between cultures…through this text, all people will not only free themselves from religious ignorance and self-righteousness, but also realise the fact that, among religions, there are shared values and a universal foundation which are of greater significance than the differences which have historically divided religions."

Andrew Wilson, World Scripture and Education for Peace, in World Scriptures, October 1991.

"So let our differences not cause hatred and strife between us. Let us vie with each other only in righteousness and good works. Let us respect each other, be fair, just and kind to [one] another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill."

A Common Word Between Us and You, an open letter to all leaders of the Christian churches and denominations worldwide, signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars and intellectuals October 2007

And nothing changes!

A Common Word between Us and You - a dialogue between Muslims and Christians part 2

This is arguably one of the most important books of our time. All Christians and Muslims should know about this initiative.

That was how I ended the blog the other day about A Common Word, the Muslim initiative addressed to Christians, prompted by the Islamic furore provoked in many Muslim countries by part of the Pope’s 2005 Regensburg address.
And the response is said to have been phenomenal. Quoting from the Cambridge Interfaith Programme site, “A Common Word has been the subject of major international conferences at Yale University, the University of Cambridge - facilitated by CIP, Lambeth Palace and Georgetown University, over 600 Articles—carried by thousands of press outlets—have been written about A Common Word in English alone, over 200,000 people have visited the Official Website of A Common Word (and) over 6000 people have ‘fully endorsed’ A Common Word online alone.”

But in the grand scale of things, although these together make for a very promising start, they are but “a drop in the ocean.” As the book so rightly reminds us, there needs to be a trickle down effect to reach the masses, and the learned conferences and articles are but a stage towards that goal. There is a significant proportion of the population that can only be reached by people of influence: by Imams, priests, teachers, lecturers, youth leaders etc. They’re not going to read conference reports and educated commentary. We need that trickle down effect to start working in a big way to reach beyond the intellectual and the well educated, to reach out to the masses, many of whom do not read very widely if at all and may harbour plenty of prejudice born of ignorance and fear. And we need plenty of responsible media reporting and press officers in organizations who can push for that responsible reporting to reach out as far and wide as possible. Because not only can the media be hugely influential in that trickle down effect; They also have the networks to become tentacles reaching out laterally as far and wide into crevices of public ignorance and prejudice as possible. And if we continue the water metaphors, we need Ripples of Hope, because as Robert Kennedy said all those many years ago, in Cape Town in 1966:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

When I think of what needs to be done to promote tolerance and peace, I am reminded of Tariq Jahan, the hero in the Birmingham riots earlier this year after his son Haroon had been killed in the violence. ‘I lost my son.” He said to the angry crowd, “Blacks, Asians, whites, we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home – please.”
Now if every person of influence at grass roots level where there is a choice between violence and anger or dialogue and calm could step forward and speak up for peace between us all in the same dignified way that Tariq did back in August, couldn’t we begin to build a better world for us all?

A Common Word between Us and You - a dialogue between Muslims and Christians

There have been four high-profile cases in recent years where the media in both the West and the Middle East have not been helpful in how they have reported the religious issues involved: these were the incidents of the Danish cartoons, The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sharia Law lecture, the issue of whether Muslim women in Europe should be permitted to wear headscarves, and Pope Benedict's Regensburg address. In such cases the media tend to “over-dramatise the conflict and to under-research the complexities of lived religious traditions in the modern world…In each of these cases, with polarisations between blasphemy and freedom of speech, secular enlightenment and religious prejudice, it was almost impossible for Westerners to discover the full range of Islamic (especially Arabic-speaking) views, with the result that there is a repeated widespread perception that Muslims are stuck in the Dark Ages. Likewise it was almost impossible for Arabic speakers to discover the full range of Western views, with the result that there is a repeated widespread perception that Europeans are irremediably decadent and morally corrupt.” From Nurani

Ironically, one of those incidents initiated a response from the Muslim world that may yet prove to have been the catalyst for building a greater respect and understanding between the two most powerful and influential religions, Islam and Christianity than has ever been seen, and that the world has long been crying out for and so desperately needs.
A Common Word was born out of the address made by Pope Benedict XVI in September 2005, Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections, given at the University of Regensburg where he had once been Professor of Theology. Part of this Regensburg address was taken as provocative and insulting by certain parts of the Muslim community, and sparked mass street protests in many Islamic countries. Pakistan called on the Pope to retract what they called "this objectionable statement.” The Pope apologised to Muslims and assured them that the passage quoted did not reflect his own views. Relations between Muslims and Christians at that time were stormy and deteriorating. Into this climate a letter was launched, printed in The New York Times in October 2007, signed by 138 leading Muslim intellectuals and scholars. It extended a hand to the leaders of the World’s Christian churches and denominations, including His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, in a call for peace and harmony between the two religions worldwide. The letter, “A Common Word Between Us and You,” outlined the basis of this offering, in the spirit of the shared doctrine of love of God and love of neighbour on which dialogue could be opened.

The handshake was symbolically returned within just over a month, in a letter known as the Yale Response, also published in The New York Times, (accompanied by the release of an Arabic translation in the United Arab Emirates). Written originally by four Christian scholars, it was endorsed by more than 500 Christian theologians and leaders, representing many hundreds of millions of Christians across the globe. This exchange of handshakes has produced astonishing results. From these exchanges has grown an organisation, based on the expressed purpose to find common ways, in Christianity and Islam, to work together for the social good of all. Grievances are recognised on both sides of the faith divide, it is acknowledged that there are some irreconcilable differences of interpretation on both sides, some difficult questions to deal with, but nonetheless the initiative seems to be making a great impact.
“The response, in which the Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme has been deeply involved, has been phenomenal. To name just a few initiatives:
H.H. Pope Benedict XVI and sixty other leading Christian figures have responded to the document in the two years following its issue.
A Common Word has been the subject of major international conferences at Yale University, the University of Cambridge - facilitated by CIP, Lambeth Palace and Georgetown University.
Over 600 Articles—carried by thousands of press outlets—have been written about A Common Word in English alone.
Over 200,000 people have visited the Official Website of A Common Word.
Over 6000 people have ‘fully endorsed’ A Common Word online alone.”

And it is now all in a book, A Common Word,
perhaps one of the most important books of our time. All Christians and Muslims should know about this initiative.