Coexist House and interfaith tolerance

Not long ago in this blog I wrote about religious tolerance and the importance of education; how respect of different faiths comes from understanding them. For that we need more faith education.

Now I'm fascinated by a venture I read about last weekend in The Times (Michael Binyon: In our global era it is just not viable to "not do God." February 15th p. 85)

parish church Lyme Regis

Basically there is a move afoot to found a centre in London, with international outreach, for the enhancement of the public understanding of religions - from whence interfaith tolerance and respect will come. Of course there are all sorts of hurdles to get over before such a project will become reality, not least of which are the issues of funding, and staffing, and a feasibility study is needed before this will get off the ground. But the idea is supported by the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Inner Temple, and the Coexist Foundation, for a start, as well as Professor David Ford, director of the Cambridge Interfaith Programme, (also mentioned in previous blogs), which has been developing this idea over several years. The centre would be called Coexist House, and the intention is for it to hold lectures, conferences and exhibitions, and act as a resource for all information relating to all faiths. What a wonderful project if this can get off the ground. How necessary this is in our multicultural and multi faith societies where respect for each others' beliefs so often seems so dangerously lacking. Michael Binyon tells us that the scheme has "the cautious support of the Bishop of London … and would seek to work with the new Chief Rabbi, senior muslim scholars, leaders of a range of traditions, and politicians."
Bring it on!

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.”

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.

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.

Why is religion seen as an evil force? Ignorance?

“It is true of every so-called holy text in every religion today that no one has the slightest idea of who wrote them or even when they were written.” Really?

This is from the pen of Darrell Williams, writing on Religious Wars and the Fallacies of Fundamentalism, September 2007, in American Chronicle I found this browsing the web and it is fairly typical of the biased or ignorant reporting that abounds where religion is concerned.
Sir you are wrong, as any theologian or student of religions will tell you!
And here are some more:
A C Grayling in What is Good scorns the religious who he says do good only out of self interest for eternal bliss. Really?
It is reported that in an interview with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, Sam Harris, the popular non-fiction writer and professed atheist, discussed his new book “The Moral Landscape: How Science can Determine Human Values.” During this interview Harris explains that the motivating factor for writing this new book is what he describes as the problem of having only “religious demagogues who think the planet is 6,000-years-old” as the source of morality in today’s world.

Wow!
There seem to be so many militant or angry atheists and humanists today who too often seem to write from an ignorance of matters of theology and religious studies and tar us all with the same brush when it comes to criticism of our beliefs, who tend to trash religion on dogmatic statements of the faith that are barely recognizable to present day believers. We most certainly don’t all believe that the world was created 6000 years ago, and nothing is further from my mind than eternal bliss when I am showing compassion and care to a fellow suffering human being! And so what if we did, or it was?

Why is religion often seen as an evil force, or just simply a “bad thing” when we could celebrate instead its diversity and virtues?

I believe one of the most important reasons behind any attack on religion is ignorance. Ignorance includes a lack of understanding, or a suspicion, of the “other” point of view. And this often fuels fear, and fear fuels general ridicule or worse. Thus Herod ordered the slaying of the Holy Innocents because of his fear that his power was being usurped by the birth of the boy Jesus ‘born to be King’.

The classical Greek Athenian philosopher Socrates is credited with inventing dialectic – rigorous discipline designed to expose false beliefs and elicit truth – in a setting of rational discussion that was not dogmatic but encouraged courtesy, and consideration for the other’s viewpoint. One of the best known sayings of Socrates is "I only know that I know nothing". Too often today, dialogue is aggressive and dogmatic, encouraged, it would seem, by the remote nature of the internet comment forum, where persons are not face to face, in eye contact, and therefore seem to feel they can rant as much as they like.

I belong to the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN), where there is a strong consensus amongst its members that alongside our scientific achievements we have lost sight of the sacred, the spiritual, and our purpose on the planet; that we are in a spiritual crisis as much as a political or ecological one, and that this needs urgently addressing. We are an organization that pushes the boundaries of understanding of all things spiritual, of consciousness, always with a scientific rigour. Amongst the stated aims of the Network, we are called to “encourage a respect for Earth and Community which emphasizes a holistic and spiritual approach,” but whilst we also stand for “critical and open minded discussion of ideas that go beyond reductionist science,” we are meant to be “sensitive to a plurality of viewpoints.” We therefore aim above all else for tolerance and understanding between our many and various ideas and viewpoints, “wacky” as some of them might seem to our colleagues. We stand for open dialogue to further understanding. And this is what is desperately needed in our world today, particularly where our religions and faiths are concerned.

The Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme is committed to offering a distinctive scholarly approach to furthering understanding across the religious traditions, with a focus on Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I quote from its excellent website, with regard to media bias and ignorance:

“Mass media in the West and Middle East do not deliver the reporting we need on religious issues. There is a tendency to polarise debates and parties, to over-dramatise conflict and to under-research the complexities of lived religious traditions in the modern world. This can be seen in four high-profile cases in recent years: the Danish cartoons, Pope Benedict's Regensberg address, The Archbishop of Canterbury's Sharia lecture, and the issue of whether Muslim women in Europe should be permitted to wear headscarves.

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.”

We have to overcome this ignorance and bias. How do we do this? I think that is enough for today - I shall explore this further in a later posting.