If you go down to the woods today......

A big part of my job involves helping churches to understand Islam and Muslims and to engage constructively as good neighbours. It's quite a challenge in the current climate of fear and not helped by some Christian voices that would villify and generalise. Every now and then, though, something comes up on the news that makes my job exceptionally difficult, and the controversy over the teddy bear in the Sudanese classroom is one of those instances. I groan, I wince, I shudder.Good dialogue, good neighbourliness requires that we have some uncomfortable discussions too. A colleague of mine has been suggesting that the current metaphors of host and guest for the Christian engagement with our multifaith arena are inadequate. Basically, guests are always on their best behaviour and will try not to say anything too challenging to their host. After all, they're dependent on the host aren't they? Conversely, a host will have a reputation to keep up and not want to turn the guest out. So what is it to be? He suggests that "co-citizens" might be a more robust metaphor. As co-citizens in this world, let's express our disgust for the reactions of the Education Ministry in Sudan. They're not representative of all Muslims, let's not forget that, but with grace, humility and with a determination to hear critiques that come the other way, let's not duck out of the hard-talk. Oh, and if all we do with and about Muslims is the "hard-talk", it might be time to rewind and start being a guest before we can mature into being co-citizens.