Distinctly Welcoming

A Christian Engagement with Other Faiths: Two Resources

Rev Ray Gaston has just published his book, A Heart Broken Open. I can highly recommend it as a story of one person's journey into deep and powerfully transformative relations with Muslims. Ray documents the changes he experienced opening himself up to the hospitality of Muslims from a radicalised commitment to the ant-war movement around the Iraq invasion. It's edgy, political, deeply spiritual and infused with repeated grapplings with scripture and Christian prayer as he recounts his journey. You can access a flyer for the book here.

Share the Guide is a site from Fresh Expressions resourcing new models of church in contemporary culture and I've written a short piece helping to provide some tools for thinking about church and other faiths here.

Muslims Ask, Christians Answer - Christian Troll

I was at a seminar presentation at Heythrop College this week by Revd Dr David Marshall on the work of the renowned German Jesuit scholar of Islam, Christian Troll. David was my supervisor for the Masters thesis I completed, has been chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury and taken a leading role in the Building Bridges dialogue programme set up by Lambeth Palace. He's a wonderfully astute and precise academic and it was wonderful hearing him give an overview of someone who has been a mentor to him on Christian-Muslim relations.

Christian Troll worked on a structure of Christian-Muslim dialogue that takes seriously the similarities and differences of the respective faiths; always engaging respectfully and seeking to get behind the reasons for the questions we bring to each other. This method was published in the book "Muslims Ask, Christians Answer", which David translated from the German and is available to download here. It was a reminder of what an invaluable resource this tool is in bringing deeper understanding. I will provide a permanent link to this resource on my blog as it also provides ongoing questions from Christians and Muslims which Christian Troll continues to respond to. The site is a fascinating window into the bemusement that Christian theology and belief often provokes in Muslims, and in Christian Troll's accessible and authoritative style you have a world class Catholic scholar sensitively walking through some of the foundations of, for example, Trinitarian beliefs.

Take a look at the site and let me know what you think. I have to go along with Christian Troll's view that peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims demands this kind of constructive and respectful interaction; an interaction that braves the difference and the proclamatory claims of our respective faiths rather than diminishes them. 

Tony Blair's Faith Foundation and good compromise

I was talking to someone the other day about Tony Blair's new Faith Foundation. This austere site gives the briefest of information about its purposes. In between sorting out ecological meltdown and the intractable divisions of Israel and Palestine, Tony Blair will be giving his attention to relations between faiths in Britain. A whole load of experts and practitioners are being canvassed for their views on the issues of faith and community cohesion and I was intrigued to hear the view expressed that, "It's going to happen, there's going to be lots of money spent, these people don't know what they're doing so let's at least make it happen as well as possible."

This got me thinking about compromise: a word loaded with negativity. But actually, is an engaged life about a whole series of considered compromises? In the church we have ideals (big assumption I know), but those ideals have to inform real practice on the ground. It's not about debunking ideals but living in the tension of what we are and what we are becoming.  A whole series of exciting developments  in the church (Pioneer Ministry, Bishop's Mission Order to name but 2) are to some extent good "compromises". The ideal is that the church organically releases and affirms mission and new leadership; in the meantime broken people and structures fail to do so. Is that a cause for revolution to bring about necessary change or compromise? To resist the compromise and hold on to the ideal is in danger of creating a sectarian church that somehow denies God's grace to transform the whole of life. Seeing God's vision limited to the structure conversely immunises us from the prophetic challenge that we all need to live with. It's the already and the not yet of the kingdom. For many, the church is "already" sorted and fine thankyou very much. For others, it's "not yet" something they wish to be part of/suffer any longer.

So what  good compromises are you deciding to make? The very fact that it is a "compromise" involves decision and cost, and dare I say it, some humility. Are our ideas for interfaith relations, the church, society the best, or do we believe we have to work with and alongside some discomfort to be part of God's work?

Christian Muslim Dialogue - Youth style

Back in July, while UK rivers surged and flooded, I was involved in an outward bound weekend for a group of local Christian and Muslim teenage guys. The theme was "What does it mean to be a man of God?". During the weekend, we went mountain biking in the mud (hence the photo!), did fencing (now there's a model for Christian-Muslim get togethers: do some fencing!), assault courses and canoeing. In between times, some genuine and surprising relationships were forged, commitments made to one another and lots of laughter had! Don't tell anyone, but during one of the evenings, we even played a game that involved throwing around a plastic cartoon bomb that would "explode" if not passed on quickly. The point is, we need to start with the basics of what we have in common and that, funnily enough, is not any doctrinal belief, but our humanity: the teenage guys' need for excitement, humour, poking at establishment and preconceptions. And then we get down to some of the beliefs we share; and then we begin to discover some of the significant beliefs we differ on.....The thing us, taken this way, you end up being obliged to be friends through the difference because you have engaged with the fullness of the other person.

This sort of dialogue is a rare occurrence and it's been my privilege to work with a Scripture Union colleague "Smeeee" and join in stuff he's been putting into practice for over ten years now. Check his site out here and have a look at the stories and guidelines to dialogue. It's small scale but substantial and authentic and it's what is needed mirrored right across our world....and not just for young people!

Alan Alda was being interviewed on Radio 4 last night and he was talking about the need for people to listen to each other. Listening, he said, "requires us to be changed by what we hear". If you're in a  conversation with someone else and all you're doing is waiting for them to stop speaking so you can regugitate a list of things you want to say to the other, it's not listening. That is just a pause. Back in July, we listened to each other and I think we were all changed.....When we was the last time you really listened to a Muslim/Christian?