After some of the unpleasantness of recent discussions, it is so encouraging for me to hear that someone like Carl Madearis is being given a platform by the New Wine network, offering a perspective on Christian mission and Islam. He will be a main speaker at the New Wine leaders conference and comes with a mission background and credibility yet clear mandate to model the life of Jesus in truthfulness and service to Muslims. A friend has been reading through his book, "Muslims, Christians and Jesus", reading to me various chunks that sound like "just what the doctor ordered". If you're off to New Wine, go hear him.
Additionally, Ray Gaston , CofE minister, lecturer at the Queens Foundation here in Birmingham and West Midlands Methodist interfaith adviser, has launched a new blog: Pure, Unbounded Love Thou Art. He's a great thinker and challenge in the interfaith movement. We have some interesting discussions, don't always agree, but he shares a similar distaste for the typical "threefold typology" of religions (exclusivist, pluralist, inclusivist) and wants to see Christian engagement with the other utterly rooted in our faith tradition whilst utterly open in love to the other. His blog looks like it will be a great resource AND he has a book coming out soon.
NB - Ray will be amused to have been mentioned in the same post as a New Wine conference....I wonder, is there a trend towards understanding of other faiths and cultures that cuts across the normal labels of the Christian faith that is actually just more inherently trinitarian and missional?
