| Christian Muslim Forum Analysis | | Print | |
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A Shared Commitment to God and Each Other by The Christian Muslim Forum The Presidents of the Christian Muslim Forum welcome the ground-breaking document "A Common Word between Us and You" produced by The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought located in Amman, Jordan, and signed by 138 international scholars. This key message of the statement is full of potential and hope for engagement among Muslims, Christians and Jews: "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 another and live in sincere peace, harmony and mutual goodwill." However, in the 1400 years of the history of Islam this potential has never been fully realized. We are encouraged that so many leading representatives of global Islam have issued an invitation to dialogue and relationship-building with global Christianity in a way never quite seen before. We are pleased that it has been sent to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the Archbishop of Canterbury (our Founding Patron), Patriarchs of the Orthodox Church, leaders of the Protestant and Reformed Churches and the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches. We fully support the key message of the document that as Muslims, Christians and Jews we have a common commitment to God, and therefore to our neighbor. The message of Jesus, who for Christians is Lord and Saviour, is that our neighbor is the person we least expect and who we may mistakenly perceive as an enemy. Jesus also taught that we must not limit ourselves by forgetting that everyone is our neighbor. This is what religion teaches us and it is rooted in our respective beliefs in God. We commend this letter to our fellow Christian and Muslim leaders, churches, mosques, congregations, Christian and Muslim and interfaith organizations in the UK. We are especially pleased to respond to this statement as a body, which is made up of both Christians and Muslims. We have already recognised our shared task as founded on our common though distinctive beliefs in God and our conviction that as Muslims and Christians we should be modeling good relations and better understanding for the benefit of Christians and Muslims, and wider society, in the UK. This commitment and vision enabled us to host the first national conference for imams and ministers, which we will be repeating (God-willing) in November this year. Similarly we have produced a joint Christian-Muslim etiquette guide which is available on our website. We hope that Christians and Muslims in the UK will study this document thoughtfully and prayerfully as a basis for understanding how Christians' and Muslims' love of God and love of neighbour can be the basis for dialogue and action in common. We also encourage Muslims and Christians who have not already done so to begin to build relationships with each other as neighbours, friends and believers in God. Signed, Bishop David Gillett, Chair Dr. Ataullah Siddiqui, Co-Chair Dr. Mohammed Saeed Bahmanpour Rev. Esme Beswick Bishop Michael Evans Dr. Musharraf Hussain Khalil Kazi Dr. Nicholas Wood |