Witnessing to WICS
Last Thursday the Archbishop of Canterbury addressed the World Islamic Call Society (WICS), possibly the first time that an Archbishop has done this. The World Islamic Call Society is the world's foremost Islamic benevolent organisation with members from every corner of the globe. Its mandate is to work co-operatively with Organizations, Muslims or non-Muslims to serve the needs of humanity. The Archbishop had been invited to speak as part of the ongoing global dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
The Christian Muslim Forum is convinced that many of the world's most significant religious leaders are committed to religious dialogue and that high level dialogue is an encouragement to us all. The Archbishop gives us an example of Christian witness which is both clear and uncompromising and is also encourages further dialogue. He explores both what divides and unites us - 'the most important point of convergence remains the belief that God wills to communicate ... Christians and Muslims alike believe that they have been invited by God into relation with him, according to his own free decision. And this means that they are both inevitably missionary religions ... we believe that God has a purpose for all human beings, in a unified community of justice and mercy, a community where the needy are not forgotten, as our Scriptures say, and the hope of the poor is not taken away - a crucial challenge in our present time of economic anxiety when many pressures might so easily combine to take away the hope of the poor. In this area we can certainly work more closely together, especially in Africa, where it would be a tragedy if our differing understandings led us to forget the extreme human need that faces so many and which cannot be relieved by the actions of one set of believers alone.
He then acknowledges 'the fact that we are both missionary faiths with a universal vision of justice also means that we are not likely to come quickly to a full accord. Our understandings of revelation are, as I have suggested, very close in many ways, yet they diverge sharply over the question of the status of Jesus and thus over the nature of the relationship with God that we Christians believe becomes available through Jesus and the Spirit. It is right that we continually seek to grasp more fully and intelligently what one another is saying and move away from distortions; and it is right that we find ways of working together in the face of anti-religious pressure and indifference to the claims of justice and the needs of the suffering.'
This is his vision for dialogue 'What matters then is our resolve to debate only with intelligence, and with gratitude for the good things we see in one another. And it also matters greatly that, when we seek to persuade people of the truth of the gift that we have received, we should resolve not to use false or violent inducements, not to say or believe the worst of one another, not to punish people for the conclusions they come to in good faith. Both our histories have long shadows on them ... but our own age, with all its renewed and in many ways worsened problems of tension between religious extremists, has also been an age in which Christians and Muslims have learned more about one another than they have for centuries and have identified once again the words and thoughts that enable us to speak to one another as kinsmen, not as complete strangers.'
Read the full address here
The Archbishop's outlook and regard for him in the Muslim world has given him opportunities to deliver addresses on the Trinity at Al-Azhar in Egypt and on Christianity at Islamabad University in Pakistan.
See the Archbishop's Gaza appeal on our home page.
Julian Bond
