wfn.org | WCC - Christians and Muslims look at impact of September

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

11 on dialogue

World Council of Churches
Press Release, PR-01-47
For Immediate Use
13 December 2001

Christians and Muslims look at impact of September 11 on
dialogue

cf. WCC Press Release, PR-01-45, of 28 November 2001
cf. WCC Press Update, Up-01-42, of 4 December 2001

Three meetings on Christian-Muslim dialogue at local, regional
and international levels will take place in Cairo, 17-21
December.  

An informal meeting between World Council of Churches (WCC)
staff and about 30 local Christian and Muslim leaders will
consider the educational use in the local context of a recent WCC
publication Striving Together in Dialogue: A Muslim-Christian
Call to Reflection and Action.  

A second meeting will focus on how Arab Christians and Muslims
see the Arab world as such, and in relation to other countries
and cultures, after September 11. The meeting, "Relations between
Nations, Cultures and Religious Communities Today: A Perspective
from the Arab World", is being sponsored by the Arab Group on
Christian-Muslim Dialogue. This group works with the Middle East
Council of Churches (MECC) and the WCC. The meeting will involve
about  30 participants.  

The MECC and WCC will then facilitate a discussion with
approximately 25 scholars and leaders engaged in Christian-Muslim
dialogue from the Middle East, United States, United Kingdom and
Pakistan. This meeting will attempt to assess Christian-Muslim
relations, local and global, after September 11. The meeting is
expected to make suggestions for the future agenda of those
engaged in Christian-Muslim dialogue.  

Tarek Mitri, staff member in the WCC team for Inter-Religious
Relations and Dialogue, says that the main question will be: "How
much do we want the issues raised from September 11 to determine
our agenda in the future? For instance, should we put the
priority on looking at violence, and if so, how should we
approach it to engage in a real dialogue between the faiths?"    
  

For further information, please contact Karin Achtelstetter,
Media Relations Officer, Tel.:  (+41.22) 791.61.53   Mobile: 
(+41) 79.284.52.12

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

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