wfn.org | Christians and Muslims tell each other they need to face differences

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Note #7475 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

17-October-2002
02404
  
Christians and Muslims tell each other they need to face differences  
  
by Laurie Spurr 
Ecumenical News International
 
GENEVA - Muslims and Christians should not play down their religious
differences but rather face them and learn to respect them, a leading
Orthodox prelate told international political and religious leaders gathered
here Oct. 16.  

"Religious identity is stronger than ethnic or cultural identity. It tends to
build walls between people. However, we cannot allow these walls to stand,"
asserted Aram I, Catholicos of Cilicia, who is co-moderator of a three-day
international interfaith conference in Geneva sponsored by the World Council
of Churches (WCC).  

Called "Christians and Muslims in Dialogue and Beyond," the meeting brings
together top religious and political leaders from Muslim-majority countries
such as Iran, Libya, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, and Christian-majority
countries in Europe and North America with the aim of building mutual trust
between the faiths and finding ways to live together.  

Dialogue between Muslims and Christians has taken on renewed urgency because
more people than ever before are living in communities with members of other
religions. Also, fundamentalism was taking root in many places around the
world, said Aram I, a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church and moderator
of the WCC's Central Committee, its main governing body.  

"We must not fall into the temptation of understating the existing
differences in order to effect an easy compromise," said the Lebanon-based
Orthodox clergyman, pointing to what he called "significant differences" in
the "moral and social values" of the two religions as well as in their
theological teachings.	

Christians and Muslims interpret liberty, democracy and human rights
differently, he said, with "concrete implications to our communities living
together in one place." The two religions, he said, also "perceive the nature
and role of religion, civil society and the state quite differently."  

"We must be courageous in accepting our differences. In fact, we are
different in many respects and we should remain so," he said.

Abdelouahed Belkeziz, secretary-general of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference, said, however, that with the spread of modern education and
science, "partial doctrinal differences between Islam and Christianity have
started to decline."   

"Consequently, we should be able to narrow our differences, particularly as
we all belong to the people of the Scriptures, and are followers of revealed
religions which all stem from a common source," the Saudi-based theologian
asserted.  

The conference is the latest in a series of interfaith dialogues that have
been held world-wide, in such cities as Assisi, Atlanta, Cairo and
Johannesburg, after the 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S. For the WCC, it
represents the most recent effort in more than 30 years of promoting
Christian-Muslim dialogue, Konrad Raiser, the WCC general secretary, told
participants.  

Raiser said the various international inter-religious meetings had "probably
given too peaceful and harmonious an impression of the relationship" between
the two faiths, given the "distorted presentations" of each community by the
other that had gone unchallenged, and the "religious sentiments" that had
"been mobilized" since Sept. 11, 2001.	

"As Christians and Muslims, we share a religious obligation to work for the
common good of all people and to resist the forces of disintegration and
exclusion," Raiser said.  

Aram I in his address said that the Geneva dialogue set out to increase
mutual understanding so that the two communities could come to trust one
another.  

He called for conference participants to "reject ignorance, arrogance and
pride" and to "break through our isolation, our self-centerdness and our
self-sufficiency," calling the dialogue "an invitation to live life
responsibly."  

In places where Christians are a minority, governments have to develop
systems "based on equal rights and full participation," he said.  

In communities where Muslims are a minority, a lack of interaction between
Muslims and Christians "breeds mistrust, intolerance and, potentially,
violence," Aram I argued. 

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