Title: Windows For Understanding' Lutheran-Muslim-Jewish Relations ELCA NEWS SERVICE
November 20, 2006
Windows For Understanding' Lutheran-Muslim-Jewish Relations 06-182-FI
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and ELCA Global Mission developed an online resource to "create healthier and deeper perspectives for the present and future of Jewish, Muslim and Lutheran relations." "Windows for Understanding: Jewish-Muslim-Lutheran Relations" is at http://www.ELCA.org/ecumenical/interreligious/windows.html on the ELCA Web site.
"In the history of the ELCA we haven't had a single foundational document which has allowed us to think together about the relationships among Lutherans, Jews and Muslims," said Dr. Michael R. Trice, associate director, ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations.
Windows for Understanding "gives us an opportunity to speak with our Jewish and Muslim friends and neighbors and to talk together about the issues that are important for all of our communities: How we understand our faith, how we understand authority, how we understand the vitality of these particular beliefs," Trice said.
"This resource allows us an opportunity to come within hailing distance of one another, which is to say it gives us a chance to talk with one another in a nonthreatening way," Trice said.
"Within this resource you have an opportunity to link to all kinds of organizations that are Jewish, Muslim and Lutheran," he said. Readers can "look through a glossary with terms that are clearly identified," he said.
Trice said the online resource also "allows Lutherans to reflect critically upon their own heritage and what makes them Lutheran. That's a very healthy way of engaging others and at the same time understanding our own faith."
"Lutherans are really well-positioned to have relationships with both Jews and Muslims in the United States and elsewhere," said Dr. Carol S. LaHurd, coordinator, Peace Not Walls Campaign, ELCA Global Mission. U.S. Lutherans have "devoted a lot of energy to renewing relationships with American Jews," she said, and they have "very close ties with the Christian presence in the West Bank."
LaHurd said the primer "is an attempt to give everyone an introduction to Judaism and Islam and to do that in the light of our commitments as Lutheran Christians and how that can facilitate our having relationships with Jews and Muslims."
"A resource that may help us separate out the essence of the three religions from some of the extremist expressions of those religions is a timely thing to do. So, that's part of our goal," she said.
"It is especially pressing right now with regard to understanding Islam just because of global events," LaHurd said. "We saw the reaction to the controversial Danish cartoons. We saw the reaction to Pope Benedict's statements recently about Islam and also events like the war in Lebanon and the insurgency in Iraq. All of those things increase the perception of religious polarization. Even if it doesn't actually increase polarization, it increases the perception that polarization is there."
"Increasingly, Americans and members of ELCA congregations are encountering Muslims in the workplace, in the schools, in their neighborhoods," LaHurd said. "In a recent study, 50 percent of the people polled had a favorable view of Islam, but if the people interviewed knew even one Muslim personally, that jumped up to a 75 percent approval rating," she said.
LaHurd pointed to another poll the Washington Post and ABC News conducted in March 2006. "In that poll 46 percent of Americans said they had an unfavorable opinion of Islam," she said. "Ironically, that 46 percent is double what it was in early 2002, right on the heels of 9-11. That's telling us that global events and media coverage of extremist elements in Islam are probably both having an effect on people's attitudes."
"That makes our release of this primer perhaps even more important, and it underscores our hope that we, by giving people a little education about Islam, might encourage them actually to build friendships with Muslims in their own communities," LaHurd said.
Trice noted that a Lutheran-Jewish Consultative Panel of ELCA scholars, lay and ordained, has met for more than a decade to advise the ELCA presiding bishop on Lutheran-Jewish relations.
"Through the work of the Lutheran-Jewish Consultative Panel the ELCA repudiated Luther's anti-Semitic writings, which was a very healthy step forward for this church and how we understand ourselves as an inter-religious neighbor in the world. It was an important move on behalf of Lutherans and on behalf of this church," Trice said.
In recent years the panel helped develop the ELCA's Guidelines for Lutheran-Jewish Relations, he said.
Panel members provided "critical reflections" and "very helpful suggestions" that have and will continue to inform Windows for Understanding, Trice said.
"One of the things about the resource that is most helpful is that it is an online resource, so it can be refined and amended where we need to," he said. -- -- --
Information about ELCA Global Mission is at
http://www.ELCA.org/globalmission/ on the ELCA Web site.
Audio of LaHurd's comments is at
http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/061115A.mp3 and http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/061115B.mp3 and of Trice's comments is at http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/061115C.mp3 and http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/061115D.mp3 and http://media.ELCA.org/audionews/061115E.mp3 on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org http://www.elca.org/news ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog