A Shared Commitment to God and Each Other
A Response to 'A Common Word between Us and You'
from 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, Jordan and signed by 138 international scholars.
This key message of the statement is full of potential and hope for engagement between 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 realised. 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 neighbour. The message of Jesus, who for Christians is Lord and Saviour, is that our neighbour is the person we least expect, who we may mistakenly perceive as an enemy, when, in fact, everyone is our neighbour. 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 inter faith organisations in the UK.
We are especially pleased to respond to this statement as a body which is both Christian and Muslim. 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 modelling 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