Ecumenical consultation demarcates common ground for dialogue with Islam

Christian communities should improve their knowledge of Islam, be good neighbours to Muslims and bear witness to their faith in an appropriate manner, according to an international group of church leaders and experts on Christian-Muslim dialogue.

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	Douwe Visser

Their recommendations were put forward at an October consultation aimed at developing an ecumenical Christian theological understanding of dialogue with Islam. Convened by the World Council of Churches (WCC), it gathered 50 church leaders and experts on Christian-Muslim dialogue in Chavannes-de-Bogis, outside Geneva, Switzerland.

Several representatives from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) took part, including the general secretary, Setri Nyomi, and the executive secretary for Theology and Ecumenical Engagement, Douwe Visser.

Participants acknowledged a history of “mixed” relationships between Christians and Muslims, with both positive and negative dimensions. On their part, Christians have seen Muslims both as friend and rival, neighbour and stranger.

However, participants agreed, Christianity teaches to love the neighbour regardless of race, gender or religion. Even more, Christian self-understanding is challenged and deepened through relationships with Muslims, while Christians themselves are renewed by entering into dialogue with them.

For this dialogue to be fruitful it needs to be sensitive, including a careful use of traditional Christian language like mission, witness and conversion. And both church leaders and communities need to be educated in the knowledge of Islam as Muslims live and present it.

While attitudes among Christians towards Islam are diverse and rich, different contexts and experiences of living together with Muslims inspire different theological approaches.

The consultation identified a number of issues to be addressed in further dialogue with Muslims, among others: human rights, conversion, concepts of secularism, pluralism, and citizenship, as well as the use of religious symbols for political ideologies and religiously motivated violence.

Participants also recommended further Christian-Muslim collaboration on issues such as social and economic justice, climate change, peace and the healing of memories.

Organized by WCC together with a number of Christian World Communions, including WARC, the World Evangelical Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church, the consultation was the continuation of an ecumenical process responding to “A Common Word,” a letter signed by 138 Muslim scholars and addressed to Christian leaders around the world in October 2007.

Rather than producing a written response to the letter by the Muslim scholars, the goal of the consultation was to provide a space for churches and communions of churches to share their initiatives and theological resources for engaging with Muslims, and to identify substantial issues for Christian theology in relation to Christian-Muslim dialogue.

“Living together in community must take the centre stage of the Christian-Muslime dialogue,” Catholicos Aram I, head of the Armenian Apolistic Church (See of Cilicia), said in a keynote address.

“The prevailing misperceptions, ambiguities, polarizations, tension and collision (of values between Muslims and Christians), hijacked and sharpened by politico-ideological and geo-political strategies, can be transformed only through a shared life in community.”

Visser said following the consultation that while the topic of the consultation was Muslim-Christian relations, many of the essential elements of Reformed theology were at the centre of the conversations.

“We discussed the Trinity, the nature of scripture, salvation, conversion and the presence of God outside of the church and the Christian faith. Dialogues, especially the one with Muslims, do give a critical focus on our theological self-understanding and so they are a challenge for the Reformed world.”