Contemporary Christian-Muslim Dialogue

Twenty-First Century Initiatives

Douglas Pratt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781317160892
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book introduces and examines the work of two significant 21st century Christian – Muslim dialogue initiatives – "Building Bridges" and the "Christian–Muslim Theological Forum" – and gives close attention to five theological themes that have been addressed in common by them.

An overview and analysis, including inception, development, outputs and significance, together with discussion of the select themes – community, scripture, prophecy, prayer and ethics – allows for an in-depth examination of significant contemporary Muslim and Christian scholarship on issues important to both faith communities. The result is a challenging encounter to, arguably, a widespread default presumption of irredeemable mutual hostility and inevitable mutual rejection with instances of violent extremism as a consequence.

Demonstrating the reality that deep interreligious engagement is possible between the two faiths today, this book should appeal to a wide readership, including upper undergraduate and graduate teaching as well as professionals and practitioners in the field of Christian-Muslim relations.

1 Introduction

Christian–Muslim Dialogue

Introduction

Christian–Muslim dialogue has had a chequered history. Islam, soon after its inception, quickly shaped up as an alternative religion to Christianity. Christian reactions were mixed, but largely negative. Many regarded the new faith as a heresy, heaping all sorts of opprobrium onto Muhammad. Yet, as many have since observed, Islam “developed in both confrontation and conversation with Christians” and out of this context “certain themes have continued to recur as prevailing points of debate and polemic over the centuries” (Siddiqui 2013, 1). In the first decade of the 21st century a number of notable dialogue initiatives have taken place. The conversation continues. Of these, two involving Christians reaching out and engaging the Muslim world are of particular interest. The UK-initiated Building Bridges Seminar and the German Theologisches Forum Christentum – Islam (Christian–Muslim Theological Forum), both of which began in or around 2002, are the subject of this book. In order to properly situate them in context, and so appreciate the wider significance of the contributions discussed below, some background comment is in order.

What are the historical and immediate contexts, and contemporary drivers, for these two dialogue initiatives? To adequately respond to this preliminary question would require a book-length answer, at the very least. For our purposes a brief sketch and pointer will have to suffice. Accordingly, this chapter will give some background comment on Christian–Muslim relations and on contemporary Christian–Muslim dialogue, including on the prospect of new directions that indicate the significance of the two 21st-century initiatives. A final section outlines the structure of the book, and briefly discusses the motif of dialogue as itself a sign of faith in action. The focus of this book is the five themes that have been addressed in common by the Building Bridges Seminar and the Christian–Muslim Theological Forum. Their order – community, scripture, prophecy, prayer and ethics – does not reflect the sequence with which they were items of the two dialogue projects. Rather, it reflects my perspective on them as “signs of faith”. These two monotheistic religions are, first and foremost – and setting aside questions of internal division and differentiation – the two largest religious communities on the planet, and their self-identity as global communities of faith, with a universal message and relevancy, is central to them.

As religious communities, Christianity and Islam are grounded in their respective scriptures. These reflect the impact and significance of the phenomenon of prophets and prophecy. From out of this grounding – communities of faith born of a revelatory track comprising prophets and scripture (among other factors) – and with the beliefs that have arisen therewith and therefrom, there has emerged a variety of practices, the foremost of which is prayer, in which faith – piety – is given corporate as well as individual place and expression. And, finally, out of and accompanying piety there is the practical life of faith that is given ethical expression. For both Christianity and Islam there is a common dimension of living under an ethical demand: the heritage of prophecy and scripture issues in commandments, obligations, duties and applied values. The God in which both faiths believe is a God of love, of mercy, of justice and compassion. And this God expects limitations and boundaries to be observed and rules to be followed. Arguably, in putting the five themes together we have an outline of what being Muslim or being Christian is about. And, perhaps, in examining the discourse of contemporary Christian–Muslim dialogue on them, we might gain an insight into how these themes are understood today and what, if anything, that might portend for the present and future of relations between Muslims and Christians. For, as was acknowledged by the Muslim “Common Word” letter (“A Common Word Between Us and You” 2007, 2; cf. Pratt 2008): “The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians” who, together, comprise over half of the world’s current population. Indeed, this letter observed even then that the intertwining of Christians and Muslims in terms of global social realities and international relations means the arena of Christian–Muslim dialogue is not simply a matter of interreligious nicety: “our common future is at stake” (“A Common Word” 2007, 16).

It is not possible in this book to cover every element of the five themes as addressed by the relevant dialogues. The dialogues themselves were necessarily selective in how these topics were approached – what seemed the most significant dimensions to focus on. Similarly, in my outlining and discussing them in this book I have had to be very selective. The object is not to give a summary or precis of all that was covered in the respective seminars – that would be a very different exercise and result in a much different, and larger, book. Rather, the object is threefold: to introduce the two initiatives; to present an exploration of the five theological themes that have been addressed in common by them; and to reflect on what this might mean for the future of Christian–Muslim relations.

Christian–Muslim relations

At the very beginning of Islam, when the nascent community in Mecca was increasingly ostracised and under attack from fellow Arabs, the Christian emperor of Abyssinia at one point gave the first Muslims shelter and succour. For him, Muhammad was in the line of God-fearing prophets and quite clearly proclaiming a form of faith in God which, if not in the mode of Christian orthodoxy, certainly positioned Muhammad and the Muslims as not alone in being on the margins of that orthodoxy as, indeed, was he. During Muhammad’s time at Medina, where the Muslim community and polity were forged – following the first decade of Muhammad’s prophetic role in Mecca, where he was rejected – a delegation of Christians from Najran were welcomed by Muhammad and permitted to pray in the mosque that had only recently been built. A pact was concluded whereby the Christians “were granted full protection by Muslims of their churches and their possession in return for the payment of taxes” (Afsaruddin 2008, 13).

The origins and development of Islam took place in dialogue and encounter with Christianity, something which “has always made the engagement of Muslims and Christians a most particular dialogue” (Madigan 2013, 245). However, part of this has been the competitive if not conflictual and combative engagement in missionary endeavours by both faiths: “The concept of missionary activity has been central in theological terms and in practice to both Christianity and Islam from the earliest days of their existence. . . . their closeness both religiously and geographically has produced more conflict than mutual understanding” (Tejirian and Simon 2012, xi). Further, and allied to missionary rivalry, a combination of theological similarity and dissimilarity, together with emerging political rivalry as the Islamic empire evolved, resulted in an ambiguous stance towards Christians and Christianity at best; a wholly negative one at worst. Yet, as Afsaruddin notes, given the early Muslim community manifested a “spirit of inclusiveness . . . toward Jews and Christians” (Afsaruddin 2008, 198), there is arguably within the foundation of Islam a positive reference point for dialogue and interreligious relationships with Christians today. Indeed, throughout the history of Christian–Muslim relations there have been many more nuanced forms and dynamics of relationship between the followers of these two faiths than many today probably realise.

As Charles Tieszen has remarked:

History is replete with examples of cooperation and cross-fertilization, of examples where adherents of one community received care, inspiration, or companionship from adherents of the other. Even so, examples of antagonism, dominance, and even violence between the two communities abound as well. Navigating one’s way through the ambiguities of this history . . . can be daunting.

(Tieszen 2018, xiv)

Similarly, Mona Siddiqui reminds us that there is no one single account, or dominant authoritative voice, when it comes to the history of Christian–Muslim interaction, for both “are lived religions with complex histories of conflict and coexistence which have influenced mutual perceptions and understandings over centuries” (Siddiqui 2013, 1). As Islam expanded to take in many formerly Christian areas of North Africa and the Mediterranean basin, Muslims critiqued and derided Christianity’s complex theological doctrines, especially rejecting the ideas of Trinity and incarnation and asserting that, as with Jews, Christians had corrupted their original scriptures. Only the Qur’an was the pure unadulterated Word of God, and the stance of the Qur’an in respect of Christians and Christianity “is at best ambiguous, offering both to those in favour of dialogue and to those against it ample scriptural support” (Madigan 2013, 245).

David Thomas (2018, 3) is one who has observed that “the beliefs and practices which at first glimpse bear close resemblances . . . have led to Christians and Muslims through history repeatedly producing images of one another that distort the truth, often to the point of destruction”. To be sure, it is difficult to change misrepresentations and distorted images once they are “firmly rooted in the general outlook of a whole cultural community” (Watt 1991, 111). Negative portrayals and assessments of one side by the other exist still today in some quarters. But negativity is not the only or last word. Even though misperception and reciprocal reproach have tended to predominate, Thomas (2018, 4) suggests the thread “of mutual recognition and respect” is an important element and needs to be explored and investigated even more fully than has so far been the case. There is evidence of this thread throughout the history of the relationship (cf. Pratt 2020a) as well as evidence in our own day of deepened mutual inquiry and serious dialogical engagement, as we will discover below. From the outset there have been threads of common connection and similarity that have allowed for détente and the sense of being religious allies, not rivals. At other times, for various and often extraneous reasons, this has been reversed as each sees the other in directly competitive terms. Indeed, for much of the history of relations between the two faiths, their followers

tended to regard one another as defective versions of themselves, Muslims looking on Christians as errant monotheists who had abandoned their pristine revelation and in consequence had slipped into irrational and unviable beliefs about God, and Christians seeing Muslims as deniers of the true forms of belief because they had adopted the deceptive versions given in the Qur’an.

(Thomas 2018, 4)

Daniel Madigan once observed that, from the perspective of Christianity, “the Muslim is . . . the other who is problematic because too-much-like-us, or perhaps even claiming-to-be-us” for, indeed, in some ways

Islam presents the same quandary to the Christian as Christianity does to the Jew: it clearly grows out of the same matrix, and yet it proposes an alternative reading of the same figures and the same history of God’s engagement with humanity, a reading it claims is more valid, and definitive.

(Madigan 2013, 244)

Jørgen Nielsen has argued that discussion about relations between Christians and Muslims is often couched within a context of what might be called the “Crusades syndrome”. He uses the term expansively, to denote a mindset and a clutch of presuppositions and received motifs of prejudicial assumption. Crusade language embraces a

whole range of conscious memory of a history of conflict on both sides of the Mediterranean, a memory which to a great extent is mythology. This starts with the earliest capture of the Byzantine provinces of the Middle East and North Africa by Arab Muslim expansion, the Muslim conquest and the Christian re-conquest of Spain and southern Italy, the Crusades themselves, and the growth of the Ottoman Empire in the ruins of Byzantium.

(Nielsen 2015, 416)

The crusade motif was later revived in the 19th century within the context of imperial discourse among European powers and famously applied at the beginning of the 20th century by President George W. Bush in respect to the so-called war on terror. There are now many in the Muslim world who see an ideological advantage in keeping alive the judgement that opposition to, or even a critique of Islam, is proof positive of the West’s (and others’) continuing crusade against this religion.

Contemporary Christian–Muslim dialogue

Dialogical engagement with Islam has been a major factor of ecumenical Church life since at least the middle of the 20th century (see Pratt 2017). Christian engagement with Islam in the modern era – and certainly since the middle of the 20th century – may be construed as a story of affinity and inquiry struggling with an inherent countervailing tendency to antipathy. As well as opportunities for cooperative endeavours, this engagement has raised, and continues to raise, a number of practical problems and theological issues that require continual work to ameliorate if not resolve. Arguably, the nature of the relationship between Muslims and Christians has been ever marked by three fundamental dynamics: mutual antipathy, mutual affinity and mutual inquiry. In the modern era, and certainly since the mid-20th century, the sense of genuinely mutual inquiry – that is, of seeking, together, to understand each other, learn about each other, and strive together for the greater good of the common world we together indwell – has clearly emerged and become active. Such inquiry is born out of the sense of affinity, and given urgent impetus by the realisation of the negative consequences of allowing antipathy to gain the upper hand.

The opening decade of the 21st century has seen new directions and renewed urgency emerging with regards to dialogical relations between the Christian world and the world of Islam, including both Sunni and Shi’a, in a variety of contexts. In November 2000 a bi-lateral Christian–Muslim consultation undertook a review of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Christian–Muslim dialogue activities since 1991. This resulted in the significant “Striving Together in Dialogue” document, published in 2001.¹ Despite a history of largely mutual confrontation, Christian–Muslim relations as fostered by the work of the World Council of Churches had seen many advances. Nevertheless, changing social and demographic circumstances and geo-political relations have contributed, among other factors, to the possibility – even need – for a new modality of dialogical engagement. This is not without difficulty and controversy. Muslim–Christian dialogue has faced “resistance and hesitation”. And still does. A number of reservations and objections to such dialogue are identified in the document including representative disparity, elitism and, ultimately, irrelevancy. What is the point, the end-game, of such dialogue? Scepticism is never far away. Nevertheless, the document claimed that what has been learnt thus far “lays the foundation for a continuing dialogue which is both hopeful and takes account of the contemporary realities” (“Striving Together” 2001, para 9).

The interaction of local and global events, the shifting sands of politics and allied socio-political problems, macro-economic forces, demographic shifts and the march of globalisation generally are cited as among the key issues that confront religious communities. And where religion becomes exclusive by way of reaction and response to such issues, religion can be as much...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: Christian–Muslim Dialogue
• 2. Two 21st-century dialogue initiatives
• 3. The Building Bridges Seminar
• 4. The Christian–Muslim Theological Forum
• 5. Community: The people of God
• 6. Scripture: Word and witness of God
• 7. Prophecy: Proclaiming the Word of God
• 8. Prayer: Communing with God
• 9. Ethics: Responsibility and justice
• 10. Conclusion: Signs and significance
• Index