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And join our mailing list to keep in touch ..
If you have news, upcoming events, photos, publications, exhibitions, seminars, community action or celebrations to share, please let us know.
The Archbishop of Canterbury invited the Christian Muslim Forum to Lambeth Palace to talk about Public Faith and the Challenge of the Spiritual Life. Professor Mona Siddiqui, Scholar-Consultant to CMF, talked with Archbishop Justin about the importance of prayer in their personal lives and in their respective faiths.
The Archbishop and Professor Siddiqui spoke about the value of Christians and Muslims meeting together.
‘Wonderful to discuss prayer with
@monasiddiqui7 and@ChrisMusForum. As Professor Siddiqui puts it: “Prayer is really about what makes us human.”My main take-away is the hunger for encounter with God that was common to everyone in the room.’
Archbishop Justin
The conversation widened to look at the role of faith in public life, with contributions from an invited audience.
‘I think we need more of this kind of exchange … when we are affected by something, we take that back to our families, our places of work, and that’s how change happens in society.’
Professor Siddiqui
Dr Joshua Ralston, University of Edinburgh, offered some thoughts towards the end of the conversation.
Watch the video here and read through the programme for the day here.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, hosted an event at Lambeth Palace which brought together 50 imams and clergy from 25 local areas to encourage and strengthen local interfaith relationships.
The Revd Mark Fisher, Andrew Stunell MP, Bishop Richard Cheetham, The Archbishop of Canterbury and Maulana Shahid Raza
“Across the country, Christians and Muslims are making huge contributions to their communities in countless churches and mosques, charities and community groups. But, because they are often working towards similar goals, there is great potential for them to collaborate more.
“That is what this conference is about – challenging ignorance and building effective, friendly working relationships, not only between clergy and imams but also between their congregations. Inter faith activity is an important component of the Big Society we want to build, in which people work together for the common good and to tackle shared problems.”
The programme sought to celebrate and publicise the fruitful work done by these local dialogue groups, which are run by both mosques and churches in the local areas as well as in prison and hospital chaplaincies.
One example of the practical outworking of this is the Springfield Centre in Birmingham, a children’s centre that serves both mosque and parish church, as well as the rest of the community. The centre provides holistic support for children’s development and support to families with young children, as well as helping to foster local interfaith engagement.
The event, organised by the Christian Muslim Forum, provided an opportunity for many men and women from local churches and mosques to share their experiences of working with each other, and explore areas where they can work together locally on issues of shared concern.
The Christian Muslim Forum has brought together over 200 local leaders of both faiths since 2006 and will run the event in partnership with the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) and Churches Together in England (CTE). Participants have drafted a letter to go out to churches and mosques, encouraging leadership and congregations to meet and learn from each other.
The highlight of the event was a series of brief speeches by young people of different faiths sharing their thoughts and experiences of inter faith which were truly inspirational and filled us with hope for what the next generation might achieve.
We look forward to telling you about our own Peace Worker’s experiences during Inter Faith Week next week.
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Julian Bond