Anglican Communion News Service - Digest News

From BibleLands with additional reporting by ACNS staff

Christians and Muslim must cooperate to meet contemporary challenges

Coexistence is not enough. Christians and Muslims must find positive ways to co-operate and work together, HRH Princess Badiya bint El-Hassan of the Jordanian Royal family has said.

She told an audience at the third annual lecture of the Friends of BibleLands at St James’s Church Piccadilly, London, on Wednesday 2nd May: "I believe that the point, the message of all of our religions is just this: God had given us this wonderful world and instructed us to look after it and each other, to be kind, decent, respectful and useful members of a diverse community, basically to do GOOD! And, what does it mean, ‘to do good’?

“In all of our various faith traditions, aren’t we taught that doing good basically means that we, as human beings, should take care of each other, especially the most vulnerable members of our societies, and that we should look after the world and the environment in which we live. We are all supposed to do this and it is really much more efficient if we cooperate and strive to do so together, after all, we are all in this together, whether we like it or not!"

She added: “I vehemently dispute the view that conflict between Christians and Muslims in the Middle East is inevitable…for us children of Abraham, Muslims, Christians and Jews, co-operation rather than conflict is possible.”

Responding Professor David Ford, Regius Professor of Theology at Cambridge University offered several ‘footnotes’. Christians and Muslims live together:

• in a world that is pluralist, not monochrome
• with an obligation to care for the environment
• with no choice to live within modernity
• with distinct and complex traditions of interpretation which are interwoven
• in belief in One God
• in a suffering world

The Princess added, “It is not correct to think of Judeo-Christian values as distinct from Muslim values. Yes, as children from the same parents we do differ. We differ over doctrinal points and ritual practices. But we share what is most important, believe in an all-powerful God, and flowing from that belief in the values of equality and practical compassion,”

The lecture was chaired by The Rt Revd Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Woolwich (also a member of the Anglican Communion’s Network for Interfaith Concerns), who said, “Princess Badiya's eloquent and impassioned lecture, with its warm endorsement of the humanitarian work of Bible Lands, showed how deeply Muslims and Christians can appreciate and value one another, while fully recognising our differences”.