Anglican Communion News Service

“We fear most what we do not know”. That statement appears on the website of NIFCON, The Network for Inter Faith Concerns of the Anglican Communion. Interfaith issues first appeared in a limited way at the 1988 Lambeth Conference. Five years later NIFCON was founded. The Lambeth Conference 1998 further recognised NIFCON as a way of sharing news, information, ideas and resources among provinces of the Anglican Communion. NIFCON was also charged to monitor Muslim-Christian relations. The mandate that they follow includes

• Progress towards genuinely open and loving relationships between Christians and people of other faiths.
• Exchange of news, information, ideas and resources relating to inter faith concerns between provinces of the Anglican Communion.
• Sensitive witness and evangelism where appropriate
• Prayerful and urgent action with all involved in tension and conflict
• Local contextual and wider theological reflection. 

The last of those mandates has increasingly become important as individuals’ parishes dioceses as well as provinces seek new understandings and appreciation of people of other faiths. The Archbishop of Canterbury wrote of his four 'building bridges of dialogue”- 'friendship not hostility; understanding not ignorance; reciprocity not exclusivism; co-operation not confrontation.'

In many ways NIFCON seeks to bring those words into life

The Coordinator of NIFCON - Clare Amos, the Director of Theological Education for the Anglican Communion spoke of the work and people involved in this Network . 

Mrs Clare Amos Photo Credit: ACNS