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| November 24, 2005 | Thursday | Shawwal 21, 1426 |
Archbishop for enhancing interfaith understanding
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 23: Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, believes that building greater understanding between different faiths and trust between their followers can diminish religious conflicts and defeat religious extremism. The Archbishop, who is on a visit to sympathise with the earthquake survivors, expressed the view in a roundtable dialogue on interfaith diplomacy between Christianity and Islam held at the International Islamic University (IIU) here on Wednesday.
The dialogue was the first initiative of the IIU’s recently established comparative religion department.
Dr Williams said interfaith dialogue was not proselytism or an attempt to persuade the other party to give up his religion but interfaith diplomacy was meant to help friends understand the inner message of the religion of the other.
The Archbishop had been engaged in such a project, called Building Bridges, at Canterbury which debated whether personal laws in different religions conflicted with the law of the land and inspired Muslim jurists in the United Kingdom to have a look at the English laws in relation to their own religious beliefs.
However, people as a general rule were cast in the groove of consumerism and were less likely to be receptive in the spiritual reality. The modern age was insensitive to reason and that called for building real trust between countries, he said.
Dr Williams called globalisation a form of imperialism while responding to some participants who spoke about “the Church’s role” in the renewal of imperialism in world politics during the last 200 years.
Former foreign minister Sahabzada Yaquub Ali Khan referred to a book published in 1957 that predicted the upsetting of balance in the superb trichomy of power contained in the United States Constitution and its president behaving more and more like Caesar.
The Archbishop said dialogue was already taking place between the followers of Christianity and Islam. He said he knew British citizens who were neighbours of Muslim residents and spoke of the Muslim people as well behaved and good people in the aftermath of the attacks on London transport system in July.
The Archbishop of Canterbury acknowledged that the respect Islam’s followers accord to Jesus had helped in many ways but said generally Christians and Muslims were ignorant about the faith of the other community which sometimes gave rise to friction. In this context he mentioned attacks on Churches in Muslim countries.
Before coming to the roundtable the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a lecture on Christianity to the IIU students to explain the cardinal virtues of prayers, charity, compassion love and the position of divorce in the Christian religion.
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