A Common Word between Us and You - a dialogue between Islam and Christianity

Occasionally I repeat an article across my blogs. I make no apology for this if I believe it to be so important that I want it to reach as wide an audience as possible. So here is one such repeat.

"Arguably one of the most important books of our time. All Christians and Muslims should know about this initiative."

That was how I ended the blog the other day over on my other site Wisdom of Tolerance about A Common Word, the Muslim initiative addressed to Christians, prompted by the Islamic furore provoked in many Muslim countries by part of the Pope’s 2005 Regensburg address.
And the response is said to have been phenomenal. Quoting from the Cambridge Interfaith Programme site, “A Common Word has been the subject of major international conferences at Yale University, the University of Cambridge - facilitated by CIP, Lambeth Palace and Georgetown University, over 600 Articles—carried by thousands of press outlets—have been written about A Common Word in English alone, over 200,000 people have visited the Official Website of A Common Word (and) over 6000 people have ‘fully endorsed’ A Common Word online alone.”

But in the grand scale of things, although these together make for a very promising start, they are but “a drop in the ocean.” As the book so rightly reminds us, there needs to be a trickle down effect to reach the masses, and the learned conferences and articles are but a stage towards that goal. There is a significant proportion of the population that can only be reached by people of influence: by Imams, priests, teachers, lecturers, youth leaders etc. They’re not going to read conference reports and educated commentary. We need that trickle down effect to start working in a big way to reach beyond the intellectual and the well educated, to reach out to the masses, many of whom do not read very widely if at all and may harbour plenty of prejudice born of ignorance and fear. And we need plenty of responsible media reporting and press officers in organizations who can push for that responsible reporting to reach out as far and wide as possible. Because not only can the media be hugely influential in that trickle down effect; They also have the networks to become tentacles reaching out laterally as far and wide into crevices of public ignorance and prejudice as possible. And if we continue the water metaphors, we need Ripples of Hope, because as Robert Kennedy said all those many years ago, in Cape Town in 1966:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

When I think of what needs to be done to promote tolerance and peace, I am reminded of Tariq Jahan, the hero in the Birmingham riots earlier this year after his son Haroon had been killed in the violence. ‘I lost my son.” He said to the angry crowd, “Blacks, Asians, whites, we all live in the same community. Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home – please.”
Now if every person of influence at grass roots level where there is a choice between violence and anger or dialogue and calm could step forward and speak up for peace between us all in the same dignified way that Tariq did back in August, couldn’t we begin to build a better world for us all?

The Golden Rule

Tom was a young chimney sweep in Victorian England. These lads had a rough life, having to climb up inside chimneys to clear the soot, and no doubt had miserable health as a result. But in those days child labour of this kind was common. The story goes that Tom was chased out of a house by the upper class Ellie, fell into a river, drowned and changed into a Water Baby. There in the water he is introduced to fairies who are responsible for his spiritual and moral guidance. The story continues in The Revd. Charles Kingsley's book, The Water Babies: .....

So far so good. As a young child I recall we had the book, and I loved reading it. What I remember of it now is the role of Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby. What she taught Tom is self explanatory and I have lived with that value, or tried to, throughout my life. But I am no saint. How many of us are?

I thought of this when I heard a newscaster the other day reporting on and discussing terrible events in a faraway place. The news seems to carry such items all too often. But because this is all happening so far away and has no political significance for us, why should we care, she said?! I'm sure I must have heard that wrong, I do hope so, but it did take me back to Tom the Water Baby. Because should we not all care? In my mind I linked Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby with the Golden Rule which is a part of all the World's great religions: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them," Jesus Christ taught us. Christianity is still the faith to which 33% of the world’s population and 78% of North Americans turn for their healing and spiritual nourishment. Indeed the ministry of Jesus Christ reflects the very essence of the Wounded Healer, with his compassion borne out of his own redemptive suffering for mankind.
The Islamic version is as follows: "No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself." Judaism says: "What is hurtful to yourself, do not to your fellow men." I could go through all the faiths - they all basically say the same. Do as you would be done by.
And of course atheists invariably argue that religion is not necessary to ordain moral and ethical values.

So on that basis we should all care, every last one of us, for the lives of all people on the planet. They are all our brothers and sisters. They all deserve compassionate treatment and justice. And we should all be doing all we can to support initiatives that address such issues. I know we are mostly pretty good and generous when it comes to money for disaster relief - but how many of us go further than that? I wonder.

We saw the distress that extreme weather can inflict in the 2005 devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Even those who cannot quite believe or accept the evidence for the part humankind may be playing in climate change cannot deny the extent of human suffering now seen on a global scale. This then becomes more than a debate on climate change. It becomes a matter of human compassion and justice. These injustices brew a potentially dangerous potion of civil unrest and worse. There is a social and moral imperative for us all to share everything, to watch out for each other, to work for global healing. I believe we can no longer ignore our global responsibilities.

But there is another side to this book. Goodness me, in my childish innocence I had absolutely no idea that there were undertones to this story. Perhaps my version was the expurgated one. Children were so innocent then. Anyway I googled and came to the Wikipedia site. It tells me that this was a didactic moral fable, that it portrayed the prejudices of that time, making offensive references to Jews, blacks, catholics, particularly the Irish, and Americans. Not to mention a social comment on child labour. Phew!! The Wiki site is fascinating if you wish to pursue this line of information.


I leave you with the thought I began with. Do to others as you would wish others to do to you.The world would be a much better place if we all followed that simple advice, wouldn't it?