LIVING IN A MULTI-FAITH WORLD
Why do United Methodists dialogue and meet our neighbors?  "A sad truth of human nature is that it is hard to care for people when they are abstractions, hard to care when it is not you or somebody close to you."  - An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina (manager in Hotel Rwanda)

Resources from CCUIC dialogue  at Annual Conference 6/12/04
Internet Resources Internet resources document
Beliefnet http://www.beliefnet.com/
Book Resources Books for Multifaith
NIC Media center Resources Multifaith videos and CD
Workshop model Dialogue model used at Conference
Interfaith Relations Newsletter from National Council of Churches December 2006 Pdf
Call CCUIC for further information
Creating Interfaith Community -  Local Church Mission Study 2003-2004
Study book by R. Marston Speight $4.65, available from General Board of global Ministries, Service Center 1-800-305-9857 maito:SCorders@gbgm-umc.org  Supplementary Adult Small Group Study: Faith Questions What Do Other Faiths Believe: A Study of World Religions by Paul Stroble (Abingdon Press), and World Outlook Magazine Creating Interfaith Community - March/April 2003
Special Issue devoted to interreligious context for mission, relationship with other religions nwo-new.html

Also see NIC Media Center resources, http://www.gbgm-umc.org/nillconf/stindexW.html#
Religions and World Pluralism Project of Harvard University Pluralism Project  by Harvard researcher Diane Eck -- especially CD "On Common Ground: World Religions in America". Eck is author of A New Religious America: How a "Christian Country" Has Become the World's Most Religious Diverse Nation. (Harper 2001)

Jewish Christian relations
The Institute for Christian & Jewish Studies
 exists to address the contemporary challenges of religious pluralism by helping to shape a new relation-ship between Christians and Jews
http://www.icjs.org/who/index.html

Religious Conversion - Issues of pluralism & secularism
The scriptures of both Christianity and Islam call for believers to spread the faith. In Islam it is called Da'wah and in Christianity it is called evangelism. United Methodists and Muslims are neighbors. Have members of your confirmation class, your youth group, ACYM, college students and others organized their thoughts? (also see below: Ecumenical/Interreligious Formation )

STATEMENTS CALLING FOR DIALOGUE AND RELATIONSHIPS

June 2005 Northern Illinois Conference Resolution
Encouraging Local Church Ecumenical/Interfaith Dialogues

2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church Resolution
Our Muslim Neighbors

Sept. 2004 World Methodist Council executive statement on Witness in Christian and Islamic Cultures   . World Methodist Islam Statement

Religious Freedom Day on the Hill on June 20, 2006 ,General Commission on Church and Society

  2005/1426 First Session of Dialogue Between The International Islamic Forum for Dialogue (IIFD) & The Middle East Council of Churches  (MECC)
Common Declaration

Training PowerPoint on Muslim Islam Dialogue from United Methodist GCCUIC
(downloadable) Muslim UMC Dialogue

The Future of Muslim-Christian Relations in the Middle East - Pluralistic Panel of Lebanese clerics and scholars  (Druze, Muslim and Christian) came to UMC churches and North Park Univ. April 16-19 to discuss current events.
Listen to them discuss some issues such as majority/minority rights or conversion/national unity in a radio interview.  radioislam.com April 16 -1450.asx    Flier  html flier   

Time Magazine, June 30, 2003 Should Christians convert Muslims http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030630/ [small cost for download]

 Interview with scholar Tariq Ramadan contesting Huntington's idea of a Clash of Civilizations Radio Free Europe 2004

FX network TV - 30 Days  "Muslims and America," features a Christian from West Virginia who agrees to live for 30 days in the Michigan Muslim community and describes his struggle with post-9/11 anti-Muslim prejudice."  See responses on the message boards.   See link and click Episode Guide" Muslims and America
http://www.fxnetwork.com/shows/originals/30days/main.html

Muslim views of obligation to practice Da'Wah [do a Google search on Da'Wah - as in Christianity a range of views]

Modern American Islam - First American Muslim seminary (New York Times need to register for whole article)  nytimes.com/2006/06/18/us/18imams

Discussion on NPR Religious conversion is a private matter, right? Then why does it have social and political consequences? Gretchen Helfrich and guests discuss religious conversion. Guests: Jean Comaroff Anthropologist at the University of Chicago, Gauri Viswanathan Director of the Southern Asian Institute at Columbia University in New York City, Danilyn Rutherford Anthropologist at the University of Chicago. Listen to the Entire Program February 11, 2003 WBEZ-FM NPR www.wbez.org/

Sermon by Rev. Kenneth Crooks 7/20/03   Sermon1pdf    Sermon2pdf   Sermon3pdf

Article on Pluralism and Christian Commitment in Theology Today by Lamin Sanneh. Volume 45

Muslim-Christian Encounters: Governments under God by Lamin Sanneh who teaches missions and world Christianity and history at Yale Divinity School. He is an editor-at-large of The Christian Century. This article appeared in The Christian Century, December 2, 1992,Muslim-Christian Encounters Governments under God.htm

Harvard International Review Winter 2004 issue Religion
Volume 25, Issue 4 Religion Beyond Beliefs includes articles:  Holy Orders - Religious Opposition to Modern States by Mark Juergensmeyer Resisting Modernity - The Backlash Against Secularism by Karen Armstrong http://www.hir.harvard.edu/

Progressive Muslim Groups were discussed in a Christian Century article 11/15/03

Do Christians and Muslims Worship the Same God?  Christian Century 2004 articles by Jon D. Levenson, Lamin Sanneh, J. Dudley Woodberry, Wesley Ariarajah and Umar f. Abd-allah, with a study guide.     christiancentury.org/studyguides

MPAC  sponsored program "Progressive Islamic Thought and Human Rights,” Dec 2003
      Muslim Public Affairs Council http://www.mpac.org/default.aspx

 Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
http://cmcu.georgetown.edu/

The Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations - Hartford Seminary
Many good articles
http://macdonald.hartsem.edu/default.htm

Touchstone Methodist Centre, Bradford and West Yorkshire, Great Britain
Interfaith Work - shared with NIC-CCUIC after reading of our Declaration of Relationship with Musilims in CIOGC
http://www.touchstone-bradford.org.uk

Read also:
Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism, edited by Omid Safi - One World Press, Oxford 2003
The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - Continuumbooks, London 2002

MODEL OF DIALOGUE
FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUES
The Muslim / Christian training workshop "That we may know one another" sponsored by Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America (BPFNA) held in Naperville on May 15, 2004  was very successful.  33 Muslims and Christians were together for a full day of dialogue to promote understanding of one another, led by facilitators from Toronto, NY, Aurora and Naperville. The organizing committee for the event is planning to invite the 33 individuals back for another get-together in October (details to follow). In the meantime, FOR Chicago would like to expand outreach in the following ways: If your organization is interested in holding a similar workshop in your community, we will be happy to assist you in putting it together.
On July 18, 2004 All-Saints Episcopal Church in Western Springs sponsored an excellent panel discussion consisting mostly of Muslims and Christians who participated in the May 15 event. David Meade, a member of our Executive Committee, was the chief organizer. If your church, mosque or organization is interested in holding a similar event, we can arrange it.
For more information. please contact Ellen McManus, 847-256-0456, Lee McKenna duCharme lee@bpfna.org and Tabassum Haleem CPA, Organization of Islamic Speakers  Midwest, Naperville - Tabassum Haleem  630.848.1475 - www.oismidwest.org
Read about the FOR and BPFNA outstanding model of Muslim Christian dialogue, May 15.  Description of event and techniques

  Methodists United for Peace with Justice

Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance  Information on "A Formula of Agreement" re: communion between four Lutheran and Reformed communions   Religioustolerance.org

"EMERGING" (rather, "foundational") issues needing future development here .
        A dynamic behind so many ecumenical and interreligious impasses between communities, or within a community like United Methodists, is our hermeneutical presuppositions.  The Wesleyan Quadrilateral helps, but behind that even, is how "experience" built the four -- including revelation as an experience.   The "one and the many" is an ancient formula question.  Within a psychology of how we know what we think we know, modern United Methodists generally function by William James' "Radical Empiricism and the Pluralistic Universe."  

NEW AND RELEVANT       ON FAITH AND REASON
with Bill Moyers
Interview with Salman Rushdie (author The Satanic Verses)  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/
The series of interviews began June 23, 2006, and can be seen weekly on PBS and in archives
"In a world where religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?"  - Bill Moyers
Series will include discussions with Jeanette Winterson, Will Power, Margaret Atwood, Richard Rodriquez.

        Another "household" = "ecumene" issue needing resourcing here is how to have society e pluribus unum? T he Trinity manages unity and diversity with koinonia.  But so much of church-state controversy is a zero sum, win-lose game between partisans.  There are probably hermeneutics behind this also, but the dialogue is stuck on symbols like "In God we Trust, the 10 commandments, hijabs in schools, holidays.
        We are all called to be prepared to make a defense for the faith by which we operate in dialogue, in annual conference sessions, and in society.   .  Those committed to the inclusive experience are going to be challenged with other contending integrites, including excluding experience.  Be prepared!
     P.S. These kind of issues are being debated among our Abrahamic colleagues.     A May/June 2006 p. 66) posting from Tikkun (Jewish renewal magazine) quoting Shaul Magid.  "while Israelite monotheism posits a universal God, in Judaism that God is one who chooses and elects one people (Israel).  Hence monotheism can be, and has been a weapon to discredit other claims of revelatory truth.  One can even go further to argue that radical monotheism naturally functions that way.  Monotheistic religions, even those that are ostensibly 'universal' (e.g. Galatians 3) are wed to the notion of exclusion.    That exclusionary aspect of monotheistic religions does not travel well in the twenty-first century's multicultural and flattened world.  As...[argued]...classical monotheism cannot easily bear the weight of the 'poly' nature  of contemporary experience. "
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