Building Bridges – Christian Muslim Dialogue
On April 7 2006 the Church Times reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury had attended a “Building Bridges” seminar in Washington the previous week and said that both faiths should be working towards a world where "different societies recognised the credibility, the justice, and the legitimacy in each other".
Dr Williams said that Islam did not have to adopt a “Western Model” secular humans rights framework. In fact, Islam also had a tradition in which human rights were recognised: "It is sometimes assumed that there is one discourse of human rights, that is, a Western and secular one, which is being marketed in an uncritical and insensitive way to the rest of the world."
We had to acknowledge that while faith communities had genuine differences which were not going to go away, such communities had to work together and trust each other because no religion or nation could solve the world’s problems alone.
It was a tragic setback to this kind of collaborative working – indeed it was outrageous - when there were threats against the lives of Christian converts from Islam like the Afghan, Abdul Kahman.
The Building Bridges seminar was attended by about 30 Christian and Muslim scholars from around the world.
