Christians, Jews and Muslims will gather in Madrid later this month for what could be one of the highest profile interfaith meetings in recorded history.
The three-day conference, hosted by Saudi Arabia, aims to highlight the attendees’ shared heritage as children of Abraham and lists many prominent leaders and figures of faith including evangelist Franklin Graham, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and former Vice President Al Gore.
Also among the 200 prominent religious leaders will be major Jewish leaders including Rabbi David Rosen, the former chief rabbi of Ireland and head of the interfaith committee of the American Jewish Committee.
Although Israel and Saudi Arabia do not currently have formal diplomatic ties, Rosen said that he believes the conference will do much to promote peace and understanding.
"I think that will be a great achievement,” he told The Associated Press.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah said he hopes that the conference, which will be held July 16-18, will help facilitate relations between the world’s three major religions while helping to improve the world’s perception of Islam.
Last month, Muslim scholars meeting in Saudi Arabia wrapped up a three-day conference by calling for efforts to ease tensions within Islam and boost dialogue with Christians and Jews.
In a statement reported by the official Saudi Press Agency, the scholars stressed the need for dialogue with other religions to give a "correct picture of Islam" and to reach "out to other sects of Islam, which will lead to uniting the nation."
They also called for "solving the problems and disagreements that might take place among Muslims and other [non-Muslims] ... and to achieve an understanding among civilizations and human cultures."
Saudi King Abdullah, one of Sunni Islam's most prominent figures, spoke at the start of the conference in the holy city of Mecca and urged Muslims to get on the same page ahead of opening dialogue with Christians and Jews.
More recently, Abdullah has been making efforts to present oil-rich Saudi Arabia as a force for moderation in the Middle East, despite the kingdom's adherence to the strict Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam and its religious restrictions at home.
Religious practice is so restricted in Saudi Arabia that even certain Muslim sects, such as Sufis and Shiites, face discrimination, while conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death.
Christian Post reporter Eric Young in Los Angeles contributed to this article.
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Madrid as in Eurabia?? Why not Jeddah??
Tynegate,,
Since Christ claimed to be God and said no one comes to God except through Him, it is love for God and love for our neighbor that cause us to share the truth with them.
John 10:30-34
30 I AND THE FATHER ARE ONE." 31 Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, "I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?" 33 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, CLAIM TO BE GOD."
Jn 14:6 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
So you are right, the answer to intolerance is for everyone to love God as HE said and to love his neighbor. All people need to do is accept what God has said and there will be no intolerance.
The solution to the problem of interfaith intolerance is at once astonishingly simple in theory and yet seems after two millennia almost hopelessly difficult in practice for most of us.
For Christians, the solution would surely consist of simply following (or should we say at least attempting to follow?) Jesus' two great commandments: To love God (Truth) with all your mind heart and soul, and, in a similar spirit, love your neighbor as yourself. And the neighbor, as it appears from his Parable of the Good Samaritan, emphatically includes those with whom you may have religious differences.
Jesus distilled these moral principles from the very heart of Judaism, and for Muslims we may say they were uttered by a prophet generally recognized in Islam (where God can hardly be named without reference to His Compassion and Mercy!) as second only in authority to Mohammed himself (on him and Jesus be peace).
All scriptural and doctrinal speculation in any religion that is out of harmony with these two Great Commandments is at best irrelevant, at worst a horrendous sin. (To apply the Wisdom of this World to divine revelation can be not only foolishness, as St Paul wrote to his friends in Corinth, but downright blasphemous, should it stir up contempt or hatred.) And yet this sin is so widespread in all religions that it can reduce such a pious and ethically sensitive iconoclast as Christopher Hitchens (recent author of “God is not Greatâ€Â) into repudiating the very existence of a God whom we religious people claim to be worshiping.
The Great Commandments are simple. The inner jihad necessary to turn them into our personal realities is evidently the hardest thing in the world, to judge by the historical record. So the easiest way to cut and run from that supreme spiritual battle is to turn the jihad against your brother. So, in his jealousy, Cain slew Abel. Who amongst us today escapes the brand of Cain?
Perhaps the greatest difficulty in following the Great Commandments is thatyou have to sacrifice all those comfortable feelings of superiority to your religious neighbors. Spiritual pride is the deadliest of sins, the one that Jesus most persistently denounced. Nowhere in his gospel utterances do I find “Be ye Orthodox, even as your fathers were Orthodox. The purity of a loving heart is a surer passport to Heaven than an imagined purity of doctrine.
Thus, all blessings upon King Abdullah’s surely god-inspired endeavors in Madrid.
This conference is a sham. Religious dialogue with Islam is only ever a one way dialogue. Nothing will be achieved by this. The fact that the Saudis chose "Al Andalus" for the conference speaks volumes.
The three-day conference, hosted by Saudi Arabia, aims to highlight the attendees’ shared heritage as children of Abraham . . . .
But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham(John 8:40).
Abraham never used the sword to spread his faith nor did he reject the Messiah (Jesus); Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad (John 8:56).
I like the idea of peace. But this looks like one step closer to world religion.
Gsus 7chord
You have quoted the following....
"You are also right about, not just the "intelligent" Christians, but a lot of Christians can't see the "hand-writing on the wall". It is very, very sad."
Any true Christian recognizes the signs that are being played out here. While this is not rocket science, there is an incredible opportunity for Christians to stand strong in the witness of their faith. And strong we must be.
This meeting in Madrid is only the beginning of a new series of talks aimed at establishing world peace based upon faith and not the strength of any one military.
Admittedly many so-called Christians in the United States do not understand this principle and have long been critical of it as being Old Testament.
This is where we begin to separate the sheep from the wolves. To me this is an exciting time and I very much look forward to the results of this meeting as we take another step closer to the second coming of Christ.
Extract from: “The Truth and the Light Regarding the Christian and Islam Faithsâ€Â, by Ivan Erickson, author of the spiritual novel, “Song of the Storm Windsâ€Â, available via direct links to amazon.com on my website, http://www.ivan-erickson.com - Other discourses are also available for viewing and comments on my site.
The following is the second of six total premises from the above discourse, “The Truth and the Light Regarding the Christian and Islam Faithsâ€Â, of which the rational person will find irrefutable. Please know that I love all people of all faiths and ethnicities of whom God loves, and this is the reason why I continuously toil to bring the Truth and the Light to all those who are seeking:
“The second premise to address is the Islam belief that Jesus Christ was only a prophet – that He was not deity or the only Son of God. In 1 John, 2:18-23 we read: “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the holy one, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth. Who is the liar? Whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Whoever denies the Father and the Son, this is the antichrist. No one who denies the Son has the Father, but whoever confesses the Son has the Father as well.â€Âi In 1 John 4, 1-3 we read: “Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world.â€Âii Also, Jesus Christ professed many times in the Gospel that He was the Messiah, the only Son of God the Father. If the Islam faithful sincerely believes that Jesus was a prophet, how can they at the same time not believe that He was God’s Son? – For a prophet is one who speaks the Truth for God, you seeâ€Â.
Agree with tamna, why can't he hold the so called interfaith meeting in Riyad? is this all the begining of the emergence of the "man of peace"Revelation and 2Thessolonian speaks of, according to this America will have a president who will fit to this situation,sorry for USA.you need to Cry and pray before God,that you will recieve mercy from Christ Jesus.
tamna-
You are also right about, not just the "intelligent" Christians, but a lot of Christians can't see the "hand-writing on the wall". It is very, very sad.
Everybody seems to want peace soo bad that they're willing to try anything - I'm not against that, but let's keep things in perspective.
The real fix to this plight is not the King of Arabia, but the Prince Of Peace.
tamna - You nailed it on the head!!!!!!Thank you!
"...Israel and Saudi Arabia do not currently have formal diplomatic ties..." duhhhh!
Israel can see right through this non-sense, it's just a waste of time or if you look at it another way, they're just buying time, because it's just a matter of time anyway before all heck will bust loose.
"The three-day conference, hosted by Saudi Arabia, aims to highlight the attendees’ shared heritage as children of Abraham...."
Regardless of where the conference is held, this is good common ground to start with.
I also like the fact that Joshua Goldberg (good Jewish name)uses the general term Christian in place of any separate distinction between Protestants and Catholics.
I trust this is in the spirit of the event.
From the article:
"The conference, which will be hosted in Madrid, will be held July 16-18."
And why won't this Saudi King sponsored event be held in Saudi Arabia? Because the "Religion of Peace" in Saudi Arabia does not allow non-Islamic things like BIBLES and CROSSES and JEWS into their kingdom. Yeah, Saudi Arabia is hosting a conference on interfaith relations. Right, whatever.
But the really sad thing is the sheer number of supposed intelligent Christians and Jews that will not see the hypocrisy of it all and end up being nothing more than "useful idiots" (to quote Lenin) to be used in this Islamic PR stunt.