Sandro Magister has an article on the two days of talks, at the Vatican, between the scholars of Christianity and those of Shiite Islam.
These seven agreed points are the result of the discussion:
"1. Faith and reason are both gifts of God to mankind.
"2. Faith and reason do not contradict each other, but faith might in some cases be above reason, but never against it.
"3. Faith and reason are intrinsically non-violent. Neither reason nor faith should be used for violence; unfortunately, both of them have been sometimes misused to perpetrate violence. In any case, these events cannot question either reason or faith.
"4. Both sides agreed to further co-operate in order to promote genuine religiosity, in particular spirituality, to encourage respect for symbols considered to be sacred and to promote moral values.
"5. Christians and Muslims should go beyond tolerance, accepting differences, while remaining aware of commonalities and thanking God for them. They are called to mutual respect, thereby condemning derision of religious beliefs.
"6. Generalization should be avoided when speaking of religions. Differences of confessions within Christianity and Islam, diversity of historical contexts are important factors to be considered.
"7. Religious traditions cannot be judged on the basis of a single verse or a passage present in their respective holy Books. A holistic vision as well as an adequate hermeneutical method is necessary for a fair understanding of them."
4 comments:
A very good start.
A start indeed. It's a shame, though, that the Shi'ites number only about 10-15% of worldwide Islam, and a number of Sunni Muslims (almost all the rest) like them just about as much as they like us.
There is an interesting parallel between Catholicsm-Shi'ism, on the one side, and Protestantism-Sunnism on the other (with the Wahaabi as the Puritn Calvinists). Shi'a Islam has an attitude to images, for example, which a Catholic would recognise.
It helps to remember that Iranians are not Arabs: Iranian Shi'a Islam difers in so many ways from Saudi Sunni Islam that you mght be trying to compare 1950s Ireland with 1950s Northern Holland.
It looks a lot more honest and ocnstructive than the catholic-anglican crack papering over sessions that regularly occur.
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