The opportunity

St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace is a unique place in London where people meet to gain understanding of the relationship between faith and conflict – faith as a source of conflict, and a resource for transforming it. It offers a private space in which difficult questions can be asked and where new understandings and fresh approaches can be sought out and nurtured.

A pressing example of a tough and controversial issue is violence against religious minorities in certain Muslim States. We are using the opening of The Tent to publish an early progress report on discussions of this issue that have taken place at St Ethelburga’s recently.   It attempts to offer to a wider, lay audience an illustration of the themes that have emerged.  

We wish to capture some of the complexity of the powerful and emotive issues involved. We also want to put the “persecution” issue in a wider context which we believe will be helpful in promoting the mutual understanding and tolerance required of both sides.

Our central conviction is that conflict between Christians and Muslims, who love the same God, can be transformed. This will require finding ways in which each side can value and gain understanding of the other without having to feel the impossible weight of responsibility for reconciling deep-rooted differences of perception and belief.

We hope that the further exploration of these issues in The Tent will reveal some ways of doing this that will be helpful elsewhere.  We hope it will complement ongoing scholarly and political debates, and, in a modest way, support moves to act on the causes and consequences of this distressing conflict.

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