Interfaith Issues
The Diocesan Adviser in Interfaith Matters is Dr Philip Lewis email
Within a period of 40 years Britain has seen the number of Muslims rise to 1.5 million. In the Metropolitan District of Bradford the Muslim population has risen from l% in 1961 to a projected 20% in 2011 (100000). This new Muslim presence in Britain and Western Europe represents the most important religious change since the Reformation.
The challenges for Bradford churches are
- How to develop the art of creative co-existence while respecting the missionary imperatives of both traditions.
- How to go beyond seeing Muslim communities as a problem or a threat, but rather as a rebuke and an invitation to recover a Christian contribution to public life. Islam is not a privatised faith.
- How to manage being the minority faith in some areas.
This is the cutting edge of mission today, and Bradford is seen to be at the forefront of these issues. It represents in microcosm the challenge for Christians throughout the world, and if we get it right, we have an enormous amount to say to the wider Christian world.
Initiatives
- The Diocese has established remarkable relationships of trust with the Muslim leadership here.
- The issue of what will count as an appropriate sustainable Christian presence in Muslim majority areas is currently being discussed in an ecumenical forum.
- Support systems for clergy struggling with these issues (in which they may have not been trained) are being developed. (Two clergy recently went on study leave to Pakistan to understand the communities amongst whom they are working.)
- We have developed a unique multi-faith hospital chaplaincy team. It includes Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus and Jews, so that the spiritual needs of patients may be met appropriately.
