England and Wales celebrate Inter-Faith week this week (Scotland celebrates a week later to coincide with St Andrew’s Day). When it comes to the relations between the world’s great religions, we tend to hear more about the bad news than the good. This breeds mistrust and reinforces prejudice and ignorance. So a few reminders of the vital good that inter-faith dialogue can bring:
– the remarkable coming together of British religious leaders and communities after the dreadful murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, ostensibly for religious motives, in May this year. We forget that such a united response would have been almost inconceivable 30 years ago. It was the result of years of hard graft building interfaith relations, from Bradford to London to Birmingham.
– the visit to the UK this summer of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, President of the Holy See Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, to see for himself the extraordinary achievements of inter faith dialogue in Britain. So much remains to be done. But the UK remains a model in this pluralistic age.
– the celebration earlier this month in London of 15 years of the Woolf Institute. It was founded in 1998 to study relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims in order, in the words of its founder director, Ed Kessler, “to better understand our society, and thus shape a more tolerant, positive and collective future together”. It has helped to educate a generation of current and future leaders in the value of inter faith understanding. As my predecessor, Francis Campbell, told the gathering at the commemorative dinner, “in its short life the Woolf Institute has become a national asset”. And an important one.
Inter faith dialogue rarely – perhaps never – leads to instant results. Setbacks, especially when we face violence committed in the name of religion, are common. All the more reason to persevere. It is a task in which all who believe in multi-faith coexistence in society can and should engage.