Jewish leaders endorse Saudi king’s call for interfaith dialogue

Leaders of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) have endorsed a call by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia for more dialogue between Jews, Christians and Muslims worldwide to reinforce common values among the Abrahamic faiths. Ecumenical News International reports:

“It is the duty of all religions to restore respect for humanity,” the WJC said in a statement on 27 May. “Such an initiative demonstrates optimism that dialogue involving representatives of different faiths can help the peoples of the world during difficult times. Discussion can help in finding ways to approach the crisis of ethical values facing our societies.”

In March, while speaking at a conference in Riyadh on culture and religion, King Abdullah said, “The idea is to ask representatives of all monotheistic religions to sit together with their brothers in faith and sincerity to all religions as we all believe in the same God.”

The king was referring to three Abrahamic or monotheistic faiths – Christianity, Islam and Judaism – which are said to account for more than half of the world’s population.

Read it all here.

In other interfaith news Ekklesia reports:

An interfaith television game show, believed to be the first in Britain, in which Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim and Sikh contestants compete against one another for cash prizes is to be broadcast weekly from the London studios of the Islam Channel from mid-June 2008 – writes Martin Revis.

The producer of the show says that two teams of four will answer rapid and multiple choice questions testing both general and religious knowledge, posed by the Muslim comedian Jeff Mirza. There will also be a home-or-away round in which contestants can answer questions on their own faith or the opposing team’s for further points.

Abrir Hussain, who is producing the show called “Faith Off”, told Ecumenical News International, “I wanted to do something to promote good relations and bring a new approach to the interfaith debate other than that of the usual consultative round table format.”

Read the rest here.

Past Posts
Categories