Beyond the Dysfunctional Family: Jews, Christians and Muslims in Dialogue With Each Other and With Britain

This book is the fruit of 15 years of face-to-face interfaith dialogue between practitioners of the three Abrahamic faith communities, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The focus is on how the dialogue cannot be avoided if we are to build a society based on shared humane values. Theological questions are interwoven with a narrative of how tortured relationships from the past do not have to determine the future. There are 16 contributors but it is definitely not a collection of unrelated essays. The book builds in argument as writers interact with one another. It is a work of critical thinking, but free from unnecessary jargon. The authors are convinced that the next phase of religious identity needs urgently to embrace the growing dialogue between religious traditions, both as a search for a fuller account of religious truth and in the cooperation needed for overcoming the impression of endemic violence which many associate with religious conviction. The three religions share a positive sense of the goodness of creation, moral purpose in history and believing as a dynamic enterprise of persons. This book embraces a critical approach in all of these matters and accepts that such an approach is positive in outlook leading to a future based more on respect and mutual learning than on the suspicions which have characterised much of the past. Although the book's context is the place of the three communities in Britain, it is also clear that the dialogue which it embodies will also contain lessons for other contexts beyond the confines of the shores of the United Kingdom alone. The beauty of this book is that it does not aim for dispassionate analysis. Over 15 years the contributors learned the value both of listening deeply and of responding empathetically, including sometimes sharply, to one another. They ended up convinced of their need of one another for the sake of a religious identity which will be more authentic for the 21st century if it is shaped by critical friendship. From now on it will not be possible for Judaism, Christianity and Islam to exist in isolation if the real truth of our human religious situation is to be grasped.

The three editors of this volume are experienced teachers in their respective traditions, celebrated authors and dedicated participants in interreligious dialogue over many years. Many of the other contributors to the book are also valued authors in their own right. The Revd Dr Alan Race is Anglican Rector of St.Margaret’s Church, Lee, in south London and the Editor-in-Chief of Interreligious Insight, the journal of the World Congress of Faiths. His books include the classic ’Christians and Religious Pluralism’ and ’Interfaith Encounter’. Rabbi Tony Bayfield was formerly Chief Executive of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain and directs the theological Christian-Jewish dialogue project of the Council of Christians and Jews. Among his edited books is ’He Kissed Him and They Wept’, a book of Catholic-Jewish encounter. Dr Ataullah Siddiqui is Reader in Religious Pluralism and Inter-Faith Relations at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education, Leicestershire, and the author of ’Christian-Muslim Dialogue in the Twentieth Century’. All three editors are well-known conference speakers, in Britain and internationally. This book is designed as a model of reflective practice, with authors responding to one another to the critical thinking generally. They believe that the dialogue between religions is important both as a theological challenge and as a social/educational resource for transformation about the meaning and impact of religion in society as a whole. This book is the fruit of a shared enquiry, where all of the contributors are practising intellectuals, rooted in their communities yet committed to mutual accountability in belief and practice.