News

15 Uniting Church Ministers have joined 15 Muslim scholars, Imams and leaders at a landmark interfaith event in Sydney.

The conference titled “To Love God and To Love Neighbour” was hosted by Al-Faisal College in Auburn on Wednesday 17 April 2013.

The President Rev. Professor Andrew Dutney, Associate General Secretary Rev. Glenda Blakefield and Convenor of the Relations with Other Faiths Working Group Rev. Seforosa Carroll led the UCA delegation.

On Sunday 17^th March a service was held in St George’s Cathedral in Perth based on the Commonwealth Day service held in Westminster Abbey. The liturgy was traditional, the music a beautiful rendition of the ancient words, but the participants were from way beyond the bounds of Anglicanism or even Christianity.

The Anglican, Catholics and Uniting Heads of Churches were there or represented and took a role in the service. However there were also representatives of the Sikh, Buddhist, Islamic and Jewish faiths sharing important readings from their faiths.

A choir from Samoa added to the music and students from a variety of church schools took part, particularly in the procession of the flags of the nations of the Commonwealth.

In the forecourt of the Cathedral afterwards a fundraising African meal provided by a group which had involved a number of refugees was served and soft drink and wine provided. This provided a great time for young people and for people of all sorts of backgrounds to mingle and share ideas in the early evening.

Rev Marie Wilson

Reflections on an Interfaith Experience

Jamila Hussain, UTS

Australia has become a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society in which all major religions of the world are represented and it is very important that the followers of different religions should make efforts to get along together with a better understanding and acceptance of their differences and commonalities. For some years now, the Affinity Intercultural organisation, founded by Muslims of Turkish descent and various Catholic, Uniting Church and Jewish institutions have been collaborating in projects to promote interfaith harmony. There have been many interfaith dinners, especially iftars (the meal which breaks the fast in Ramadan) and Passover dinner with the Jewish community, visits to churches and mosques, conferences and seminars and friendly interactions between individuals.

It was therefore with pleasure that I accepted an invitation to join an Interfaith Study tour to Istanbul and Rome in October last year. The tour group was made up of nine Catholics from the diocese of Broken Bay, headed by Bishop David Walker, and eight Muslims, both men and women. The majority of Catholic participants were of Anglo-Australian background, and all the Muslims, except for me, were of Arab or Turkish descent though some had been born and brought up in Australia. The aim was to foster friendship and to increase understanding and remove misconceptions that members of each group might have had about the religion of the others. The tour was for two weeks, spending one week based in Istanbul and the second in Rome.

The Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia is seeking an Education Projects Officer to coordinate and produce educational resources, chiefly for the Relations with Others Faiths and the Multicultural and Cross Cultural Ministry areas of work in the life of the Church.