Annual General Meeting of Christian Muslim Forum
Thursday 9th October 2008
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who is the Founding Patron of the Christian Muslim Forum, chaired its Annual General Meeting at Lambeth Palace on 9th October 2008.The Christian Muslim Forum is built on friendship between a group of Christians and Muslims, showing how faith is a catalyst for good relationships and welcomes the 'other'. This friendship began with a small group of Muslims and Christians working on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Initiative in Christian-Muslim Relations. This grew from Archbishop Carey's comments in 1997, "For the sake of the health of this country, we need to find ways in which members of our two communities can meet regularly together in a more structured way than has been possible up to now." His remarks were received warmly and positively by leaders of the Muslim community, leading to the Initiative's Listening Exercise between 2002 and 2004.
The Christian Muslim Forum is now a national organization which exists to strengthen joint work for the common good, to develop trusting friendships and respond to current events. Its Presidents are leaders from the different Christian and Muslim denominations and its members include those with specialisms in education, youth, international affairs, media, family and community affairs.
The Archbishop gives his reflections on the Christian Muslim Forum, saying that "One of the virtues of the Forum is that it operates at that grass roots level: that it seeks to build trust and understanding among what for the sake of brevity I'll call ordinary believers and the challenge is to translate the theological and intellectual dialogue with the issues of local and national, social problems."
The Archbishop and other panel members answer questions put to them from the audience.