Muslims Leaders Warn Pope ‘Survival of World’ at Stake
Thursday, October 11th, 2007More rumblings on the prophetic front. Christians, time is getting so short. Stay faithful and keep looking up.
The “survival of the world” is at stake if Muslims and Christians do not make peace with each other, leaders of the Muslim world will warn the Pope and other Christian leaders today.
In an unprecedented open letter signed by 138 leading scholars from every sect of Islam, the Muslims plead with Christian leaders “to come together with us on the common essentials of our two religions” and spell out the similarities between passages of the Bible and the Koran.
The scholars state: “As Muslims, we say to Christians that we are not against them and that Islam is not against them - so long as they do not wage war against Muslims on account of their religion, oppress them and drive them out of their homes.”
The phrasing has echoes of the New Testament passage: “He that is not with me is against me” - a passage used by President George Bush when addressing a joint session of Congress nine days after 9/11.
The Muslims call instead for the emphasis to be on the shared characteristics of world’s two largest faiths.
The letter, addressed to Pope Benedict XVI, to the Orthodox Church’s Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew 1 and all the other Orthodox Patriarchs and to the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams and the leaders of all other Protestant churches worldwide, will be rolled out around the world this morning in a series of press conferences beginning in Jordan. It is supported by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres.
It is expected to be followed by a joint conference between Muslim and Christian world leaders at on “neutral” ground, such as at an American university.
“Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians is not simply a matter for polite ecumenical dialogue between selected religious leaders,” the Muslim scholars say, noting that Christians and Muslims make up over a third and a fifth of humanity respectively.
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