Ghostbusters
| 07:58 UK time, Monday, 25 September 2006
I've spent a lot of time over the past few days talking to people about talking to the Pope.
On World Update and on the 'other programme' - Reporting Religion - the consensus from Muslims and Catholics is "we have to start talking!"
But there have been plenty of talks. Just try searching the Internet with the words 'interfaith conference' - you'll see what I mean.
I've taken part in some interfaith dialogues myself, with Shia Muslims in the UK. I learned a lot about Shi'ite attitudes to marriage and children.
I was interested anyway, so I'm probably not the kind of person who needs encouragement to dialogue.
The challenge, and it's a tough one, is to get conversation going between people who aren't especially interested in understanding people of different faiths, or who think they know all there is to know about "those others".
There are ghosts.
How are non-Muslims who think Islam is a backward religion (Muslim geographers were using globes when Western thinkers were insisting the world was flat) going to be brought in contact with Muslims who think non-Muslims in the West are still plotting crusades against them (in the UK, political parties describing themselves as Christian won less than half-a-percent of the vote when they stood in the most recent European elections)?
How are the ghosts going to be laid?
Who you gonna call...?
Comments
You're rigt, people need to learn how to listen to eachother