September 25, 2008

The UN Liaison Office of the World Council of Churches (WCC) is co-sponsoring an international dialogue between religious leaders and political figures – including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – aimed at exploring faith perspectives and the role of religion regarding global issues such as poverty, war and prejudice while deepening mutual understanding.

"Religious leaders have an urgent role to insist on dialogue and mutual understanding in addressing conflict and confrontation between nations. This particularly is true in the context of the United Nations," says Rev. Christopher Ferguson, WCC Representative to the UN.

"The goal of this dialogue is to build bridges of peace and understanding, in line with the vocation of religious communities to play a central role in tackling global challenges and building peaceful societies," he adds.

The theme of the dialogue is "Has not one God created us? The significance of religious contributions to peace," and the event will include an Iftar – a dinner to break the Muslim Ramadan fast. It is scheduled to take place in New York on 25 September. Participants will include religious leaders from Christian, Jewish and Muslim and other faith traditions, as well as political figures.

The encounter is co-sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, the Quaker United Nations Office, Religions for Peace and the WCC's UN Liaison Office.

This dialogue is the fourth in an ongoing series of bridge-building encounters since 2006, which faith groups are developing with Iranian political, religious and academic leaders to encourage respectful conversation about the need for religious involvement in peacemaking. The last one took place in New York City on 27 September 2007.

On that occasion, a panel of religious leaders posed a series of questions to Ahmadinejad including queries about his controversial remarks concerning the Holocaust, Iran's nuclear development and human rights issues.

"These encounters cannot be but a respectful exercise of dialogue, but they do not in any way intend to honour any one of its participants or mean that participants endorse each other's views," says Ferguson. "Peace building may at times bring us to meet people with whom we disagree on many important issues. This dialogue is an opportunity for participants to share their perspectives with each other directly."

The WCC has a long history of dialogue and relationship building with religious, cultural and political leaders in Iran.

Questions and answers on this encounter at co-sponsor Mennonite Central Committee website: http://www.mcc.org/iran/meetings2008/index.html.

News story on the third meeting in this series: http://www.oikoumene.org/en/news/news-management/eng/a/browse/21/article/1722/us-christian-leaders-met.html.

WCC UN Liason Office: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3257.

WCC Programme Strengthening inter-religious trust and respect: http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=3143.

World Council of Churches