It was a lively discussion when 14 Muslim and 18 Christian undergraduate and graduate students met at a hall of residence of the London School of Economics to debate ‘Globalization and Faith’, 15 September 2004. Fuad Nahdi, the publisher and founding editor of the Muslim magazine Q News, had invited Mike Smith, Associate Editor of For A Change magazine, to address the students. He was accompanied by Imad Karam, a post-graduate student from Gaza who is currently working with FLTfilms in London.
The hour and a half session brainstormed on the positive and negative impacts of globalization. They discussed the globalization of the world’s faith traditions and the common core values that they share, including moral and family values; the experience of divine inspiration and intervention; and the import role of personal choice and its impact on the wider world.
Smith suggested that four core values needed globalizing: justice and fairness; forgiveness (which Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks had described as ‘the one word that changes the world’); the inner Jihad or struggle against self; and silent reflection that leads to inspired action.
Summing up, Andrew Smith from Scripture Union in Birmingham said that he would include these four ‘globalizations’ of values in the final conference report. The debate was part of a three-day Christian-Muslim Youth Camp, which was an outcome of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Listening Initiative in Christian-Muslim Relations, 2001-2004, whose report was published in June 2004.
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