Over 100 young Londoners of different faiths and none gathered in St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate an interfaith iftar, together with the Bishop of London, Sarah Mullally, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn. Following the initial celebration in St Paul’s, the group moved to join the Chief Rabbi and enjoyed an iftar meal in the nearby Guildhall.
The event, organised annually by the Naz Legacy Foundation, is held in a new religious setting in London each year. Traditionally, an iftar is the meal eaten by Muslims after sunset during Ramadan. This year’s visit to St Paul’s marks the first time such an interfaith event has been held in the Cathedral, highlighting ever-strengthening interfaith unity in London.
During the event, the young attendees discussed ways to celebrate diversity and bring communities together. They spoke of the importance of understanding other people’s traditions, and the sense of empowerment brought about by attending such a gathering in St Paul’s.
Speaking at the event, the Rt Revd and Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE, the Bishop of London, said:
“What this has demonstrated is that everyone is welcome – people of all faiths and no faith – because that’s London. There is no more important time than now for people of all backgrounds to come together to rejoice at what we have in common, but also celebrate our differences. It is the powerful combination of diversity and unity that helps us thrive and benefit one another.
“I’d like to thank the Naz Legacy Foundation for bringing this event to St Paul’s, and all the young people who attended, whose genuine interest in and enjoyment of each other’s cultures is inspiring.”
When is the Lord’s Supper to be celebrated in a London mosque with the Muslim leaders present?
Never, I would think.
Congratulations to Justin Welby for destroying Bishop Richard Chartres legacy with a liberal female bishop.
It’s just heartbreaking.
Agreed. History would have been different if Richard Chartres had been chosen for Archbishop of Canterbury instead of Rowan Williams.
But he wasn’t was he?
Because he didn’t fit the programme designed by the people who really control things..
The Marxist secular humanistic State has no place for the Christian God. So they make sure the right kind of people get picked to lead the Church.
People who won’t appeal to the masses in the way Pope John Paul the Second did.
They want people who are slightly weird, slightly odd ball, perhaps with some unsavoury secret or other to hide.. and they’re pliable..
Anyone who thinks that in the UK we’re going to get Godly, righteous, courageous and holy men to lead the establishment church is truly deluded..
Maybe a new alternative denomination to the Church of England is about to be born. I wouldn`t be surprised. It already happened in the United States and Canada, Brazil, next will be New Zealand.
God can work with and through any denomination, but because we humans are both tribal and hierarchical. Even in the Kingdom of God there are various ministries, but all working together
12 “Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptised by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body – whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free – and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 And so the body is not made up of one part but of many.”
So whilst as Christians we need leaders, they are there to fulfil a specific task in the Body of Christ, and every cell in the Body is there to play a certain task.
I think over the centuries the major denominations have become overlaid with the values of the world.
Holiness and spiritual devotion have given way to pomp and ritual and manoeuvering, horse trading and hiding that which should be exposed to the light.
If the leadership of the CofE repented and purified itself and re-dedicated itself to serving God’s interests, I think it would rejuvenate the whole Body of Christ in the UK.
Maybe a new alternative denomination to the Church of England is about to be born. I wouldn`t be surprised. It already happened in the United States and Canada, Brazil, next will be New Zealand.
The Londoners celebrating differences and diversity (which is commendable and praiseworthy) is one thing and Londoners celebrating an interfaith iftar in a cathedral is another thing.
In welcoming an iftar celebration at St. Paul’s Ms Sarah Mullally has presided over the soft opening of St Paul’s mosque.
I don’t think this is the work of a liberal. Good liberals, while may stretch the boundaries to nuance the substance of the faith, do not betray the faith. This is the work of a person who has had very little experience in Christian ministry and very poorly prepared for the role.
This whole state of affairs looks like a snapshot of the whole of CofE.
Agreed. This is what happens when you have bishops made bishops because they were secular managers.
Theology is now almost entirely absent from the pews of the Bishops of the Church of England. We need Shepherds, godly and wise, humble and faithful.
You are right, Fr K. I think this is why some dioceses have even set themselves up as corporations . I know of one such diocese — I think it is the metropolitan See of Melbourne, Australia — where the cooperation handles all the clearances for clergy and licensed laity for ministry. The bishops have taken a hands-off approach to all of this and are nominal shepherds.
I don’t have faith in those who appoint or elect previously secular mangers to the episcopate either. In the case of the CoE, we have +Welby who was a secular manager in the oil business (compared to others, with very little ministry experience himself) now trying to manage the CoE and the Communion. No wonder why we are in this mess. ?
I heard a C of E evangelical incumbent say a few years ago that if his next bishop were a woman he would simply regard her as his CEO. Sometimes what you wish for…
It also reveals a disappointing ignorance of Islam.
Did no bishop of clergy know that there is a certain Islamic prayer that when it is said, and it will be said in Arabic, claims ownership of the building in which it was said for Islam?
Maybe they did and figured such a prayer is just… well who knows what they think, but if Islam ever takes the ascendancy that prayer will come back to haunt them…
One does wonder how long the Church of England can be maintained as the “established church” in a future where vastly larger numbers of English citizens attend a mosque than a church. The cathedrals are little more than public auditoriums and museums at this point- and the logical outcome of the current direction is that sooner or later they will be hosting both Muslim and Christian services. One can predict that there will likely be a demand that senior Islamic clergy get the same representation in the House of Lords as the CoE bishops. Will an “established multi-faith organization” replace the CoE?
I daresay that the British, or at least the CoE, have forgotten that the war (or police action, or anti-insurgency, or whatever the press chooses to call it) they are fighting in Iraq and Syria today began in 622 AD, and while there have been occasional lulls, has been almost constant since that day. This is not an exoneration of the West or Christianity, which have probably broken the various treaties and armistices as often or more often than the various Islamic empires and leaders, but the notion that either religion is a true religion of peace seems absurd from the historical point of view.
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” said our Lord..
“Over 100 young Londoners”
Strikes me that if they were serious about addressing climate change, they would not be holding dinners for 100 people in 10,000,000 cubic foot buildings that require 10s of millions of BTUs to heat and cool. But they can make up for it, I suppose, by next week holding a meeting for a group of CoE interfaith bishops and CoE bureaucrats to discuss how the laity need to cut their carbon footprint.
But it does add 100 people to the CoE attendance statistics. And does begin the process of re-purposing the cathedral as a mosque at whatever point in the next decade that Islam overtakes the CoE as the national religion.
Cynicism is a cyn..
If it was simply an iftar, which is a meal, it isn’t a violation of sacred space. If it was preceded by the ritual salat, the Muslim evening prayer, in the Cathedral, then it was a violation.
If I jumped too soon, I do apologize. Perhaps “interfaith celebration” means something different in CoE than it means in TEC. The “interfaith celebrations” I have witnessed in TEC have included an imam in the pulpit and prayers or readings from the Koran. If it was just several speakers saying “isn’t it wonderful we can all get together and have a meal together”- essentially using St Paul’s as an auditorium with good acoustics- that’s great. It is all our hope that people in London and all other places can live in peace with one another.
But photos of the event show that the pre-meal “celebration” did indeed happen within the sacred space of St Paul’s, and various clergy identifiable by their dress. I have not seen a video to demonstrate who said what, or a program for the event listing speakers and content.
Thanks, TJ. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they DID prostrate themselves toward Mecca and say the shahada, but I don’t like to assume it.
I would not be surprised either
I think Katherine that you are putting the most charitable interpretation possible on the event. It seem to me that calling the meal an “iftar” gives the game away.
An “iftar” is the evening meal which breaks the daily fast. It is preceded, by carefully observant Muslims, by the usual sundown ritual prayer. Many Muslims simply go to the supper. If the prayers were not said in the Cathedral, then it’s a community meal, not a religious ritual.
It’s a religious ritual regardless.
If you follow what is happening to Christian communities in Islamic nations -(and it’s not hard to do!) you would realise that Christianity is rapidly disappearing in these nations. In fact Christianity is now officially the most persecuted religion in the world.
And all the time weak and politically correct Western ‘Christian’ religious leaders are hosting Islam,
making concessions to Islam,
and not asking why, in the spirit of religious reciprocity, they aren’t invited to speak in mosques …
Islam will succeed where Nazi Germany failed.
It’s a religious ritual regardless.
If you follow what is happening to Christian communities in Islamic nations (-and it’s not hard to do, check out Open Doors), you would realise that Christianity is rapidly disappearing in these nations. In fact Christianity is now officially the most persecuted religion in the world.
And all the time weak and politically correct Western ‘Christian’ religious leaders are hosting Islam,
making concessions to Islam,
and not asking why, in the spirit of religious reciprocity, they aren’t invited to speak in mosques …
Islam will succeed where Nazi Germany failed.
In about 1974 I read in “Cathedral Age” the begging journal of the “National” cathdral about an interfaith event. It included a muslim issuing the call to prayer from the pulpit, the place where the Gospel is to be read. Desecration of a church; I knew it was in high school. Every time I see it happen again, and it does regularly, the news coverage includes many happy smiling faces. The biggest grins must be the Muslims. They are thinking “This is going to be much easier than we thought”.
[…] – like this Christian man in the UAE who organises iftar and feeds 700 observing Muslims, or this Cathedral which hosted an iftar in London – and I remember the same happening while living in Senegal. Why not Ghana and/or elsewhere? […]
We need to know why this was necessary. This seems like a very weak so called Bishop giving ground and appeasing. Maybe she should try asking to break Bread in a mosque. Has she ever tried it?