First of all, what is this document? A Common Word Between Us and You is an open letter written in October 2007 by 138 Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals who unanimously came together for the first time since the days of the Prophet to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam.
Recipients included Pope Benedict XVI, all Orthodox patriarchs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the representative leaders of all the major Christian traditions, including the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
It is easy to overlook the aspect of unanimity here. I believe ACW is as much a document directed internally, to seek unity within Islam, as it is an outward document, seeking dialogue with Christians. The tone is not polemical. Its signatories have adopted the traditional Islamic position of respecting the Christian Scripture and calling Christians to be more, not less, faithful to it. ACW invites Christians to dialogue on the basis that we share belief in one God and have a common commitment to love our neighbor.
This is an historic step, and a document of truly immense importance. It is to be received as a gift coming from an ancient religious tradition in which giving gifts is understood as a way of transforming a relationship. Our so-western notion of gift giving is different, sometimes involving “risk.” ACW is a new initiative, given in generosity and love. It is not “a risk.”
The document itself leads to me to these conclusions. The document is neither aggressive nor defensive, but hospitable and friendly. It invites the same kind of response. It testifies to a deep devotion to God, inviting us to search ourselves and respond out of the same devotion. ACW pays close attention to the Bible and invites us to respond scripturally and faithfully.
It has been received through a process of responses. A number of us welcomed the letter immediately, sensing its importance. David Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and one of the leaders of Scriptural Reasoning, the practice whereby Jews, Muslims, and Christians read their scriptures together, initiated one line of response. This was collegial and profound. We had one session working at the response at Princeton Seminary, inviting several professors to join the discussion. David Ford’s draft was brought to a specially-called consultation at Lambeth Palace at the beginning of June. The Archbishop of Canterbury subsequently (July 15) issued his own distinctive and fully reworked response, “A Common Word for the Common Good” (https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/1892).
What is at the heart of these responses?
First, there is close reading and appreciation of what is being said to us. ACW quotes the Shema in the Book of Deuteronomy (6:4-5), Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! / You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength. It also quotes Jesus’ affirmation of this, and his uniting of it to the command to love our neighbor as ourselves: Then one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, “Which is the first commandment of all?”/Jesus answered him, “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one./And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment./And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:28-31)
This is followed — as David Ford has observed — by a truly remarkable passage I quote in full:
In the light of what we have seen to be necessarily implied and evoked by the Prophet Muhammad’s blessed saying: “The best that I have said—myself, and the prophets that came before me — is: ‘There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His is the praise and He hath power over all things”, we can now perhaps understand the words “The best that I have said — myself, and the prophets that came before me” as equating the blessed formula “There is no god but God, He Alone, He hath no associate, His is the sovereignty and His is the praise and He hath power over all things” precisely with the “First and Greatest Commandment” to love God, with all one’s heart and soul, as found in various places in the Bible. That is to say, in other words, that the Prophet Muhammad was perhaps, through inspiration, restating and alluding to the Bible’s First Commandment. God knows best, but certainly we have seen their effective similarity in meaning. …
I have added emphases and underlining to make the argument stand out. What I hope readers will notice is that the double use of the word “perhaps” here allows for openness, exploration, and dialogue. The acknowledgement that “God knows best” reminds us that our knowledge is always limited. However we are to read this, I believe it represents a remarkable step in inter-faith generosity.
Second, in response documents, Christians have rightly and appropriately expounded our own understanding of the love of God. Generally speaking, when ACW speaks of “the love of God,” it means “our love for God.” In the First Letter of John, we are given to understand “This is what love is; not that we have loved God, but that God has loved us … ” (1 Jn 4:10) and “We love because God loved us first” (1 Jn 4:19). Christians have expounded our understanding of God as Trinity. This does not, we maintain, compromise the unity of God, but by understanding God as a unity of love, we see ourselves as intensifying and enriching the unity of God. Christians have also brought our texts to the table, especially drawing attention to the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which the lawyer’s question (“Who is my neighbor?”) is turned around in a way which should be definitive for our understanding of neighbor love, and Jesus’ teaching about love of enemies in the Sermon on the Mount.
In October David Ford and Tim Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad) hosted authors of ACW and Christian respondents at Cambridge University to read scripture together. The object was to deepen trust and to bring together religious leaders and academic institutions. Rowan Williams subsequently invited the group to Lambeth Palace on October 15. In a context of mutual welcome and seriousness, we commended a communiqué (see https://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2005). Together, we declared: “As we were meeting together, we were deeply troubled to learn of the situation in Mosul (Iraq) where threats to the Christian community have further added to the tragic Iraqi refugee situation. These threats undermine the centuries-old tradition of local Muslims protecting and nourishing the Christian community, and must stop. We are profoundly conscious of the terrible suffering endured by Iraqi people of every creed in recent years and wish to express our solidarity with them. We find no justification in Islam or Christianity for those promoting the insecurity or perpetrating the violence evident in parts of Iraq. We call upon the religious, political, and community leaders to do all in their power to promote the return of all persons and communities, including the ancient Christian communities, and ensure a stable environment in which all citizens can flourish. We unequivocally declare that, in Iraq as anywhere else in the world, no person or community should be persecuted or threatened on account of their religious faith. We must all have a particular concern for religious minorities in our midst.”
I commend these sentiments and this dialogue to the prayers of Reformed Christians everywhere, and to study in the congregations of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Iain Torrance is president of Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, N.J. He is a former Moderator of the Church of Scotland and a Chaplain-in-Ordinary to HM The Queen in Scotland.
