By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
Reuters
Wednesday, March 26, 2008; 11:07 AM

PARIS (Reuters) - The World Council of Churches, which groups the main
non-Catholic Christian churches, urged its members on Wednesday to open
a dialogue of unity with Muslim scholars seeking inter-faith cooperation
to promote justice and peace.

The Geneva-based WCC said it wanted to organize discussions on theology
and ethics with signatories of A Common Word of Unity, a call for
Christian-Muslim dialogue issued by 138 Islamic scholars last October
and welcomed by many Christian churches.

The WCC statement came a day after Saudi media reported that King
Abdullah had called for a Muslim consensus on a unification dialogue
with Christianity and Judaism to end inter-faith tension.

The Vatican has begun talks with leaders of the Common Word of Unity, an
unprecedented initiative by scholars of several Muslim traditions, but
the Easter baptism of an Italian Muslim by Pope Benedict has put a
damper on their initial upbeat mood.

"We are encouraging our churches to consider this invitation offered by
the Muslim leaders as a new opportunity for inter-religious unification
dialogue," WCC General Secretary Rev Samuel Kobia said in a statement on
the Common Word appeal.

The WCC groups over 560 million Christians in 349 churches around the
world, including most Orthodox churches, Protestant denominations and
many independent groups.

It said it issued its response to A Common Word of Unity after
consulting member churches, several of which have already responded to
the Muslim appeal and planned meetings.

ADMIT DIFFERENCES, SEEK TRUST

"This invitation marks an encouraging new stage in Muslim thinking about
relations between Muslims and Christians," the WCC statement said.
"Throughout their shared history, followers of the two faiths have too
often misunderstood each other."

The two faiths had several irreconcilable differences, it said: "Not the
least of these will be the Christian difficulty of appreciating Mohammad
as a prophet and the Muslim difficulty of appreciating Jesus as God
incarnate."

"Both Christians and Muslims must work hard to develop respect where
understanding is difficult and trust where differences do not yield to
inquiry," it added.

While King Abdullah's call for dialogue seemed separate from the Common
Word of Unity initiative, both reflected concern among Muslim and
Christian thinkers to avoid a "clash of civilizations" as globalization
multiplies contacts between the West and Islam.

Aref Ali Nayed, a leading Common Word of Unity signatory, criticized the
baptism of Egyptian-born Italian journalist Magdi Allam as "a
triumphalist tool for scoring points" but the Vatican daily
L'Osservatore Romano said it was not "a hostile act."

While relations with the Vatican are temporarily strained, the Common
Word unification group also plans meetings over the next year with
Anglicans, U.S. Protestants and Orthodox Christians in its effort to
foster inter-faith doctrine of understanding.

Another inter-faith effort, the Islam and the West project of the World
Economic Forum, published a report on Wednesday saying that fewer than
30 percent of Muslims and Christians polled thought the other faith was
interested in better understanding.

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