By ACNS staff

The latest issue of the Christian Muslim News Digest, the newsletter of the Anglican Communion’s Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON), looks at the World Council of Churches’ visit to Palestine and Israel and possible inter-religious initiatives for peace in the region. It also features a report on a call by Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, Al-Azhar’s Grand Imam, for educational reforms to combat radical interpretation of Islam.

“Reports about atrocities committed in the name of Islam by extremist groups tend to crowd out other news that portrays Islam in another light. This issue of the digest helps to redress the balance,” says David Thomas, Professor of Christianity and Islam at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

The digest includes a report on attempts to ensure a just settlement between Palestinians and Israelis and the part played by the World Council of Churches. “It has been noted that too often the peace process has done the least to attract the participation of those with most energy and incentive to undermine it. Another group that has invariably been ignored in this conflict is the Christian Churches,” points out in the commentary Anthony O'Mahony, Director Centre for Eastern Christianity, University of London.

The digest also tackles a call by the Sheikh of al-Azhar in Cairo for changes to education in Muslim countries that will counter the distortions of Islam propagated by the extremists. “I believe that educational reform is several steps better than simply treating extremist Islamism as a security issue to be defeated by locking people away or executing them,” writes Dr Bill Musk, Area Bishop for North Africa, Diocese of Egypt.

This is the second issue of Christian-Muslim News Digest produced by NIFCON in 2015. Open and loving relationships between Christians and people of other faiths, support for Christian religious minorities and exchange of information and ideas on interfaith concerns are among aims of the network.