Looking Across Faith Groups - FMP Draft

Ques�oning Faith…. with help from: Muslims, Methodists, Catholics, Anglicans, and Atheists

Dear God, I have felt your love, seen you answer my Grandmother’s prayers and seen you help addicts in 12-step programs who trust you but don’t know you.

And yet you condone Man’s inhumanity to man, often in your name, and other catastrophes which you could surely thwart.

Could you not have planned a path to redemption which avoided mass infanticide?

I experienced the kindness of Muslims in Aden in 1961 and the pure faith of Catholics in Cattolica in 1971. I know all monotheistic religions worship you as the only God there is.

Many humanitarian Atheists seem to do God’s will more closely than many hypocritical Faithful.

Help me reconcile my doubts and fears with the tangible love of God I feel in my heart.

Amen

Jesus taught his disciples this prayer which Chris�ans s�ll use today.

Dr Zak Absi, Essex Uni Muslim group leader, thought I was quo�ng from the Qu’ran when I read it to him.

Temple Church, London, 2023

eter’s First Christmas Present, Weeley, 2023

I s�ll have this first Christmas present on my Dressing Table. The icon is prety but the really loving words have sustained me throughout my life.

Muslims believe seeking God is in our nature, but our parents choose the path we take to find God. My parents were Methodists, what if they had been Catholic or Muslim?

Weeley, Essex, 2023

We cannot see, touch, nor hear our God. We come to know God through scripture, teaching, prayer, the acts of others, and some�mes epiphany.

St Pancras Church, Ipswich, 2023

Doubts, fears, and tempta�ons test the faith of all.

Why do so many let them turn us from God’s will?

Adam and Eve had seen God, but disobeyed Him. Lot's wife had been told not to look back but was unable to resist. Peter started sinking when the wind caused him to doubt.

St James Church, Clacton, 2023

God's love is always wai�ng ready and able to help and support us whatever our faith.

My grandmother, a very devout Methodist, let her hand drop when troubled and waited un�l God picked it up and held it, which he invariably did.

Quay Church , Woodbridge, 2023 / Jubilee House, Cosham, 1982

I've been in rehab and seen a higher power helping addicts who did not know their helper. “ We Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”.

Staverton Thicks, Suffolk, 2022

God's presence can reach us unbidden.

Brantham Pond, Suffolk, 2023

As a child I thought Crusaders were heroes and went to ‘Crusaders’ Bible classes as a teenager.

Now I see their quest to kill Muslims as terrorism.

Temple Church, London, 2023 / Trafalgar, Spain, 2022

Is the Crescent suppor�ng the Cross or the Cross domina�ng the Cresecent?

These windows may look old but were restored in 1956-7 a�er being guted by a WWII incendiary.

What does that say of our culture then, and now?

Temple Church, London, 2023

How easy is it to believe in or recruit for the God that allowed Protestants to kill Catholics?

Tyburn Convent, London, 2023

How would a young Muslim mother, knowing about the Crusades, feel taking her children to play here?

Great Bentley, Essex, 2023

In the Marian Persecu�ons Catholics burnt protestants at the stake for heresy.

Did God really let this happen?

Stra�ord, London, 2023

More recently the IRA disobeyed God’s commandments to murder random innocent civilians, and the UDA did likewise.

City of London Police Photos – Permission applied for

Muslim terrorists also commited atroci�es in London but they no more represent Islam than the IRA represent Catholicism.

Tavistock Gardens, London, 2023 / Hyde Park, London, 2023

Atheists I talked to cited four reasons for not believing: • atroci�es in God’s name; • discovering the church lied; • belief that all Gods are man-made; • escaping the clutches of an over-controlling church.

Having escaped they felt liberated…….

Weeley, 2023

Our own experience of goodness across ethnic and religious boundaries is the best rebutal to claims that any Faith Group is terrorist-centric is.

As an eight year old in Aden I was looked a�er with love and care by Arella, an Ethiopian Muslim, and treated with love and respect by Arab shopkeepers.

Steamer Point, Aden, 1961

Walking down a street in Catolica Mary crossed herself. When I asked what she was doing she said: ‘Peter I don’t know what you do in England but in Ireland when we pass the house of a friend we say hello’.

Her answer endeared me to Catholicism to this day.

Catolica, Italy, 1971

On finding my stepson had a heart atack the previous day, a Muslim stranger in a café spent 15 minutes finding an open Church where I could pray for him.

Another good example of coopera�on is a local hospital chapel catering for Chris�ans and Muslims, even offering disposable prayer mats.

Clacton and Colchester Hospital Chapels, Essex, 2023

Kneeling and prostra�ng yourself in prayer may look strange but is not unique to Muslims.

St Sabrina’s Church, Brightlingsea, 2023 / Tendring Church, Tendring, 2023

Feeling unworthy or insufficient to move God's heart we may ask others to pray on our behalf.

We may even ask those who have already passed from this life to pray to God on our behalf.

This is acceptable in all Faiths, but asking for direct miracles is not as that would deify rather than sanc�fy them. Statues are forbidden in Islam.

St Pancras Church, Ipswich, 2023

Muslims reverently cleanse their skin of the dirt of the world, and remove their shoes (‘this is Holy Ground’) before prayer.

Others take a moment of quiet spiritual cleansing.

East London Mosque, Tower Hamlets, 2023 / St Sabrina’s, Brightlingsea, 2023

Muslims do not believe in Jesus’ divinity so celebrate neither Mass nor Communion.

Catholics believe the host becomes the actual body and blood of Christ during Mass and revere and dispose of it accordingly. Consump�on is restricted to confirmed Catholics in good standing with God. Anglicans also revere the Bread and Wine and consume it all but do not believe in transmuta�on.

They welcome any bap�sed Chris�an in ‘good standing’ with God to the table.

In Methodist churches it is a simpler ritual but the reverence and devo�on is equally strong.

St Sabrina’s, Brightlingsea, 2023 / Methodist Church, Great Bentley, 2023

Are we redeemed by God's love, God's mercy, or mysteriously by Jesus’ sacrifice? That is not a ques�on to which I have the answer.

The Parish Church of Saint Leonard and Saint Mary, Beaumont Cum Moze, 2023

Faiths differ regarding Jesus' parentage and divinity.

Some Biblical texts support the Muslim view that Jesus is no more the Son of God than Adam was.

Muslims believe that he was neither, but was the son of Mary. That he was a noble messenger, born miraculously as but not divine.

St Botolph’s Church, Iken, 2023

THIS PROJECT WAS EXHIBITED IN A ONE-DAY POP-UP EXHIBITION FOLLOWED BY A TALK AND DISCUSSION GROUPS. HERE ARE THE ‘REPORT OUTS’ FROM THE DISCUSSION.

Faith is Faith. And sometimes it's your accident of Birth or geography of where you're born that will lead you down a particular path.

It’s not beliefs because the belief systems are very, very similar, aren't they? It's just the way that they're communicated. Some finer points around them will differ just as language is different.

The image I’m taking take away is Faith and people's quest for the divine.

Faith may begin as an accident of birth but it is a personal journey and I think as each of us develops we have a personal relationship with God which has its ups and it's downs and continues to grow if we're fortunate enough throughout our lives.

Well, I think that what I've learnt this evening and in other discussions is that different Faiths have much more in common than we might imagine. We just need to take the time to understand each other better and that's really the thing to take away from this whole process.

The interesting idea I got from today was when we talked about Souls. In a sense, we all believe that God left soul in us as our soul is part of his soul, right? I mentioned the idea that this is why I was sort of sacred. That's why killing is a murder and so’s somebody taking take their own life. Suicide is a murder because somebody's killing themselves, you know, taking this soul that was given to them by God as a gift as a trust that they can't take it out themselves.

I saw the picture of the barrier with the hook and church as Peter did until he told me it was St James’ Church. Then I thought they've changed the chairs. So it's where you're coming from, isn't it? I mean I saw it as the barrier and then when I knew which church it was I was concentrating on the chairs.

I was just going to say more unites us than divides us.

I think we appreciated the images you showed us which Illustrated both difficulties between faiths but much more emphasized the way in which faiths can work together. I was particularly interested in that comment that in working together we're working to do God's work in the world today and that seems to be a real motivation whichever Faith you come from.

HERE ARE A FEW COMMENTS ON THE EXHIBITION.

'religion is OK until humans mess it up' 'my cousin found the road to her wedding rehearsal blocked by a bonfire of burning tyres and youths who said 'no point rehearsing as we are blocking all the roads tomorrow as well'. The wedding went ahead after her Mother made a phone call. 'You need to rein your boyos in. You can’t stop her wedding. Have you forgotten when she sat at your feet in Sunday school as you talked about God's love?'

Crusaders were bad because they sought to impose their will on others. I pray to be given the strength to deal with what is going on in my life and I find that strength comes, I know not from where.

I liked the photographs.. my wife is a Catholic so I had to go to class and promise to bring our children up as Catholics.

The good news is you only need a 'mustard seed' of faith. We 'still get on their knees each night to pray by our bed 'The Crusaders were just soldiers. The Popes looking for territorial control and gains were the instigators' 'You can't preach a sermon on the Trinity without blasphemy' because 'any analogy you use, whilst it may be helpful, can never be exact'.

The Trinity shows us that not only is God love, but that God is about loving relationships. Have you ever seen teenagers in love? They are lost in their own little world. The three elements all loving equally prevents any two forming an exclusive partnership.

The infinity of God is not just to the limits of time and space but beyond those limits....

'I’ve often wondered if you added all the good religion has done, and all the harm, which would outweigh the other' I love the coloured lights and of Eddie preparing for worship I was working in the city at the time of Bishopsgate bombing and heard the Canary Wharf explosion.