Seminary talks Islam

Dudley Woodbury

Lamin Sanneh

Everyone involved in a recent seminary conference on Christian-Muslim relations, from the conference organizers to undergraduate students who went to fulfil assignments, felt that good things happened that weekend.

"The Church Meets the Muslim Community," a conference organized by Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Eastern Mennonite Missions (EMM), and Mennonite Mission Network (MMN), was held at the Seminary from Oct. 23 to 26, bringing together people with a wide variety of experience in ministry to Muslims.

"There was hardly a dull moment," said EMM President Richard A. Showalter, in a press release issued jointly by the three collaborating organizations.

"I really liked it," said junior Hanna Martin. She described one of the sessions she attended, a Friday morning speech by Fuller Seminary professor Dudley Woodbury, as "incredible."

Woodbury received top billing in a list of featured speakers that also included Yale University professor and editor-at-large of The Christian Century Lamin Sanneh, Mennonite Central Committee Executive Secretary Emeritus John A. Lapp, and Chantal Logan, co-director of the joint EMM/MCC mission to Somalia.

Woodbury gave the keynote address, "the Kingdom of God in Islam and the Gospel," on Thursday night, and spoke Friday morning on the current state of Christian-Muslim relations worldwide. He also joined Sanneh in a concluding address on Sunday, "This is our Counsel to the Anabaptist Community."

Sanneh spoke Friday morning on "peacemaking and territoriality," comparing historical Christian and Islamic perspectives on pacifism in a speech that drew attention to pacifist thinkers of whom most Mennonites haven't heard, including John of Segovia, who studied Islam in the fifteenth century and concluded that the only way for the Church to approach it was through peaceful dialogue.

John of Segovia thought, said Sanneh, that dialogue would "maintain Christianity's reputation for peace and reconciliation, and was in any case less costly and less damaging than war."

The conference brought together more than the leaders of missions agencies and academics, however: "It was a good variety of Christian people," said junior Kendra Martin, who explained that many speakers were missionaries with years of experience relating to Muslims in the field.

Undergraduate students who attended agreed that it was this perspective that made the conference most interesting. "A lot of people liked the reports from different countries," said junior Kate Waller.

The conference was well attended by representatives from the sponsoring agencies, academics, missionaries, and students from the seminary, the undergraduate program, and the Conflict Transformation Program. More than 220 registered for the conference, and as many as 270 attended some sessions, filling Martin Chapel to capacity.

Conference organizer and associate professor of Culture and Mission Linford Stutzman told Weather Vane that "The Church Meets the Muslim Community" was unique in bringing together so many people with field experience and in the sense of affirmation it generated for a variety of differing missionary approaches, from direct evangelism to more service-based philosophies.

The conference, said Stutzman, brought a "new awareness of the creative opportunities from 50 years' experience of mission to Muslims."