Acommonword.com Update
GodVoter.org response:
Soon after
our response to
acommonword.com was issued, acommonword.com was re-contacted as copied
below.
This video sheds light on the truth about Islam.
Dear Muslim Leaders of acommonword.com,
It has come to our attention that you have placed our response of January 31,
2008 to your "A Common Word" near the bottom of the exceptionally long "Media
Resources" page of www.acommonword.com as a "Blog Commentary".
Our response is neither a "Blog" nor a "Commentary" nor a "Media Resource."
Issued and co-signed by
Christian leaders
from multiple Christian denominations, it is a response from Christian leaders
and therefore should have been placed on the "Christian Responses" page of
acommonword.com.
We trust that the misplacement was unintended and not a deliberate attempt to
bury our legitimate response where few are likely to find and read it. We kindly
ask you to correctly place our response in the section titled, "Responses from
Christian Leaders" on the "Christian Responses" page of your website.
Please also be advised that we are still awaiting your reply to our proposal for
a joint declaration to respect the religious freedoms of both Muslims and
Christians, with which to proceed forward.
Thank you in advance.
GodVoter.org
On March 3, 2008, the following response was received from acommonword.com:
Dear Sir
I pray that this finds you in good health.
I have moved your article to the "Responses from Christian Leaders" section on
our website.
Regarding your request for a response, the website is an information resource
for everything related to "A Common Word Between Us and You" and cannot provide
you with a formal response as requested. However, I have forwarded your message
to the organizers of the message and have been assured that it will be an item
on the agenda the next time they meet.
Yours sincerely,
Sulayman Hart
The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought
Since then, the Muslim organizers of A Common Word have met numerous times but
have been silent to our proposal for the joint declaration, which
called for
reciprocally respecting religious freedoms, as follows:
1. We respect Muslims' freedom to gather in peace and safety to
worship Allah, including the freedom to build mosques, in both Muslim and
Christian areas. Likewise, we respect Christians' freedom to gather in peace and
safety to worship the God of the Bible, including the freedom to build churches,
in both Christian and Muslim areas.
2. We respect Muslims' freedom to print, import and distribute the Qur'an to
Christians, and Christians' freedom to access and read the Qur'an. Likewise, we
respect Christians' freedom to print, import and distribute Bibles to Muslims,
and Muslims' freedom to access and read the Bible.
3. We respect Christians' freedom to convert to Islam, and we respect Muslims'
freedom to convert to Christianity.
Since our proposal for mutual respect for religious freedom was tabled but
unheeded, it appears the Muslim authors of A Common Word are interested in
their religious freedoms but not ours. Specifically, they want to build mosques
in Christian lands but don't want churches in theirs; they want Christians to
read the Qur'an but to keep Muslims from reading the Bible; and they want
Christians to convert to Islam but cannot respect Muslims converting to
Christianity.
Needless to say, their failure to accept our proposal hardly comes as a
surprise, but it does say something about the intent of their original document.
GodVoter.org