In our rapidly changing and progressively globalized world, Christians and Muslims are faced with the prospect of directly encountering and responding to people of other faiths and cultures. This has pushed us all to address the vital question of how best to live with, work beside, and love one another as fellow citizens of our planet. Using resources from Christian theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg, Muslim ethicist Abdulaziz Sachedina, and several others, Winkler argues that we must continually dialogue with one another - not only about the beliefs and practices held in common between us, but also about the ways in which we are distinctively different. Only then can we take the opportunity more comprehensively to understand, appreciate, and cooperate with each other to build just, moral, and cohesive communities of hope in our often uncertain and unsettling times.

Author Anthony Steinbronn examines the postmodern perspective that views the Christian church as only one of many brands in the ideological supermarket. He critiques the position that Christianity no longer has ultimate truth but must take its place alongside numerous other religions. How should Christians respond in this pluralistic age? Steinbronn advocates that we need to know how different religions view the world, humanity's reason for existence, sin and its consequences, and eternal life. Armed with this knowledge, Christians can communicate the truth of God's Word to a world searching for truth and meaning. The book examines : Buddhism; Confucianism; Hinduism; Islam; Tribalism; Modernity.

Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues addresses the key issues in the present day global encounter between Christians and Muslims. Divided into two parts, the first examines theoretical issues and concerns which affect dialogue between the two traditions. The second part highlights case studies from around the world. Chapters come from established scholars including Reuven Firestone, Douglas Pratt and Clinton Bennett, emerging scholars, as well as practitioner perspectives. Highlighting the diversity within the field of "Christian-Muslim" encounter, case studies cover examples from the US and globally, and include dialogue in the US post 9/11, Nigerian Muslims and Christians, and Christian responses to Islamophobia in the UK. Covering unique areas and those not explored in detail elsewhere, Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues will be of interest to advanced students, researchers, and interfaith professionals.

In the aftermath of 9/11 there has been much talk of a need to engage on a meaningful level with Islam, but where do we begin and what is the right approach? This book, available in paperback for the first time, looks at case studies from around the world in order to explore how Christian groups, sometimes as minorities and sometimes as the majority, engage with their Muslim neighbours in the search for a peaceful society. Some of the initiatives are politically motivated, others run by Church authorities and a number are community based, but all offer different approaches to a variety of situations that are encountered in Christian-Islamic dialogue. This is the first time that global strategies for dialogue have been published in one book by a series of leading academics. Whilst previous publications have concentrated on a particular geographical area, usually the Middle East or Europe, this book casts a wider net and considers issues such as the rise of radical Islam in post-Soviet states, Indonesian immigration in Australia and the spread of Islam amongst the Black South Africans after the fall of apartheid. Scholars and all those interested in politics, current affairs, religion or peace studies will find this book essential reading as a guidebook to the state of contemporary Christian-Islamic relations.

Introduction We are living at the moment in an age in which access to the different religions of humankind is of unparalleled range and depth. There is of course a considerable variation from individual to individual in terms of how far people delve into the information about the world faiths which now lies so readily to hand. There remain some cultural enclaves which, either through choice or geographical isolation, are still relatively insulated against outside influences, but the main trends of histoiy, the major currents which puLsc through our time and bear us towards the future, arc inexorably pluralist in tendency. They promote a multifaceted awareness rather than securing the unchallenged dominance of any one religious way of seeing things. Moreover, beyond the immediate impulse of religious pluralism upon us, the resources of modern scholarship allow anyone with the time and inclination to do so to become immersed in an enormity of details about the different faiths. Specific exceptions could, obviously, be cited in the face of this push of generalizations. But utterly dwarfing the significance of these exceptions is the fact that our religious landscape has undergone seismic changes in the course of only a few generations. The principal landmark of the contemporary religious scene is the fact of our being informed (at whatever level) about, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism and so on, rather than knowing about only one religion. In such a situation, how do we decide which, if any, faith to follow? Which of their teachings speak to our particular situation? Which one offers a lens through which the confusion, complexity and apparent randomness of life might be refracted into some sustainable sense-giving vision, according to which we might live, our lives? It is one thing to be a Muslim a Christian a Buddhist or a Sikh and to be faced with the rich plurality of religions, which flourish around the globe. One will then have,

Drawing upon the work of Muslim women interpreters of the Qur'an, feminist theology, and semantic analysis, Never Wholly Other offers a novel re-interpretation of the Qur'anic discourse on religious "otherness." Lamptey challenges notions of clear and static religious boundaries.

The philosophy of religion and theology are related to the culture in which they have developed. These disciplines provide a source of values and vision to the cultures of which they are part, while at the same time they are delimited and defined by their cultures. This book compares the ideas of two contemporary philosophers, John Hick and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, on the issues of religion, religions, the concept of the ultimate reality, and the notion of sacred knowledge. On a broader level, it compares two world-views: the one formed by Western Christian culture, which is religious in intention but secular in essence; the other Islamic, formed through the assimilation of traditional wisdom, which is turned against the norms of secular culture and is thus religious both in intention and essence.