The tram was thankfully not full at 7.30am. Not even the ticket verifying machines were awake- all of them out of order! Colin and I attended the 8am session,

‘Calling out to Allah: The Role of Du’a (supplication) in Islam and its benefits for inner peace’. In Islam, supplication prayer starts with the understanding that Allah is perfect in every way and that the Muslim is a Servant of Allah. Supplication is worship, close connection to God and is pleasing to Him. We humans are poor and weak in our understanding and therefore we ask for help from God, the most merciful and most powerful One. Supplications in the Quran and Traditions were presented, as were the conditions necessary for God’s acceptance of the Muslim’s supplications. An Islamic ‘etiquette’ of supplication: Accept God’s  decision; No conditions to our supplications; Continue in prayer; and Be sincere in your heart. Very well presented and thought provoking.

The session was an encouragement to put my requests before God. I am grateful to have been able to learn further of prayer in the Islamic tradition: it has been a long term interest of mine. However, for me there were very important and sad absences: The Redeemer who is always with us and who is redeeming us in every moment; The Holy Spirit who takes our inadequate thoughts and intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words; The Ascended Lord Jesus at the right hand of God interceding for us; and The Spirit inspired Scriptures that speak to our hearts by the indwelling Spirit. As a follower of Christ, I am encouraged to make requests to the Loving Daddy (Abba) God who tenderly cares and has walked with us and continues to walk with us. Also prayers of supplication are a shared heart project with the Triune God, and so it does not depend on me totally but on God’s grace. PTL! 

I find this Scripture so encouraging: Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  [Romans 8:26,27]

Islam came into being at a time following much discussion over the doctrine of the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Colin wonders about Islam as seeking to rescue the transcendent nature of the One God from the turmoil around the doctrine of God caused by the heresies of Arianism and Nestorianism. 

 ‘Poverty Must No Longer Be With Us’. Provided plenty of passion about the need to alleviate poverty and the desire for religious groups to work together but offered only the vaguest of generalities as to how this might actually occur. The immense value of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) as being agreed concrete measures to overcome poverty was affirmed by all the religious groups on the panel. I especially appreciated Sr Joan Chittister on gender issues and greed. Jim Wallis spoke on Jesus’ quote, Matthew 26:11, paraphrasing it as, ‘The poor you will always have with you  and you will have plenty of opportinity to do justice, but allow this woman to worship me here with you today’. Katherine Marshall made an outstanding summary of the difficulties faith based organisations encounter in seeking to alleviate poverty. See her comments on the unwillingness of politicians to engage with faith based aid groups.  Tim Costello chaired the session with admirable agility.

‘Respecting and Defending Human Rights and Humanitarian Principles: An Islamic Gobal Perspective’ was in fact a Sufi, mystical Islamic, approach which saw education and a move beyond legal Sharia Law as the way for human rights to be gained in Islam. The session was somewhat light on actaul events in Pakistan, Egypt, etc and when The Age reporter Barney Zwartz asked about Sharia and the death penalty for apostasy in Islam, there was not a lot of engagement! See his Hated without a cause: faith’s high price . I just wanted to shout “Read the book: Islam: Human Rights and Public Policy, but I contained myself.

‘The Future of Religion in Australia? Melbourne’s Religious Leaders in Dialogue with Young People’  Best question: ‘How would the founder of your faith tradition respond to a meeting (of diverse religious leaders) like this?’ – the context of the question was that there were Christians at the entrance to the centre protesting at the holding of this PWR with banners, “Jesus is the way, the truth, the lif’e”. I think Jesus was pretty used to meeting with religious leaders with whom he did not necessarily agree.

Harold Taylor who taught me ‘Theology of Mission’ as part of my studies at BCV was also at this panel and we caught up. An animated conversation followed and he is sending me some material on a U3A course he is teaching, ‘Contemporary Spirituality’. I have been encouraged to teach a course on, ‘Anglican Spirituality’. What a pleasure to catch up with teachers and friends!

I also had an in depth conversation with an African priest who approached me because he had heard of my interests in the poor and Islam. This is of particular concern for him and we exchanged details and I am to locate some material for him. The differences between compassion (unconditional love), proselytism (seeking religious conversion through offering inducements) and evangelism (sharing my religious beliefs with the prayer that the other may be persuaded to accept those beliefs) are significant: we must keep our intentions clear in our various ministries. See Evangelism is not proselytism.

Further posts can be found at: Parliament of Religions – It’s coming!, and at Multi-faith society – an oxymoron? and also at Parliament World Religions Day-1 and at Parliament of World Religions Day 1.

 Further videos, photos and news available at 2009 parliament Coverage