NJPN Blog: Building Bridges, Making Links

Glasgow Exhibition Centre home of COP26 - Image ICN/JS

I am writing this at the beginning of COP26, while we are still full of hope for decisions that will save our beautiful Earth from devastation and the beautiful people on it from despair.

Events like this show us how important it is to work together, to collaborate with those we have little link with usually, and maybe even less sympathy for. There is another great threat to the world. Climate change is that which is most obvious today. The other is war and the use of weaponry that would also destroy most of life on Earth. Militarism, the production of weapons, the diversion of resources, also causes climate change. Climate change and competition for natural resources causes war.

It is this need to work together that prompted the choice of subject and speakers for this year's Barbara Eggleston Memorial Lecture. Barbara was the first Coordinator of Christian CND and as she lived in Oxford for a number of years so we thought that Oxford would be an appropriate venue. This will take place in the Quaker Meeting House, St Giles, Oxford, on Saturday, 20 November, from 12 noon until 4pm.

The title of this event is 'Building Bridges in the Shadow of Afghanistan'. We have asked four distinguished speakers to tell us something about peace and nonviolence in the Sacred Writings of their Faiths, and how this affects their teaching.

A few years ago the NJPN Swanwick Conference had an interfaith focus and I remember one of the speakers saying that when we, as Christians, were speaking to someone from another Faith, we were not there to convert the other but to realise the Holy Spirit was there in the space between us. I have always remembered that and appreciated what we can learn from other Faiths. We can admire the family focus of the Jews, the adherence to prayer of the Muslims, the protection of all life of the Jains, the emphasis on Peace of the Buddhists, just to name a few.

With this in mind, we invited representatives of the Christian, Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist faiths to take part in this particular event. We have been so blessed in their willing and enthusiastic responses. Dr Maria Power, Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, and Senior Research Fellow in Human Dignity at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice, will be our Christian speaker. The Islamic speaker is Dr al-Hafidh ait Kamel. Dr Kamel is a Hafidh, someone who knows the Qu'ran by heart, and is Chaplain to Imam Monawar Hussain, the High Sheriff of Oxfordshire. Vijay Mehta will speak on Hinduism. Vijay is a peace activist and chair of 'Uniting for Peace'. His notable books, some of which will be available on the day, include 'The Economics of Killing', 'Peace Beyond Borders' and 'How Not to Go to War'. Roslyn Cook, a Member of Soka Gakkai International, is a CND Council Member and will look at Buddhist teaching

After a panel discussion, Steve Hucklesby, of the Joint Public Issues Team of the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church and the United Reform Church, will lead a discussion on campaigning in the light of what we have heard, and the religious journalist on peace and justice, Ellen Teague, will Chair and keep everything flowing along.

All are welcome. Do come!

Details of registration are on the CCND website: https://christiancnd.org.uk/