'Christianity is not the only way'

THE first time I met the Bishop of Jarrow was during a live BBC Radio debate at Durham University's Cross Gate Centre. The audience was comprised mainly of trainee ordinands and I was the only Muslim in the building. If that was not enough, the presenter decided to really put me at ease during the pre-programme voice level tests. He asked me what I thought of Prince Charles - I said I appreciated his understanding and respect for other faiths.

I was then asked what the Islamic punishment for adultery was. The audience gasped and the Bishop gave me a sympathetic look. It was a taste of things to come. During the programme, I stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Bishop over a particularly brutal question about Jesus getting the Day of Judgement wrong - and that marked the beginning of our friendship.

I have to admit that I knew nothing about the Rt Rev Alan Smithson before that first meeting. But I was struck by his respect for others' beliefs, his gentle demeanour and his humility. My experience of the clergy had been rather different - dismissive, morally superior, or patronising. Yet here was a Bishop who said: "I don't believe Christianity is the only way at all. I think we have a great deal to learn from each other. I believe dialogue and visible solidarity between faiths is hugely important."

And so I accepted his invitation to join the steering committee of his new interfaith organisation, The Three Faiths Forum. I never imagined that he would one day ask me to participate in his farewell service at Durham Cathedral: December 9 was probably the first time a Muslim prayer had been heard at the cathedral during its 1,000-year history. But I was not alone - there were also prayers for world peace from representatives of the Jewish, Hindu, Brahmakumari, Catholic and Buddhist faiths. The 2,000 strong congregation may have been surprised by this, but those paying tributes were not.

Says Alan Piper, Chairman of the House of Laity in The Diocesan Synod: the "Bishop of Jarrow was always radical and quirky... miles ahead of us in his ideology and he was right."

Bishop Alan says his interest in interfaith began in 1984, during a sermon he was giving at Carlisle Cathedral about the raising of Lazarus.

"In the story, Martha and Mary send for Jesus, who tells Martha, 'Your brother will rise again' and she replies: "I know he will rise again at the last day." I realised for the first time that here was a Jewish woman making a statement about the Resurrection, several months before the passion and Resurrection in the Christian story of Jesus. It set me thinking that we could not just say that the Resurrection was an exclusively Christian thing. Here was a Jewish woman making similar comments to Christians. So that was a turning point for me and I almost made a vow that I would never again make cheap comparisons between the old Jewish scriptures and Christian scriptures, which so many people do. Later I would discover that the Koran also had much to say about Resurrection and Judgement.

Thus began a period of intense study into Judaism. Bishop Alan even spent a sabbatical in America working on Jewish Christian relations. But by 1997, he felt it was time to learn about another faith of which he knew even less: Islam. "I decided to dedicate part of my scripture reading time in Lent to the reading of the Koran, from which I learnt a great deal. I even quoted it in sermons to give examples of the compassion and tenderness which comes out of some of the prayers."

The decision attracted severe criticism, but he was unrepentant: "What more important time is there to get into the heart of religion? What hope is there for the Middle East without tolerance between faiths? I cannot see a reason why God would want his different believers to be enemies. If only all Christians would take seriously the beliefs of other traditions and religions, we would be all the better for it. We need to help the church understand other faiths, not as rivals, but as fellow travellers."

When I tell him that he has been described in a book as an apostate, for one brief moment, he loses his composure. Sadly, he replies: "Just because you have your own faith from childhood, does not mean that you are betraying it if you make new friends. Quite the reverse, it enriches that first friendship, informs it, challenges it, questions it and can engender nothing but good."

Bishop Alan has held many events to enable dialogue and understanding between different faith communities, including lectures, shared meals, quiet days at Minster Acres and seminars hosted by the Vice Chancellor of Durham University, Sir Kenneth Calman. There have also been unexpected benefits.

He says: "As a result of the Three Faiths Forum, a group of Palestinian students had dinner with Israelis. None of them had ever met an Israeli face-to-face before and could hardly believe that these Israelis were totally opposed to their government's policies. That was a breakthrough."

But Bishop Alan is also critical of Israel. He believes there should be a viable Palestinian and Israeli state, with the latter ending its 34-year occupation of Palestinian land. "Israel has never complied with UN resolutions and that is a scandal in itself. Israel should stop building further settlements and completely withdraw from existing ones," he says.

Bishop Alan believes that the events of September 11 have made interfaith dialogue more important than ever before. "It has clearly catapulted in to the public arena the whole question of interfaith and to what extent and in what way Islam gets associated with terrorism. It is so good to have got groups up and running with Muslim friends, who can say that there is no more truth in that allegation than if somebody said all Roman Catholics are members of the IRA. There is no more logic in one than the other."

He says the terrorists should be brought to justice. However he does not believe all avenues had been explored before the US began bombing Afghanistan. "The picture of American planes, first target bombing, cluster bombing, then carpet-bombing and daisy cutting, struck me as a barbaric escalation of a superpower against an already impoverished nation," he says. "Christian Aid workers were saying people didn't know whether to come out because food was being dropped, or whether to hide from bombs."

So, last month, the Bishop took the unusual step of addressing an anti-war demonstration in Newcastle. But before he did so, he called to ask if I would share the platform with him. I had never before taken part in a demonstration, let alone addressed one, but he was very persuasive. The next day, the Bishop of Jarrow, Rabbi Moshe Yehudai-Rimmer and myself, led the demonstration through Newcastle city centre to the Monument.

Afterwards he told me: "The way of dialogue and visible solidarity - being side by side - is hugely important. I was very moved to walk with you on one side and Rabbi Moshe on the other. That's the kind of visibility that has to be displayed more and more because there is far more common ground between religions than that which divides us."

l Farah Khan is a freelance journalist and commentator on religious issues

l At Your Service with Mike Amos will be back in the new year.