A Common Word Between Us And You — Evaluating the Muslim Open Letter

On 12 September 2006, Pope Benedict XVI delivered a speech at the University of Regensburg which also contained some comments on Islam that elicited protests by Muslims from around the world, see the Wikipedia article Pope Benedict XVI Islam controversy. It is no surprise that Muslim leaders came to the conviction that public critique of Islam from such a high-ranking and influential person needed a public response. On October 12, 2006, 38 top Muslim scholars and clerics, published an Open Letter to the Pope (cf. this response). On October 11, 2007, one year after the release of the open letter to the Pope, a larger group of 138 Muslim scholars, clerics and intellectuals sent another open letter, entitled A Common Word Between Us and You, to Pope Benedict and the leaders of other Christian denominations.

This latter declaration has received responses from many people and institutions. The most highly publicised response was written by a group of four academics from the University of Yale, entitled Loving God and Neighbor Together. This response has been endorsed by over 300 Christian leaders from around the world. But it has also received a good measure of critique.

The Muslim letter, A Common Word Between Us and You, is a carefully crafted document, containing subtlety that is not easily detected, and some statements may mean something different than they appear to say at first glance. It is a large document which cannot be evaluated in only a few paragraphs. In the following, we present links to comments and evaluations of both the Muslim open letter as well as the Yale response. These links are mostly of a critical nature since we feel that a counterbalance and deeper reflection is needed to the often uncritical praise and support of these documents. The first entries in the two lists of responses are carefully written comprehensive replies, the latter entries are postings on blogs that pick out one or two issues that they are commenting upon. On the blog postings, sometimes the discussion that comes after the blog entry is valuable as well.

• A Common Word Between Us And You — the open letter by the Muslim scholars
• Loving God and Neighbor Together — the response by four Yale scholars

Responses, evaluations, questions and comments on the Muslim letter:

• The Truth about A Common Word by Sam Solomon
• Response to Open Letter and Call from Muslim Religious Leaders to Christian Leaders, 13 October 2007 by the Barnabas Fund
• Notes for Christians on Understanding A Common Word Between Us and You by Dr. Mark Durie (Arabic translation)
  • Who is my neighbour? — The Torah on loving disbelievers by Dr. Mark Durie
• “Who You Gonna Serve?” — Theological Difficulties in A Common Word Between Us and You by Patrick De Leon
• We Too Want to Live in Love, Peace, Freedom and Justice by Dr. Geoff Tunnicliffe (on behalf of World Evangelical Alliance)
• "A Common Word" – Comments by Samuel Green and suggestions of topics that should be discussed between Christians and Muslims
• Zum Brief von 138 muslimischen Gelehrten an die Christenheit by the Diakrisis Institute (in German)
• The Apostasy Fatwas and ‘A Common Word Between Us and You’ by Dr. Mark Durie
• Response by Mor Eustathius Matta Roham (Archbishop of Jezira and the Euphrates, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch)
• Muslim plea well-meaning but flawed (newspaper article reporting comments by the Anglican Bishop Dr Michael Nazir-Ali)
• How to Think About “A Common Word”
• The Muslim Letter to the Pope
• About that Muslim letter to the Pope
• How the Church of Rome Is Responding to the Letter of the 138 Muslims
• 'A Common Word' — Inter-Faith Dialogue or Propaganda Tool?
• The Wikipedia entry on this letter summarizing some reactions
• Islam's Peace Offensive (FrontPage Magazin)
• Muslim clerics demand peace, or else...
• Be Reconciled to God!
• The Letter of 138 Muslim scholars to the Pope and Christian Leaders (AsiaNews, some praise, some questions)

Responses, evaluations, questions and comments on the letter from Yale:

• Response to "Loving God and Neighbor Together" by the Barnabas Fund
• Reflections upon ‘Loving God and Neighbor Together’ by Dr. Mark Durie (Arabic translation)
• The Yale Response and "the Prophet Muhammad" by Jochen Katz
• How Much Common Ground is There?
• You Don't Speak for Me
• Rethinking P.E.A.C.E. - Loving God and Neighbor Together
• Finally Evangelical Leaders Speak Out:
  • John Piper on "The Common Word" and the Yale Response (also available in audio here)
  • Albert Mohler Jr. on "The Common Word" and the Yale Response (audio, starts at minute 11:20 of the mp3 file, some excerpts)
  • William Lane Craig on "A Common Word" and the Yale response (starting at minute 6:30 of the mp3 file)
  • A response by James White
  • More blog entries on the issue: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], ...
• Do Muslims Worship the True God? A Bridge Too Far (an exchange between Rick Love and John Piper and further comments by Justin Taylor)
• I Can't Sign The Letter – The foolishness of the Yale letter and why Christians should reject it on "trading truth for peace"
• Upon further reflection, some signatories have retracted their names from the Yale document (1, 2, 3)

More reflections on "A Common Word" and some further actions (e.g. the Muslim Christmas Greeting) and reactions:

• The Debacle of the "Common Word" Initiative by Rev. Bassam M. Madany
• Season's Greetings or Islamic Propaganda?
• Anxious for Dhimmitude
• A Dialogue in Bad Faith

The group at Yale and some of the signatories to that letter have responded to a few of the points of critique that have been raised against the Yale response. I am not convinced by most of these arguments. However, to be fair, and to make it easy for the readers to see all the pro and contra arguments in this discussion, in the following I am presenting a list of those that I am aware of. Again, many of these answers are found on blogs, and the comments on them are occasionally interesting as well.

• Yale FAQ regarding their letter: 1
• Greg Livingstone responds to John Piper: 1, 2
• Rick Love responds to John Piper (who responds to Rick Love who responds to John Piper): 1 (highly recommended)
• John Stackhouse: 1
• Mike Edens: 1
• Brian McLaren: 1

If our readers know of further articles analyzing or responding to the Muslim open letter "A Common Word ..." or any of the Christian responses which would be valuable to be added to this page, I would be grateful to be informed about them.

Jochen Katz

Further developments

A letter of 144 Christians (including 77 former Muslims) was sent to the Pope at the occasion of the Catholic-Muslimm dialogue meeting in Rome:
Original letter in French, English reports about it on Asia News and Jihad Watch.

On 25 February 2008, a Muslim open letter to the Jews was published. It is reported in a number of newspapers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.), but hardly anyone gives the actual text of the letter. The letter and more background can be found at the Woolf Institute.

A Common What? — Yale hosts a Christian-Muslim "reconciliation" conference--behind closed doors. (Wallstreet Journal, 16 November 2008)
Western Christian Dhimmitude Versus Islamic Intransigence (reflecting on the above article).

Responses to declarations issued at follow-up dialogue meetings:

• Reflections by the Barnabas Fund on the ‘Final Declaration of the Yale Common Word Conference, July 2008’
• Evangelical MELTDOWN

Muslim Letters
Answering Islam Home Page