Looking Across Faiths Islam Methodism Catholicism Anglicanism

If there's only one God then surely all Faiths must worship the same God?

Are those losing their lives at the Frontline of any response to humanitarian crises damned if they have no faith, or follow a different faith to mine?

Shouldn’t Faiths combine to combat Evil rather than debate differences?

These and other ques�ons launched this project to look again at my own faith and the faith of others, including those with no faith.

These words taught directly by Jesus to his disciples and o�en used during Chris�an worship seemed to me to be consistent with Islam.

When I read them to a Muslim group leader he confirmed my hypothesis and actually thought I was reading from the Qu’ran.

Temple Church, London, 2023

I s�ll have this first Christmas present on my Dressing Table. The prety icon no doubt fascinated a young baby more than the words, but the really loving prayer has sustained me throughout my life.

I naturally trusted what my parents taught me but what if they had been Catholics or Muslims? The Islamic view is that we are all born with the nature to seek God but our parents nurture our beliefs to mirror their own.

All Abrahamic Faiths share the fact that we cannot see, touch, nor hear a God which we nonetheless come to know through scripture teaching, prayer, and some�mes by epiphany.

Whatever our Faith doubts, fears, and tempta�ons will test it. Adam and Eve had seen God, but disobeyed Him. Lot's wife had been told not to look back but was unable to resist. Peter started sinking when the wind caused him to doubt. The remedy is the same in each Faith – trus�ng God .

God's love is wai�ng ready and able to help and support us whatever our faith. My grandmother was a very devout Methodist.

When troubled she would let her hand drop by her side and wait un�l she felt God pick it up and hold it, which he invariably did.

Quay Church , Woodbridge, 2023 / Jubilee House, Cosham, 1982

We've all faced �mes of Darkness into which light has struggled to shine. Step 2 of 12-step recovery programs is that a power greater than ourselves can restore us if we let it. I've been in rehab and seen for myself a higher power helping addicts even though they could not name their helper.

Staverton Thicks, Suffolk, 2022

Whatever our Faith there are �mes when something just reminds us of God's presence, even when we have not been seeking it directly.

Brantham Pond, Suffolk, 2023

This statue of an actual Crusader is superimposed on a photograph of the sea over Trafalgar which he would have sailed over.

When I was a child, I thought they were Heroes. I even went to ‘Crusaders’ Bible classes as a teenager. Now I see them as terrorists going overseas to kill those of another Faith.

Temple Church, London, 2023 / Trafalgar, Spain, 2022

A cross is shown superior to a crescent in the botom right-hand window. The crescent may be suppor�ng the cross but I doubt that was the intent. These windows may look old but were restored in 1956- 7 a�er being guted by a WWII incendiary. What does that tell us of our culture then? And now?

Temple Church, London, 2023

How easy is it to believe in or recruit for a God who allowed Protestants to kill Catholics during the English Reforma�on because they would not rescind their faith?

Tyburn Convent, London, 2023

It’s so easy to be thoughtless

How would a young Muslim mother, who knew the history of the Crusades, feel having moved into my village and taking her children to play?

Great Bentley, Essex, 2023

In the Marian Persecu�ons Catholics burn protestants at the stake for heresy. Is it ever possible to divorce religion from poli�cs?

Stra�ord, London, 2023

More recently the IRA disregarded the will of God to murder random innocent civilians, and the UDA did likewise.

City of London Police Photos – Permission applied for

Muslim terrorists also commited atroci�es in London but they no more represent Islam than the IRA represent Catholicism.

Tavistock Gardens, London, 2023 / Hyde Park, London, 2023

Atheists I talked to cited four reasons for not believing:

• atroci�es in God’s name;

• experience showing them the church lied in its teaching

• belief that all Gods are man-made

• the need to escape the clutches of an overcontrolling church. Having escaped they felt liberated…….

The best defence to claims that any Faith Group is terrorist-centric is our own experience of goodness across ethnic and religious boundaries.

As an eight year old in Aden I was looked a�er with love and care by Arella an Ethiopian Muslim. I was also treated with love and respect by Arab shopkeepers as I wandered around the back streets by myself against my parents’ instruc�ons.

I took this 52 years ago. When Mary was walking down a street in Catolica she crossed herself, something I hadn’t seen before. When I asked what she was doing she said ‘Peter I don’t know what you do in England but in Ireland when we pass the house of a friend we say hello’…….

That pure, simple Faith has endeared me to Catholicism to this day…

Catolica, Italy, 1971

On finding my stepson had a heart atack the previous day a Muslim stranger in a café spent 15 minutes finding an open Church where I could pray for my stepson a�er he had a heart atack.

Another good example of coopera�on is a local hospital chapel catering for Chris�ans and Muslims, even offering disposable prayer mats.

Muslims kneel and prostrate themselves, five �mes daily in prayer, which may seem strange to us, but kneeling is not unique to Muslims.

Although we believe God hears our prayers we may feel unworthy or insufficient to move God's heart by ourselves. We may ask others to pray on our behalf and may even ask those who already passed from this life.

Thanking them, and asking them to intercede with God on our behalf is acceptable in all Faiths as long as we avoid asking for miracles of their own making as that would turn them into Gods, and there is only one God.

Muslim reverence for their acts of prayer includes cleansing their skin of the dirt of the world, and removing their shoes (‘this is Holy Ground’) before prayer. For other Faiths it can be a moment of quiet spiritual cleansing.

East London Mosque, Tower Hamlets, 2023 / St Sabrina’s, Brightlingsea, 2023

There is neither Mass nor Communion in Muslim services because Muslims do not believe in Jesus’ divinity.

In Catholic Mass the host becomes the actual body and blood of Christ and is revered and disposed of accordingly. Consump�on is restricted to confirmed Catholics in good standing with God.

Anglicans treat the Bread and Wine and its disposal with the utmost reverence but do not believe in its transmuta�on. They welcome any bap�sed Chris�an in ‘good standing’ with God to the table. in its disposal. In Methodist churches, it is a simpler ritual.

Are we redeemed by God's love, God's mercy, or mysteriously by Jesus’ sacrifice? That is not a ques�on to which I have the answer.

The Parish Church of Saint Leonard and Saint Mary, Beaumont Cum Moze, 2023

Faiths differ regarding Jesus's parentage and divinity. Biblical texts differ but some support the Muslim view that Jesus is no more the Son of God than Adam was.

Muslims believe that he was neither, but was the son of Mary. That he was a noble messenger, born miraculously as but not divine.

THIS PROJECT WAS EXHIBITED IN A ONE-DAY POP-UP EXHIBITION

FOLLOWED BY A TALK AND DISCUSSION GROUPS.

HERE ARE THE ‘REPORT OUTS’ FROM THE DISCUSSION.

Faith is Faith. And sometimes it's your accident of Birth or geography of where you're born that will lead you down a particular path.

It’s not beliefs because the belief systems are very, very similar, aren't they? It's just the way that they're communicated. Some finer points around them will differ just as language is different.

The image I’m taking take away is Faith and people's quest for the divine.

Faith may begin as an accident of birth but it is a personal journey and I think as each of us develops to personally we have a personal relationship with God which has its ups and it's downs and continues to grow if we're fortunate enough throughout our lives.

The interesting idea I got from today was when we talked about Souls. In a sense, we all believe that God left soul in us as our soul is part of his soul, right? I mentioned the idea that this is why I was sort of sacred. That's why killing is a murder and so’s somebody taking take their own life. Suicide is a murder because somebody's killing themselves, you know, taking this soul that was given to them by God as a gift as a trust that they can't take it out themselves.

Well, I think that what I've learnt this evening and in other discussions is that different Faiths have much more in common than we might imagine. We just need to take the time to understand each other better and that's really the thing to take away from this whole process.