Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues addresses the key issues in the present day global encounter between Christians and Muslims. Divided into two parts, the first examines theoretical issues and concerns which affect dialogue between the two traditions. The second part highlights case studies from around the world. Chapters come from established scholars including Reuven Firestone, Douglas Pratt and Clinton Bennett, emerging scholars, as well as practitioner perspectives. Highlighting the diversity within the field of "Christian-Muslim" encounter, case studies cover examples from the US and globally, and include dialogue in the US post 9/11, Nigerian Muslims and Christians, and Christian responses to Islamophobia in the UK. Covering unique areas and those not explored in detail elsewhere, Contemporary Muslim-Christian Encounters: Developments, Diversity and Dialogues will be of interest to advanced students, researchers, and interfaith professionals.

Christianity started in Jerusalem. For many centuries it was concentrated in the West, in Europe and North America. But in the past century the church expanded rapidly across Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Thus Christianity's geographic center of density is now in the West African country of Mali-in Timbuktu. What led to the church's vibrant growth throughout the Global South? Brian Stiller identifies five key factors that have shaped the church, from a renewed openness to the move of the Holy Spirit to the empowerment of indigenous leadership. While in some areas Christianity is embattled and threatened, in many places it is flourishing as never before. Discover the surprising story of the global advance of the gospel. And be encouraged that Jesus' witness continues to the ends of the earth.

In Common Words in Muslim-Christian Dialogue Vebjorn L. Horsfjord offers an analysis of texts from an international dialogue process between Christian and Muslim leaders. Through detailed engagement with the Muslim dialogue letter A Common Word between Us and You (2007) and a large number of Christian responses to it, the study analyses the dialogue process in the wake of the Muslim initiative and shows how the various texts gain meaning through their interaction. The author uses tools from critical discourse analysis and speech act analysis and claims that the Islamic dialogue initiative became more important as an invitation to Muslim-Christian dialogue than as theological reflection. He shows how Christian leaders systematically chose to steer the dialogue process towards practical questions about peaceful coexistence and away from theological issues.

In Hope and Otherness, Jakob Wiren analyses the place and role of the religious Other in contemporary eschatology. In connection with this theme, he examines and compares different levels of inclusion and exclusion in Christian, Muslim, and Jewish eschatologies. He argues that a distinction should be made in approaches to this issue between soteriological openness and eschatological openness. By going beyond Christian theology and also looking to Muslim and Jewish sources and by combining the question of the religious Other with eschatology, Wiren explores ways of articulating Christian eschatology in light of religious otherness, and provides a new and vital slant to the threefold paradigm of exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism that has been prevalent in the theology of religions. "Jakob Wiren's study pushes forward the frontiers of three disciplines all at the same time: theology of religions; comparative religions and eschatology. (...) This is a challenging and important book." - Gavin D'Costa, University of Bristol, Professor of Catholic Theology, 2017 "This book explores of the status of religious others in Christian eschatology, and of eschatology itself as a privileged place for reflecting on religious otherness. Wiren mines not only Christian, but also Jewish and Muslim sources to develop an inclusive eschatology. Hope and Otherness thus represents an important contribution to both theology of religions and comparative theology." - Catherine Cornille, Boston College, Professor of Comparative Theology, 2017

Often Christian interfaith engagement has been viewed through the lense of theology of religions where the primary questions are often about the salvific destiny of people of other faiths. 'Faith, Hope and Love' offers an alternative approach asking how do Christian interfaith practitioners live out their discipleship in a multi-faith world? And what, theologically, is being expressed in their activity? Demonstrating a new and innovative approach to interfaith engagement, this book argues for theological reflection on the multi faith reality of our society to focus on the practice of Christian interfaith engagement, drawing on the methodology of practical theology to explore the impact of encounter on Christian self-understanding. It suggests that other faith traditions are no longer a theological problem to be solved or people to be `saved' but a potential `means of grace' in which the Christian disciple learns more about God and grows in their relationship with Christ. Part 1 Towards a Practical Theology of Interfaith Engagement 1. Faith, Hope and Love - Pedagogy for Interfaith Engagement 2. Beyond New Contestations - A Practical Theological Challenge to Particularists and Pluralists 3. Interfaith Engagement, Non-Violence and the Way of Salvation Part 2 Challenging Islamophobia, Affirming Multiculturalism 4. Challenging Islamophobia - A Practical Theological Reflection 5. Rejoicing in the Truth - A Practical Theological Affirmation of Multiculturalism

The Book of Tribulations is the earliest complete Muslim apocalyptic text to survive, and as such has considerable value as a primary text. It is unique in its importance for Islamic history: focusing upon the central Syrian city of Hims, it gives us a picture of the personalities of the city, the tribal conflicts within, the tensions between the proto-Muslim community and the majority Christian population, and above all details about the wars with the Byzantines. Additionally, Nu`aym gives us a range of both the Umayyad and the Abbasid official propaganda, which was couched in apocalyptic and messianic terms.

Africa continues to be a region with strong commitments to religious freedom and religious pluralism. These, however, are rarely mere facts on the ground – they are legal, political, social, and theological projects that require considerable effort to realise. This volume – compiling the proceedings of the third annual conference of the African Consortium for Law and Religion Studies – focuses on various issues which vastly effect the understanding of religious pluralism in Africa. These include, amongst others, religious freedom as a human right, the importance of managing religious pluralism, and the permissibility of religious practice and observance in South African public schools.

Beginning with Catholic attitudes to the Act of Union, this work traces various elements in the interrelationship between the Catholic Church and the state in Ireland in the 19th century. Catholicism's role in the Protestant state for most of the century was tempered and conditioned by its relationship with the various Protestant churches in the country. In the development of its infrastructure, facilitating as it did along with other factors the 'devotional revolution', the church was in many ways dependent upon Protestant financial help. The ironies and complexities of this situation is a consistent theme in these essays. Although the religion of the vast majority of the Irish people Catholicism, in its institutional aspect, felt itself to be undervalued and underappreciated by the Protestant state.Its dealings with the state where tempered by its relative poverty and it dependence on the state for various benefactions not least the generous provision for Catholic clerical education. For the first time in the historiography, some attention is paid to the relations between the Catholic Churches in Ireland and England in an era when the future cardinal Nicholas Wiseman attempted to pose as an unofficial adviser to government on Irish and Vatican affairs, in circumstances which caused resentment among Irish Catholic churchmen.