Peace and Reconciliation in Testing Times: How do we bring peace together in solidarity?

Canon Nitano Muller was a Guest Speaker at the Solihull Faiths Forum AGM at the Solihull Council Chamber on 7th September, where he gave a talk on "Peace and Reconciliation in Testing Times: How do we bring people together in solidarity?" you can read the speech below:

"Interfaith work demands something of us.

It demands of us to be good stewards of the stories of our faith traditions: to know them deeply, to honour them honestly, and to share and pass them on, especially with our young people. 

It demands of us to be bridge builders of our time: people willing to cross the distances that fear creates, to be genuinely curious and to discover the human story on the other side of our differences. 

And it also demands of us to be creatives and courageous dreamers: willing to imagine a world beyond the divisions we have inherited and/or created ourselves. To work together, not in isolation, towards a peace that is not merely the absence of conflict, but a lasting peace with justice that acknowledges the intrinsic human dignity of all people and ensures their flourishing. 

When the world is on fire, interfaith work is not a luxury. It is obligatory. 

It is part of how we learn to become the society Provost Dick Howard, former leader of the Cathedral community at the time of the Blitz, envisioned in his 1940 charge: " to build a kinder, simpler, more Christlike sort of world".