8th Abrahamic Faiths Conference

On Sunday 1^st August, Affinity Intercultural Foundation hosted the 8^th Abrahamic Faiths Conference at Mary McKillop Place.

Members of the steering committee for this event represented the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Columbian Mission Institute, Affinity Intercultural Foundation, and the Uniting Church in Australia Synod of NSW / ACT, making the Conference a wonderful joint effort by members of the three Abrahamic faiths.

The keynote address for the evening was made by Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, Chief Rabbi of the Great Synagogue in Sydney, with responces by Dr Salih Yucel and Prof. Neil Ormerod from the Muslim and Christian perspectives respectively.

From the Working Group on Relations with Other Faiths, Wilma Viswanathan, the Rev. Matthew Wilson, and Bronwyn Thompson happily participated in table discussions which picked up on the themes of the keynote address and responses heard earlier in the evening.

Some of the themes that resonated most profoundly with the table discussion participants were:         

• Humility – a topic discussed by the Rabbi in his keynote address, where he gave the linguistic origins of the word. Coming from the root 'humus', which implies links to the soil, the earth, and thereby demonstrating our links to and stewardship of the world. Additionally, humility was seen as an expression of strength not weakness.

• Connectedness – a statement heard during the evening’s proceedings was ‘I have a place for you in my heart’. This proved to be a powerful one, with members from all three faith traditions considering this to illustrate a core value for them. It was felt that this statement alone, if taken seriously and lived out by all could heal a broken world, because division and love cannot co-exist.

• Created in God’s Image – participants acknowledged that we were all created by God, in his image, to love, to be respectful, and to live in peace; the stranger to be treated as a neighbour, and the neighbour as a friend.

Congratulations to all those involved in the preparations for the Conference. It was a wonderful event, and one much appreciated by the Working Group on Relations with Other Faiths.