Much has been written about
the service of Muslim prayers held at St John’s Waterloo earlier this month. Excerpts
from the service, and interview clips with participants, have been made available
on YouTube.
Andrew Symes, Anglican Mainstream, suggests that “the motive behind this service was probably to build
trust, to reconcile where there is division, to bring different communities
together for greater cooperation and mutual understanding,” while offering “a
radical and prophetic challenge to both faiths to be more ‘inclusive’ – Mosques
should allow women to lead, and churches should include other faiths in their
understanding of salvation.”
But, as Andrew Symes points
out, offering a church as a venue for an Islamic prayer services contravenes
canon law which states that all divine service must be in accordance with
Church of England doctrine. Indeed, even cultural events hosted inside a church
need to be “consonant with sound doctrine.”
Why object to Muslim worship
in a church but tolerate it in a mosque or conference centre? The language of
sacred space is probably not helpful here. Maybe the distinction between
printers and publishers helps. Muslim (or indeed Christian) printers who refuse
to print cartoons of Mohammed might get into trouble in contemporary British
society, if their customers are willing to take them to court. But there is good
reason why such cartoons are not published by the International Islamic
Publishing House (IIPH). One can argue that printers should not refuse any
customers whose printing demands are within the law, while strongly believing
that it would be entirely inappropriate for the IIPH to publish them.
Conference centres, like
printers, fulfil a certain role in our society. Their owners presumably cannot
choose whether or not to host a congress for climate change deniers or a gathering
of publishers of pornography. Church buildings, like publishers, also fulfil a
certain role. They cannot host such events in the same way. One does not need a concept of sacred space to
allow that for Westminster Abbey to host the UKIP party conference would be
inappropriate. Indeed, there are civic spaces, maybe a large town hall, which
would be similarly inappropriate as a venue for any one political party.
The church is of course to
practice radical hospitality. But it is the hospitality of welcoming people
into our homes and indeed welcome them to come home to God. Hosting events is a
different hospitality which may or may not be appropriate. To follow Jesus who welcomed tax collectors may
mean for a church to host a financial advice centre but radical hospitality
does not mean that a church should make its facilities available to tax enforcement
agencies and loan sharks. To follow Jesus who welcomed prostitutes might mean
that a church building is kept open for longer hours with church members offering
hot drinks and a safe space to sex workers; radical hospitality does not mean
that a church might as well allow a brothel to operate within its facilities.
For some, among them Kelvin
Holdsworth, it is perfectly obvious that a Muslim prayer group in need of a
room should find shelter within church buildings – no questions asked. What is less
clear is whether this is based on a concept of Christian hospitality which
demands that we must make space to each and any group or whether Muslim prayer
groups are “all right” (in ways in which other groups might not be) because we
are after all worshipping the same God. Arguments have been brought forth both
from hospitality and from the view that we are co-religionists (Kelvin
Holdsworth considers it “bizarre” to deny that Muslims worship the same God as
Christians).
In any case, it should not be
too difficult to see that there is a difference between being hospitable to
people and hosting events, between inviting Muslims to a Christian act of
worship and, say, inviting them to proclaim the Shahada in church.
