Each summer, the Cambridge Inter-faith Programme, which is based at the University’s Faculty of Divinity, brings together an international group of students from Islamic, Christian and Jewish backgrounds, for a three-week programme of immersion in inter-faith education.
The aim is to lay the ground for mutual understanding and friendship between them, while nevertheless acknowledging that the three “Abrahamic” religions, as they are known, are far from the same.
The programme therefore tries to scrutinise what coexistence means in practice, by looking at what models each of the three religions offers the other for peaceful and serious engagement. Ultimately, the hope is that the participants will learn to turn their differences into fruitful faith leadership in a much wider sense as their careers progress.
“The aim is to learn to live well with disagreement, or to disagree intelligently,” Dr Mike Higton, academic co-director with the programme, said. “Coming to an agreement on theology, politics or any other subject is not our aim, nor is the creation of some sort of neutral middle ground.”
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Image: Summer school participants during a tour of the University. Credit: Cambridge Inter-faith Programme.
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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