New book encourages interfaith engagement between Christians and Muslims

Deanna Ferree Womack publishes ‘Neighbors’ with Westminster John Knox Press

by Westminster John Knox Press | Special to Presbyterian News Service

LOUISVILLE — For a long time, American Christians have been hearing a story about Islam. It’s a story about conflict and hostility, about foreigners and strangers. At the heart of this story is a fundamental incompatibility between the two religions going all the way back to their original encounters. According to that story, the only valid Christian response to Islam is resistance.

But it’s time to tell a different — and truer — story. Christians and Muslims have not always fought or lived in fear of each other. Christian communities in majority-Muslim countries have coexisted with their Muslim neighbors for centuries. More importantly, Muslims have been part of the American story from its beginning. And like their Christian neighbors, Muslims want to make the community in which they live a better place for all citizens.

In “Neighbors: Christians and Muslims Building Community,” Deanna Ferree Womack lays the groundwork for members of the two religions to understand, converse and cooperate with each another. With models for cultivating empathy and interfaith awareness, Christians can move from neighborly intention to real dialogue and common action with Muslims in the United States.

“I am delighted that such a substantive and accessible resource is now available for Christians and Muslims in America,” writes Roshan Iqbal from Agnes Scott College in the foreword. “As a Pakistani Muslim woman living in America, this book is not just important to me personally but to my whole community as well.” Ideal for individual or group study, “Neighbors” includes a discussion guide for group study with links to video clips, a timeline of the first Muslim communities and a glossary of Arabic terms related to Islam.

“Neighbors: Christians and Muslims Building Community” is now available from Westminster John Knox Press.

Deanna Ferree Womack is a minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and assistant professor of History of Religions and Multifaith Relations at Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. She is the author of “Protestants, Gender and the Arab Renaissance in Late Ottoman Syria.”