By Jim Brown and Jody Brown
October 8, 2002

(AgapePress) - United Methodists and the Muslim community will be entering a four-year national dialogue next year. But one conservative Methodist leader says the effort will compromise the gospel of Christ.

According to the United Methodist News Service, the ecumenical dialogue was approved late last month by the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns. The format will be similar to that the UMC follows in current dialogues with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Roman Catholic Church: eight-member teams from each group meeting twice a year for four years. [See Related Article]

Anne Marshall, a spokesperson for the Commission, tells UMNS that two Muslim groups -- the Islamic Center of Southern California and the Muslim Public Affairs Council -- have praised the United Methodists for initiating attempts at "interfaith understanding" between the two groups. In fact, she says, the Commission's members last fall were the first non-Muslim group invited into the groups' "space."

But not everyone thinks the ecumenical give-and-take between the two religious groups is a good idea. Mark Tooley, executive director of United Methodist Action, says this is a continuation of the overall trend in mainline churches to give priority to dialogue with leaders of false religions, thereby de-emphasizing evangelism and the message of Christ.

Mark Tooley

"The underlying weakness of the whole dialogue effort is not that talking to people that their faith is necessarily wrong in and of itself, it's just that the goal tends to be simply the dialogue rather than lifting up Jesus Christ," Tooley says.

The conservative Methodist leader says such ecumenical dialogue downplays the importance of sharing the gospel with people of all faiths.

"The way in which the dialogue is waged, that ultimately is the sad result, is that the gospel is compromised, the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is compromised," he says. "And I'm afraid that rather than being gospel-centered, it ends up giving the appearance of ... saying that all religions are, in essence, equally true."

Members of the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns say through the dialogue they hope to explore what they call "a deeper understanding of Islam."

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