SEMINARS
BUILDING BRIDGES MEDIA
Building Bridges 2011 Christian-Muslim Seminar on Prayer (Part One: Theology of Prayer) (Full Screen)
Featured: Michael Plekon and Reza Shah-Kazemi
Featured: Michael Plekon and Reza Shah-Kazemi
Building Bridges 2011 Christian-Muslim Seminar on Prayer (Part One: Prayer in Practice) (Full Screen)
Featured: Philip Sheldrake and Dheen Mohamed
Featured: Philip Sheldrake and Dheen Mohamed
Building Bridges 2011 Christian-Muslim Seminar on Prayer (Part Three: Mutual Perceptions) (Full Screen)
Featured: Caner Dagli and Daniel Madigan, with concluding reflections from Archbishop Rowan Williams
Featured: Caner Dagli and Daniel Madigan, with concluding reflections from Archbishop Rowan Williams
Building Bridges 2010: Tradition and History (Full Screen)
Featured: Vincent Cornell and Janet Soskice
Featured: Vincent Cornell and Janet Soskice
Building Bridges 2010: Religious Authority and the Challenges of Modernity (Full Screen)
Featured: Philip Jenkins and Recep Senturk
Featured: Philip Jenkins and Recep Senturk
Building Bridges 2010: Religion, Modernity and Freedom (Full Screen)
Featured: Abdullahi An-Na'im and David Bentley Hart
Featured: Abdullahi An-Na'im and David Bentley Hart
Building Bridges 2010: Seminar Closing Remarks (Full Screen)
Featured: Archbishop Rowan Williams with Abdolkarim Soroush, Harriet Harris, Caner Dagli, and Gavin D'Costa
Featured: Archbishop Rowan Williams with Abdolkarim Soroush, Harriet Harris, Caner Dagli, and Gavin D'Costa
The Building Bridges Seminar
2009 Building Bridges Seminar, Istanbul
The eighth Building Bridges Seminar, which was held in June 2009 and was hosted by Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, focused on the interface between science and religion as this has been approached by Christians and Muslims, past and present. A sequence of public lectures was followed by discussions in small groups of Christian and Islamic texts from the Bible and Qur’an and from the classical and contemporary periods. Writings by Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins were also considered. The proceedings of the Seminar were published by Georgetown University Press in Science and Religion: Christian and Muslim Perspectives (2012).
Science and Religion: Christian and Muslim Perspectives
Publication October 1, 2012
Science and Religion: Christian and Muslim Perspectives provides a record of the eighth annual Building Bridges seminar, a process of theological dialogue between leading Christian and Muslim scholars convened by then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, who contributes a preface and an afterword to this volume. Essays in the first part of the volume survey some of the key issues in the relationship to science of Christianity and Islam, past and present. The second part of the volume presents a selection of texts relevant to the interface between religion and science, together with illuminating commentary. Along with discussion of some key religious thinkers, the legacy of Charles Darwin is also considered. In his preface, Rowan Williams speaks of the “challenging and intriguing conversation” about the relationship between religion and science, noting that it “has great significance for the whole of our global civilization.” This volume gives a fascinating record of some of the highlights of this particular conversation between Muslim and Christian scholars, held in Istanbul in 2009. Excerpts from this book are available in the PDF below, provided by Georgetown University Press.
>>PDF
Table of Contents
Introduction
David Marshall
Building Bridges in Istanbul
Rowan Williams
Part I: Surveys
Science and the Christian Tradition: A Brief Overview
John Hedley Brooke
Science and Religion in the History of Islam
Ahmad Dallal
Science and Religious Belief in the Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities
Denis Alexander
Part II: Texts and Commentaries
Biblical Texts
"Commentary"
Ellen F. Davis
"What is Creation? Subtle Insights from Genesis 1 Concerning the Order of the World"
Michael Welker
Qur'anic Texts
"Commentary"
Mustansir Mir
Classical Christian Texts
"Commentary: Science and Religion in the Classical Christian Tradition"
Emmanuel Clapsis
Classical Islamic Texts
"Commentary: The Importance of al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd in the History of Islamic Discourse on Religion and Science"
Osman Bakar
Charles Darwin
"Introduction to Darwin and the Selected Texts"
John Hedley Brooke
"Early Arabic Views of Darwin"
Marwa Elshakry
Modern Islamic Texts
"Introduction to Qutb and al-Sha'rawi"
Sherine Hamdy
Pope John Paul II
"Commentary"
Celia Deane-Drummond
Afterword
Rowan Williams
>> PDF
Table of Contents
Introduction
David Marshall
Building Bridges in Istanbul
Rowan Williams
Part I: Surveys
Science and the Christian Tradition: A Brief Overview
John Hedley Brooke
Science and Religion in the History of Islam
Ahmad Dallal
Science and Religious Belief in the Modern World: Challenges and Opportunities
Denis Alexander
Part II: Texts and Commentaries
Biblical Texts
"Commentary"
Ellen F. Davis
"What is Creation? Subtle Insights from Genesis 1 Concerning the Order of the World"
Michael Welker
Qur'anic Texts
"Commentary"
Mustansir Mir
Classical Christian Texts
"Commentary: Science and Religion in the Classical Christian Tradition"
Emmanuel Clapsis
Classical Islamic Texts
"Commentary: The Importance of al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd in the History of Islamic Discourse on Religion and Science"
Osman Bakar
Charles Darwin
"Introduction to Darwin and the Selected Texts"
John Hedley Brooke
"Early Arabic Views of Darwin"
Marwa Elshakry
Modern Islamic Texts
"Introduction to Qutb and al-Sha'rawi"
Sherine Hamdy
Pope John Paul II
"Commentary"
Celia Deane-Drummond
Afterword
Rowan Williams
Eighth Building Bridges Seminar Sourcebook
Publication June 16, 2009
The sourcebook for the eighth Building Bridges seminar, held in Istanbul in 2009 on the theme "Science and Religion: Christian and Muslim Perspectives," includes a variety of scriptural and other passages to support discussion of science and religion. Quotes are taken from Biblical and Qur'anic texts, classical sources from each tradition, writings by Charles Darwin and Richard Dawkins, and modern Christian and Islamic texts. A PDF is available below.
>> PDF
Alparslan Acikgenc
Alparslan Acikgenc is Professor of Philosophy at Fatih University in Istanbul, Turkey. He has also taught at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, the University of Chicago, Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization in Kuala Lumpur, and the University of Jordan. He earned his BA at Ankara University, his MA at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and his PhD at the University of Chicago. He is a Member of the Turkish Philosophical Association and an Honorary Member of the Azerbaijan Academy of Sciences.
Seyed Amir Akrami
Seyed Amir Akrami was until recently a Lecturer at the Al-Mahdi Institute in Birmingham, England. He is a member of the academic board of the Institute for Interreligious Dialogue, a non-governmental organization based in Iran, and has served as Secretary for Inter-Religious Dialogue at the Organisation for Islamic Culture and Communication in Tehran. His research interests include Islamic philosophy and inter-religious relations. Akrami holds a BA in Islamic Studies, MA in Religion and Mysticism, and PhD in the philosophy of religion.
Denis Alexander
Denis Alexander is Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion at St Edmund’s College, Cambridge. Alexander previously served as Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the American University of Beirut and in a variety of senior positions at the Babraham Institute, including chair of the Molecular Immunology Programme; he also worked for the Imperial Cancer Research Laboratories (now Cancer Research UK). He is the editor of the journal Science & Christian Belief and the author of Rebuilding the Matrix: Science and Faith in the 21st Century (2001) and, with Robert White, Beyond Belief: Science, Faith and Ethical Challenges (2004). Alexander holds a PhD in neurochemistry from the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London.
Osman Bakar
Osman Bakar is Deputy CEO of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies–Malaysia and holds fellowships at the Center for Civilisational Dialogue in the University of Malaya and Doshisha University in Japan. A Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and former Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Malaya, from 2005-08 Bakar was a Professor of Islamic Thought and Civilization at the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization; he has also been the Malaysia Chair of Islam in Southeast Asia at Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin-Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Bakar is a member of the World Economic Forum's West-Islamic World Initiative for Dialogue. His publications include The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science (1999) and Tawhid and Science (1991). Bakar earned his BSc and MSc in Mathematics from the University of London and doctorate in Islamic philosophy from Temple University.
Nahide Bozkurt
Nahide Bozkurt is Professor of Islamic History at Ankara University, where she has taught since 1991. She previously worked as a religious education instructor at Cebeci High School in Ankara. During fall 2007 Bozkurt was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and she has also been a guest lecturer at the Institute of Cultures and Religions of the Gregoriana University in Rome. Her publications include the textbook Prophet Mohammed’s Life (2002, published in Turkish) and numerous articles and essays. Bozkurt earned her PhD from Ankara University.
John Hedley Brooke
John Hedley Brooke is Andreas Idreos Professor Emeritus of Science & Religion and Emeritus Fellow at Harris Manchester College in the University of Oxford. He was also previously a Distinguished Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study in the University of Durham and director of the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion. His most notable publications include Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (1991), Thinking About Matter: Studies in the History of Chemical Philosophy (1995), Heterodoxy in Early Modern Science & Religion, co-edited with Ian Maclean (2005), and Religious Values and the Rise of Science in Europe, co-edited with Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu (2005). In 1995 Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor gave the Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow, later published as Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (1998/2000). Brooke is the current president of the International Society for Science and Religion.
Emmanuel Clapsis
Fr. Emmanuel Clapsis is Archbishop Iakovos Professor of Orthodox Theology at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts. His academic interests include ecumenism, the public presence and witness of Orthodoxy in a pluralistic world, and globalization and religion. Clapsis is the author of Orthodoxy in the New World and editor of The Orthodox Churches in a Pluralistic World: An Ecumenical Conversation (2004). He has served as the Vice Moderator of the Faith and Order Commission of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and has participated in the theological dialogues of the Orthodox Church with the Evangelical Lutheran Church (USA) and the Roman Catholic Church. Clapsis holds a BA from Hellenic College, MDiv from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, and STM, MPh, and PhD from Union Theological Seminary (New York).
Vincent J. Cornell
Vincent J. Cornell is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Middle East and Islamic Studies at Emory University and has taught at Northwestern University, the University of Georgia, Duke University, and the University of Arkansas. His interests cover the entire spectrum of Islamic thought from Sufism to philosophy and Islamic law. He has lived and worked in Morocco for nearly six years and taught and researched in Egypt, Tunisia, Malaysia and Indonesia. He is the author of publications on Islamic theology and philosophy and the challenges to the Muslim world of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, including Realm of the Saint: Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (1998), The Way of Abu Madyan: The Works of Abu Madyan Shuayb (1996), and the five volumes of Voices of Islam (2007). Cornell received his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Ahmad Dallal
The Provost of the American University of Beirut since 2009, Ahmad Dallal is also an Associate Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Georgetown University. Dallal has previously taught at Stanford University, Yale University, and Smith College. His research covers the history of the disciplines of learning in Muslim societies, including both the exact and the traditional sciences, as well as early modern and modern Islamic thought and movements. The author of An Islamic Response to Greek Astronomy: Kitab Ta‘dil Hay’at al-Aflak of Sadr al-Shari‘a (1995), he has also written and lectured on Islamic revivalist thought, Islamic law, and the background and aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Dallal earned his PhD in Islamic studies from Columbia University and BE in mechanical engineering from the American University of Beirut.
Ellen Davis
Ellen Davis is Amos Ragan Kearns Professor of Bible and Practical Theology at Duke Divinity School. Her research interests focus on how biblical interpretation bears on the life of faith communities and their response to urgent public issues, particularly the environmental crisis and interfaith relations; Davis is now cooperating with the Episcopal Church of Sudan to develop theological education, community health, and sustainable agriculture. She is the author of (among others) Scripture, Culture, and Agriculture: An Agrarian Reading of the Bible (2009), Wondrous Depth: Old Testament Preaching (2005), and Who Are You, My Daughter? Reading Ruth through Image and Text (2003), as well as numerous articles and essays. Davis holds an AB from the University of California, Berkley, MDiv from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, and PhD from Yale University.
Celia Deane-Drummond
Celia Deane-Drummond is the Director of the Centre for Religion and the Biosciences at Chester University, UK. After a doctorate in plant physiology at Letcombe ARC Research Station and Reading University and postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada and Cambridge (UK), she taught at Durham (UK). She then studied for a degree in theology at Bristol, followed by a PhD in Moltmann's theology of creation at Manchester University, and began teaching at Chester in 1994. She has written numerous books relating science and theology, including, most recently, Genetics and Christian Ethics (2006), Ecotheology (2008), and Christ and Evolution (2009).
John DeGioia
John J. DeGioia is president of Georgetown University (since 2001) and a professorial lecturer in the Department of Philosophy. As the first lay president of a Jesuit university he places emphasis on sustaining and strengthening Georgetown’s Catholic and Jesuit identity and its responsibility to serve as a voice and an instrument for justice. He has also been an advocate for interreligious dialogue. He has most recently taught on “Working on Ourselves: Imagination, Interior Freedom and the Academy.” He is a member of the Order of Malta, a lay religious order of the Roman Catholic Church dedicated to serving the sick and the poor. Before becoming president, DeGioia served at Georgetown as senior vice president, responsible for university-wide operations, and dean of student affairs. DeGioia earned his B.A. and Ph.D at Georgetown University.
Marwa Elshakry
Marwa Elshakry is an Associate Professor of the History of Science at Columbia University, specializing in the history of science, technology, and medicine in the modern Middle East. Elshakry previously taught at Harvard University. Her first book, Theologies of Nature: Reading Darwin in the Middle East, 1860-1950, is forthcoming in 2011; she is also the author of several articles and essays, including “The Exegesis of Science in Twentieth Century Arabic Interpretations of the Qur'an” in Interpreting Nature and Scripture: History of a Dialogue (2009). She received her BA from Rutgers University and MA and PhD from Princeton University.
Sherine Hamdy
Sherine Hamdy is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at Brown University, where she has taught courses on theories and controversies in science and society, and the anthropology of bioethics since 2008. In 2009 she was the Kutayba Alghanim Assistant Professor of the Social Sciences and received the 2009 Rudolph Virchow Award from the Society of Medical Anthropology for her article "When the State and Your Kidneys Fail: Political Etiologies in an Egyptian Dialysis Ward" (2008). Her research focuses on the anthropology of medicine, health, science, and technology, and the production of knowledge. She is author of Our Bodies Belong to God: Bioethics, Islam, and Organ Transplants in Egypt (forthcoming 2011). Hamdy received her PhD from New York University.
Dževad Hodžić
Dževad Hodžić is Professor of Ethics in the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Sarajevo.
Josiah Idowu-Fearon
Rt. Rev. Josiah Idowu-Fearon is Anglican Archbishop of Kaduna and a proponent of Christian-Muslim dialogue in Nigeria. He served on the 2003-04 Lambeth Commission on Communion, which considered worldwide Anglican unity in response to divisive debates on homosexuality, and is past president of the Anglican Network for Inter Faith Concerns. In addition, Idowu-Fearon is a co-founder of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Christianity at Kaduna and area leader for the Programme for Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (PROCMURA). In 2007 Fearon began a five year, renewable term as a Six Preacher (a preaching priest) at Canterbury Cathedral in London; he previously taught at the cathedral’s International Study Centre. Ordained in 1971, he became a bishop in 1990. Idowu-Fearon studied at Durham University and the University of Birmingham. He attended the 2009 Georgetown University-sponsored conference “A Common Word Between Us and You: A Global Agenda for Change.”
Ibrahim Kalin
Ibrahim Kalin is chief policy advisor to Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and is a fellow at Georgetown University's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. Kalin previously taught at the College of the Holy Cross. Kalin founded the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research in Ankara, Turkey, serving as Director from 2005-09. He is the author of Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition (2009), as well as numerous articles and essays. Kalin earned an MA from the International Islamic University of Malaysia and a PhD from George Washington University. He was one of the original signatories of A Common Word Between Us and You, a letter addressed to Christian leaders in an appeal for peace and cooperation between the two religions;
Bekir Karliga
Bekir Karliga is Professor of Islamic Philosophy at Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, and chairman of the National Coordination Committee of the Alliance of Civilizations.
Felix Korner
Felix Körner, SJ is the Director of the Institute for the Study of Religions and Cultures and professor in the Faculty of Missiology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. His publications include Revisionist Koran Hermeneutics in Contemporary Turkish University Theology: Rethinking Islam (2005) and Kirche im Angesicht des Islam (2008), as well numerous articles and essays. Körner holds a BA from Heythrop College, MA from Bamberg University, and doctorate from the University of Fribourg.
Jane McAuliffe
Jane McAuliffe is the president of Bryn Mawr College, a position she has held since 2008. Previously, she had been Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Georgetown University, where she was appointed Dean in 1999. McAuliffe has also taught at the University of Toronto and Emory University, where she also served as Associate Dean for the Candler School of Theology. She is a scholar of Islam, specializing on the Qur’an and its exegesis. She is a past president of the American Academy of Religion and the author of numerous publications, including The Qur’an: A Norton Critical Edition (forthcoming), Qur’ānic Christians: An Analysis of Classical and Modern Exegesis (1991), and The Encyclopaedia of the Qur’ān (2001-2006, general editor). McAuliffe holds a BA from Trinity College (Washington, DC) and MA and PhD from the University of Toronto.
Mustansir Mir
Mustansir Mir is University Professor of Islamic Studies at Youngstown State University. Originally from Pakistan, he has taught at colleges in Lahore, at the University of Michigan, and at the International Islamic University in Malaysia. His main interests are Qur’anic studies and Iqbal studies. Recent publications include Iqbal: Makers of Islamic Civilization(2006) and Understanding the Islamic Scripture: A Study of Selected Passages from the Qur'an(2007). He co-edits the journal Studies in Contemporary Islam. Mir earned his PhD from the University of Michigan.
Ebrahim Moosa
Ebrahim Moosa is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University, where he specializes in classical and modern Islamic thought with a focus on Islamic law, history, ethics, and theology. Moosa previously taught at the University of Capetown and Stanford University and was named Carnegie Scholar in 2005 to pursue research on the madrasas of South Asia. He is the author of Ghazali and the Poetics of Imagination (2005) and editor of the last manuscript of Fazlur Rahman, Revival and Reform in Islam (2000); he also writes the blog Dihliz: The Spaces In-Between. Before entering academia Moosa worked as a journalist in South Africa and the United Kingdom. A native of South Africa, he earned his MA and PhD from the University of Cape Town.
Michael Nazir-Ali
Michael Nazir-Ali, born in Karachi, was Bishop of Rochester in the Church of England from 1994 to 2009, having previously served as General Secretary of the Church Missionary Society and Bishop of Raiwind, Pakistan. He has played a prominent role in the Anglican Communion with regard to Muslim-Christian relations. His publications include Understanding My Muslim Neighbour (2003) and Conviction and Conflict: Islam, Christianity and World Order (2005). In October 2010 the Diocese of South Carolina (Episcopal Church) announced that Nazir-Ali had agreed to serve as Visiting Bishop in South Carolina for Anglican Communion Relationships, a post designed to strengthen the diocese's international relationships.
Ng Kam Weng
Ng Kam Weng is Research Director of the Kairos Research Centre in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. Previously, he had been a fellow at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies and a member of the Center for Theological Inquiry at Princeton University. He also writes the blogs Krisis & Praxis and Religious Liberty Watch. From 1989 to 1992 he taught at the Malaysia Bible Seminary Graduate School. He has a PhD from Cambridge University.
Mehmet Pacaci
Mehmet Pacaci is a Professor at Ankara University in Turkey. An expert on Qur'anic exegesis, he has served as a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University and a Scholar in Residence at Wesley Theological Seminary; he remains an adjunct faculty member at Wesley. Pacaci has also taught at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, Pontifical Gregorian University, Bamberg University, and King Saud University in Saudi Arabia.
Christoph Schwöbel
Christoph Schwöbel is Professor of Systematic Theology and Director of the Institute of Hermeneutics and Cultural Dialogue at the University of Tübingen. Schwöbel previously taught at the Universities of Marburg, Kiel, and Heidelberg, as well as King’s College at the University of London. He has many publications in both English and German, including Die Religion des Zauberers. Theologisches in den großen Romanen Thomas Manns (2008), Christlicher Glaube im Pluralismus. Studien zu einer Theologie der Kultur (2003), Gott in Beziehung (2002), and God: Action and Revelation (1992).
Recep Senturk
Recep Senturk is a Professor of Sociology at Fatih University in Istanbul, where he has worked since 2006. Senturk previously taught at the Art Institute of Pittsburg, Rensellar Polytechnic Institute, and Emory University Law School. He has published in English, Turkish, and Arabic, including numerous journal articles and Narrative Social Structure: Anatomy of the Hadith Transmission Network, 610-1505 (2005). Senturk earned his BA from Marmara University, MA from Istanbul University, and PhD at Columbia University.
Michael Welker
Michael Welker is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Heidelberg and the Executive Director of Forschungszentrum Internationale und Interdisziplinare Theologie [Research Center for International and Interdisciplinary Theology]. Professor Welker’s research interests include Christology, doctrine of creation, anthropology, eschatology, the dialogue between theology and the natural sciences, and interdisciplinary Biblical theology. His publications include, among others, The End of the World and the Ends of God: Science and Theology on Eschatology (2000), God the Spirit (1994), and Creation and Reality (1999). Welker completed his studies in Tubingen, Baden-Wurtemberg with a discussion of Whitehead and process philosophy.
Rowan Williams
Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he has held since 2002. Ordained in the Church of England in 1980, he taught at Cambridge and Oxford before becoming Bishop of Monmouth in 1992 and Archbishop of Wales in 2000. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Williams has developed a number of initiatives focused on improving Christian-Muslim relations, including the annual Building Bridges Seminar. He has written on a wide range of topics, and his publications include A Margin of Silence: The Holy Spirit in Russian Orthodox Theology (2008), Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (2007),On Christian Theology (2000), and Arius: Heresy and Tradition (1987/2002). Williams earned a BA from Christ's College at the University of Cambridge and his DPhil from Wadham College at the University of Oxford. At the end of 2012 he will be stepping down as Archbishop of Canterbury and taking up the post of Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge.