"Believed to be the longest-running international dialogue of Christian and Muslim scholars, the Building Bridges Seminar was initiated in 2002 by then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Annually, the Building Bridges Seminar creates a conversation-circle comprising some thirty scholar-believers for the purpose of deep dialogical study of texts-scriptural and otherwise. As a comparative-theological topic, freedom is far from straightforward. While it has long been identified with modernity and even post-modernity, it is ...
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"Believed to be the longest-running international dialogue of Christian and Muslim scholars, the Building Bridges Seminar was initiated in 2002 by then Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey. Annually, the Building Bridges Seminar creates a conversation-circle comprising some thirty scholar-believers for the purpose of deep dialogical study of texts-scriptural and otherwise. As a comparative-theological topic, freedom is far from straightforward. While it has long been identified with modernity and even post-modernity, it is indeed a theme taken up in both the Bible and the Qur an. But whereas the New Testament emerged in a region under occupation by the Roman Empire, the Qur an was first received in a stateless environment-tribal Arabia-that took political freedom for granted. Hence the engagement of freedom by Christian and Islamic scriptures is not precisely equivalent. Yet freedom has been an important topic for reflection by both Christians and Muslims, especially in the modern period. The book considers how historically, Christian and Muslim faith communities have addressed such matters as God's freedom, human freedom to obey God, autonomy versus heteronomy, autonomy versus self-governance, freedom from incapacitating addiction and desire, hermeneutic or discursive freedom vis-a-vis scripture and tradition, religious and political freedom, and the relationship between personal conviction and public order"--
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