The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) has announced that a meeting was recently held of the National Muslim-Christian Initiative, a group that whose Muslim representatives appear to be US Muslim Brotherhood groups. According to the announcement:
March 24-25, 2015 A meeting of the National Muslim-Christian Initiative, a major dialogue between Muslim and Christian leaders, took place in late March, gathering together nearly 40 Christian and Muslim senior representatives from around the country to engage issues of concern to both communities, including deliberate discussion of Islamphobia in the US and religious extremist ideology abroad. The meeting included a public evening program with more than 100 people present, on the intersection of religious freedom and respect for what others hold sacred.
The initiative, begun in 2008 and having last met in 2011, is an integral part of the 30+ years of relationship between Christian communions connected through the National Council of Churches and Muslim organizations. The pause in meetings was due to organizational and programmatic factors in both communities.”
The resumption was met with enthusiasm by all participants. This spirit was captured in the welcoming remarks of one of the initiative’s co-conveners, Rev. Dr. Christine Hong of the Presbyterian Church USA, who noted the urgency of the need for this dialogue because of the horrible violence taking place in other parts of the world, and the racial and religious tension going on here in the US. “This dialogue,” Hong said, “asks us how we can accompany one another in the midst of these problems, and how we might better help build a healthy society.
Read the rest here.
In March 2008, the GMBDW reported on the launch of the National Muslim-Christian Initiative (NMCI) by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a part of the US Muslim Brotherhood, together with unidentified other Muslim organizations. Since that time, it does not appear the that the NMCI has been active. However, at the end of March the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced that it had taken part in a meeting of the NMCI where participants reportedly included a number of national Christian groups and leaders of groups from from the the US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), a recently formed umbrella group of US Muslim Brotherhood organizations that includes CAIR, ISNA, and the Islamic Circle of North America (CNA) and which this week held its first National Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. At the meeting, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad reportedly offered a presentation on Islamophobia at the meeting.