Calif. seminary gets tax funds to promote Christian-Muslim dialogue. (People & Events).

Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., has received a $1 million federal grant to launch a program aimed at strengthening dialogue between U.S. Muslim and Christian groups.

Fuller will form a panel of 12 scholars, half of them Christian and half Muslim. The scholars will meet to see if there are "common basic assumptions and metaphors" that can lead to conversation and mutual respect, David Augsburger, a Fullerton professor of pastoral care, told the Pasadena Star-News.

"The Koran and Hebrew and Christian scriptures are often misunderstood on both sides," Augsburger told the newspaper. "The perspectives that emphasize peace are not as perceived as they should be."

Augsburger said the committee will produce publications to educate Christians about Islam and Muslims about Christianity. But he insisted that the group will not be in the business of trying to persuade anyone to drop a religious belief or adopt new ones.

"Being firmly committed to one's own faith and position doesn't preclude radical, open willingness to dialogue," he said.

In other news about Islam and church-state separation:

* A U.S. Muslim group has issued a statement criticizing Supreme Court rulings upholding the separation of church and state. The Muslim American Society, based in Falls Church, Va., issued a paper Feb. 27 stating that "Muslims should join the call for an interpretation of the Constitution that accommodates religion, rather than stifles it, and support initiatives that would tend to promote religiosity in public life."

Mimicking language common among Religious Right groups, the paper, titled, "Religion in the American Public Square: An Islamic Perspective," maintains that the government should not have to be neutral on the question of whether God exists. Current high court doctrine, the paper insists, has made irreligion "an official belief system."

Asserts the statement, "Since the courts have enforced irreligion as the officially approved religion, religious minorities--indeed, people of all faiths--have felt a coercive pressure to conform to it."

Elsewhere the statement argues, "Islam does not hold that if it is not the prevailing religion of a society, then irreligion must prevail. Islam considers Christianity a revealed religion, vastly preferring it to atheism, even considering atheism a form of polytheism, as it attributes God's power to other than Him."