Religion - source of conflict or compassion?

`Healing history and reconciling adversaries: a multi-faith conversation' was the theme of a panel discussion in Caux this summer in which people of the Abrahamic family of faiths took part.

`In Jewish tradition forgiveness is part of repentance, recognition of one's guilt, the detailed mentioning of what one has done, the asking for forgiveness, restitution, addressing injustice,' said panellist Rabbi Marc Gopin, who teaches religion and conflict resolution at Tufts University in Boston, USA. He spoke of his vision that before long Palestinians and Jews would have the wisdom to find the way to apologize to each other, `to live in two homes side by side in dignity and even in companionship'.

Professor Mustafa Abu Sway, Professor of Islamic Thought at Al-Quds University, Jerusalem, said, `The notion of forgiveness is mentioned more than 140 times in the Qur'an. In the overwhelming majority of these times, forgiveness is mentioned in relationship to God; it is he who forgives and who deprives people of forgiveness if they choose to reject his subsequent messages to them. In fact, he is described in the Qur'an as the Forgiver and the oft-forgiving. The latter means that God will forgive the human being not once, but as many times as he/she repents and seeks forgiveness. Repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness.'

In response to a question from the floor by a young German, Rabbi Gopin answered, `I am not happy that the younger generation of German people feels a collective sense of guilt. I would much rather have a civilization that in a very healthy way had confronted the past and was determined to give their children a set of ethics so clear and unambiguous and so courageous that Nazism could never rise again in Germany'.

`The evil and atrocities of the past cannot be undone,' said the third panellist, Geiko Muller-Fahrenholz, Protestant Professor of Theology from Bremen, Germany. `What reconciliation can do is to take away the contaminating power of the past.'

He spoke of `the grinding mills of retaliation' that consumed new generations. How can young people respond to the challenges and tasks of their time if they continue to react and are made to react to their parents' and grandparents' wounds, he went on. `Forgiveness has to do with release, setting the coming generation free.'

He concluded, `Forgiveness is indispensable in the management of human affairs. It is a gift of grace entrusted by God to all human beings irrespective of race, gender, class, creed or religion.'