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Israel's President Addresses Interfaith Conference In Kazakhstan

By Howard M. Friedman

Last week, Israel's President Shimon Peres delivered the keynote address (full text) at an Interfaith Conference in Kazakhstan attended by hundreds of Muslim leaders from the Middle East and around the world, as well as by Israel's chief rabbis. (Background.) Peres' address was often theological in its approach to Islamic terrorism and Middle East peace. He said in part:

While the monotheistic and humanistic believers, Christians, Muslims and Jews, used to believe that there was just one God for all, compassionate, merciful and righteous, there are nowadays others, luckily a minority, that sanctify a different God, a God that permits massacres, forgives cruelty, and calls upon his believers to destroy, kill, lie and ruin. This distorted stream constitutes a defamation of the Lord. It is not a religion, it is a crime, a crime against God and man. We must separate religion from terror. This should be a common effort by all believers, regardless of faith, creed or gender....

Cultivating interfaith ties of understanding and friendship is vital, not only in interfaith relations, but in the religions' perception of God. The first question is always whether God created man in His image, or whether man is trying to create God in his compromised image. Whether we should adopt God's moral code, or whether we should refer our personal desires to God.... Only God who created man has the right to determine life.... God had no partners in the creation of the world, so there is nobody that can declare war against.

Full post as published by Religion Clause on July 06, 2009 (boomark / email).