EPPC hosted a luncheon panel discussion on governance, polity, and civil society in the Islamic world and in Christendom. The discussants were Anglican Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in the United Kingdom, and Lamin Sanneh, D. Willis James Professor of Missions & World Christianity at Yale University.

The discussion was moderated by Robin Wainwright, Chairman of the Board of International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians in the USA (INFEMIT USA).

AUDIO RECORDING OF THIS EVENT

Event Audio Part 1 (MP3 format, 23 megabytes, 80 minutes playing time)
Event Audio Part 2 (MP3 format, 13 megabytes, 44 minutes playing time)

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, the 106th Bishop of Rochester in the United Kingdom, is a native of Pakistan, and is an acknowledged authority on Inter-faith issues, particularly Christian-Muslim dialogue. He is currently the President of the Anglican Communion’s Network on Inter-Faith Concerns (NIFCON), and also the Chair of the House of Bishops’ Theological Group. In June 1999 he took his seat in the British House of Lords, becoming the first Asian religious leader to sit in the House of Lords.

He read Economics, Islamic History and Sociology at the University of Karachi, and Theology at Fitzwilliam College and Ridley Hall, Cambridge. His postgraduate studies at Oxford, Cambridge and the Australian College of Theology with the Centre for World Religions, Harvard, spanned comparative literature, the comparative philosophy of religion, and theology. He has taught at universities in the UK, Pakistan and New Zealand and has been a visiting lecturer in these countries and in Canada, the USA and Australia. Bishop Michael is Visiting Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Greenwich and Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, Oxford.

He has taught and lectured throughout the world and is the author of numerous books and articles on Christian mission and inter-faith issues, particularly on Islam. He was Chair of the ecumenical group that wrote The Search for Faith (Church House Publishing 1996). He is a regular contributor to newspapers like The Times, to the Church Press, and to Radio and TV both in UK and elsewhere. In 1999 he presented two BBC Radio documentaries entitled What I Believe. The latest of his books include Citizens and Exiles: Christian Faith in a Plural World (SPCK 1998), Shapes of the Church to Come (Kingsway 2001), and Understanding my Muslim Neighbour (Canterbury Press 2002, with Chris Stone).

Professor Lamin Sanneh

A Gambian by birth, he was educated on four continents. He studied classical Arabic and Islam for his M.A. and subsequently received his Ph.D. in Islamic history at the University of London. He was a professor at Harvard University for eight years before moving to Yale in 1989. He is honorary research professor in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge University; and he was chair of Yale’s Council on African Studies. He has served as consultant to the Pew Charitable Trusts. He is listed in Who's Who in America. He was an official consultant at the 1998 Lambeth Conference in London. For his academic work, he was made Commandeur de l'Ordre National du Lion, Senegal's highest national honor. He is a member of the Council of 100 Leaders of the World Economic Forum, Davos.

Professor Sanneh is the author of over a hundred articles on religious and historical subjects, and of several books. He has written for scholarly journals, including Church History: Studies on Christianity and Culture, Newsletter of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World and The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion. His books include The Crown and the Turban: Muslims and West African Pluralism (1997), Piety and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa (1996), Faith and Power: Christianity and Islam in ‘Secular’ Britain (1998, with Lesslie Newbigin and Jenny Taylor), Abolitionists Abroad: American Blacks and the Making of Modern West Africa (2000), and more recently Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel beyond the West (Eerdmans 2003).

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Robin Wainwright is Chairman of the Board of International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians in the USA (INFEMIT USA). He is also President of Holy Land Trust, USA, a nonprofit humanitarian organization established in 1998 with the aim of strengthening, encouraging and improving the Palestinian community through working with children, families, youth, and the non-governmental organization (NGO) community, and to aid communities in distress in the Middle East. He is Director of the Catlin Foundation in Miami, Florida. He has spent more than 20 years developing and implementing programs for a variety of humanitarian organizations involved in outreach work in the US, overseas, and particularly in the Middle East. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from WestmontCollege, Santa Barbara, California, and a Master of Divinity/Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.