The Washington Theological Consortium announces that
Dr. Richard J. Jones will be the first to hold
The Al-Alwani Chair in Muslim Christian Dialogue

The Washington Theological Consortium (WTC) is entering into a new era with funding for its first Consortium Chair. The Heritage Educational Trust Inc., which supports the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences, a Consortium member school, will support the new Al-Alwani Chair in Muslim Christian Dialogue. Dr. Richard J. Jones, who is just completing twenty one years teaching Mission and World Religions at Virginia Theological Seminary, will be the first Chair holder. Dr. Jones will teach courses in the Consortium member institutions beginning in January 2010 and will give an inaugural address in spring 2010. The courses will be part of Consortium’s Certificate in Muslim-Christian Studies.

“I am intrigued and humbled by the opportunities that the funding of the Al-Alwani chair in Muslim Christian Dialogue will create for our communities of faith in the Washington Metro area and beyond. This move signifies Heritage Education Trust's commitment to the Muslim Christian Dialogue and to creating and sustaining initiatives that will drive this dialogue further into uncharted territories. It is my pleasure to be able to sign this agreement on behalf of Heritage and look forward for fruitful and mutually beneficial relationship with the WTC for years to come”.
Ahmed Alwani, Executive Dean, Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences.  

“Today the Consortium took an important step for the future. Dr. Jones, as holder of the Al Alwani Chair, will be an invaluable resource to all students. He will provide needed courses and expertise in Muslim-Christian dialogue. We are grateful to the Heritage Trust for their generosity in supporting this important position.”
Fr. John Crossin, OSFS, Executive Director of the Washington Theological Consortium.

The Washington Theological Consortium is a community of theological institutions of diverse Christian traditions whose mission is to embody and witness to Christian unity and to provide an ecumenical context for equipping leaders, while seeking a deeper appreciation of other world religions. Member institutions—including Capital Bible Seminary, Catholic University of America School of Theology and Religious Studies; Howard University School of Divinity; John Leland Center for Theological Studies; Lutheran Theological Seminary; Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies; Reformed Theological Seminary; Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University; Virginia Theological Seminary; Washington Theological Union; and Wesley Theological Seminary—share theological and spiritual resources with each other. The Consortium also includes Associate and Affiliate members, Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, St. Paul’s College, Washington National Cathedral, Graduate School for Islamic and Social Sciences and the Interfaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, DC.

Why Muslim-Christian Dialogue?

As we expand our knowledge of the world’s cultures, we sometimes come upon areas that call us to pause and dig deeper. In the Washington metropolitan area -- an immigration destination as well as a center for national and international government -- our institutions of higher learning offer rich human and documentary resources for historical, social scientific, and geographic approaches to human cultures. Each of these approaches defines its own scope, often prescribing a mandatory sequence of courses leading to an academic credential of proficiency. Each approach is committed to normative procedures for inquiry. These procedures usually include adopting an impartial, non-engaged posture. Insider accounts are subjected to outsider interpretive theory and observations, and the outsider retains the last interpretive word.

Religious studies, an approach to culture aiming to explore the deepest sources of human values, motivations, and belief, present a particular challenge. Human religions can be fruitfully scrutinized with the methods of history, social science, and geography. Yet the impartial or secular observer may come away from such study still unable to account for the power and resilience of religious traditions in human communities. The testimony of the insider, the believer, the engagé, is needed, on its own terms, free from an outsider’s imposed last interpretive word. Only by deep listening can we seriously assess the depth of this dimension of a culture.

Muslim-Christian studies offer specific, focused knowledge about topics of immediate use to public policymakers, community leaders, people in business, pastoral workers, law enforcement personnel, social service providers, and educators whose work or residence puts them outside the boundaries of their own religious tradition and into contact with the other tradition and its living adherents. In the United States of America, and the Washington area in particular, Muslims are a tolerated, articulate, ethnically diverse, and increasingly influential minority. Christians in the Washington area are a historically dominant, ethnically diverse component of the population with complex views about their collective role in public life. Present-day social conflicts, local and global, as well as a heritage of fourteen centuries of encounter, make Muslim-Christian studies an important addition to the competence and skills of both professionals and good neighbors.

The Certificate in Muslim-Christian Dialogue offers the opportunity to acquire foundational knowledge and build competence in core skills that will enable the student to engage confidently with individuals and groups from a tradition that is not one’s own. In these studies personal religious convictions do not have to be checked at the door. Rather, these studies assume as part of their method that it is possible to listen with attentive humility, and hence to learn deeply, while still retaining and when appropriate articulating one’s own deepest convictions, even if these convictions cannot for the moment be reconciled with those on the other side. In many classes the other side will be present in the person of the instructor or fellow-students. Beyond the three required courses, additional courses may be chosen to match a current interest or need. What will be called for in all these studies is active listening, openness to new data, and critical – including self-critical – reflection. In a word, this study demands dialogue.