Conclusion of 9th Building Bridges Seminar

On the first day of the seminar, public lectures addressed topics such as changing patterns in religious authority and different conceptions of freedom emerging in the modern world. On the second and third days the seminar participants engaged in detailed discussion of texts from outstanding modern thinkers in both traditions.

At the closing public session, the Archbishop reviewed the work of the whole seminar, and, together with a panel of participants, responded to questions from the audience on tradition and modernity in Islamic and Christian thought.

Dr Williams spoke of the enriched mutual understanding which those who attended would take away with them. Dr Abdolkarim Soroush, the prominent Iranian theological philosopher, commented that he had attended many inter religious seminars but none with the depth of engagement with the subject, nor the quality of relationships, that had been key features of this seminar.

During the course of the seminar a new website on the Building Bridges Seminar was launched. This covers previous seminars, giving details of participants, seminar themes and materials studied. The website also features a new interview with Dr Williams in which he speaks to Dr John J DeGioia, President of Georgetown University, about why Building Bridges has become such a priority in his work. The website can be viewed at:

http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/networks/building_bridges