At Mosque opening in Massachusetts, tensions permeate interfaith gathering

Posted by Kendall Harmon

The controversy over the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury Crossing has posed one of the biggest challenges to interfaith relations in Boston in years, and the tension was readily on display during the Friday morning opening ceremonies for the new mosque.

Inside the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College, mosque backers hosted an interfaith breakfast whose honorary cochairmen included an Episcopal bishop, a Catholic priest, and the heads of the Black Ministerial Alliance, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.

Critics have accused the mosque’s backers of being extremists and radicals, but much of the mainstream Christian leadership, as well as the political leadership, in Boston appears to have rejected the allegations. On the way in to the breakfast, I encountered Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, the Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts and asked him why he was there. He noted that about 400 Muslims who work downtown regularly worship in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and said he wanted “to honor them,’’ he also called the new mosque “much needed for interfaith dialogue.’’

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Filed under: * Anglican - Episcopal • Episcopal Church (TEC) • TEC Bishops • * Religion News & Commentary • Inter-Faith Relations • Other Faiths • Islam • Muslim-Christian relations

8 Comments
Posted June 29, 2009 at 3:12 pm [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. episcoanglican wrote:

This is the same bishop who prevented an orthodox priest (me) from receiving a call from a parish in his diocese. Kyrie eleison.

June 29, 3:26 pm | [comment link]
2. Undergroundpewster wrote:

Give him a break, maybe he was just glad to be rid of them. After all, it must have been a lot of work removing the cross and covering the stained glass in order to not offend anyone.

June 29, 3:39 pm | [comment link]
3. Br. Michael wrote:

All religions (and secularism) are the same don’t you know.  And 1, maybe it worked out for the best.  Would you really have wanted Shaw as your bishop?

June 29, 3:39 pm | [comment link]
4. nwlayman wrote:

I refuse, utterly REFUSE to make a cheap one-liner at the expense of Ann Redding.  Nope.  Not gonna happen.

June 29, 3:53 pm | [comment link]
5. azusa wrote:

The Bishop of Mosquachusetts. wink

June 29, 4:50 pm | [comment link]
6. Passing By wrote:

[Comment deleted by Elf]

June 29, 7:50 pm | [comment link]
7. Katherine wrote:

Bishop Shaw as quoted:  “He noted that about 400 Muslims who work downtown regularly worship in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and said he wanted “to honor them,’’ he also called the new mosque “much needed for interfaith dialogue.’’

Why would Muslims be worshiping in a Christian Cathedral?  The Qur’an itself specifically denies the Christian faith on several extremely important points and misstates Christian beliefs as well.  Muslims in America have every right to build mosques (although I hope they will not be authorized to have those infernal loudspeakers to broadcast the call the prayer).  But allowing, apparently, a not only non-Christian but specifically anti-Christian group to use worship space in a Christian church is outrageous.  Let them rent a hall, just like Anglicans who have lost their property.

June 30, 12:28 am | [comment link]
8. Undergroundpewster wrote:

#7 Katherine makes a good point and raises the question in my mind, would the Bishop have donated or rented the Cathedral to a “breakaway” congregation of Anglicans?

June 30, 7:44 am | [comment link]
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