The Interfaith Industry

by Samuel Westrop

November 13, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4051/uk-interfaith

Leading interfaith activists such as Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg have defended working with extremist institutions by claiming, "We have to take risks to engage with each other. The Jewish community will be far weaker if we all shelter within a comfort zone labeled 'They all hate us out there'."

As the British Islamist preacher Haitham Al-Haddad noted, not only do Islamist groups employ interfaith dialogue as a deception, but it is a deception that is crucial: "We are talking about minorities living in the West so we have to provide them with workable solutions in the short run. … It is not the far ultimate aim of Muslims because the far ultimate aim for Muslims is to have Islam governing the whole world, Islamization of the whole globe."

Unfortunately, honorable activities do not only attract those with honorable intentions. Over the next decade, religious extremists may, in all likelihood, continue to foster violence and hatred in Britain. Should government really be in the business of promoting homophobes, anti-Semites and supporters of terror by continuing to fund, with taxpayers' money, interfaith networks so closely involved with the extremists themselves?

Interfaith dialogue is a powerful industry in Britain. Many hundreds of groups receive many hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' funds to promote dialogue between groups of different faith. On the face of it, such initiatives appear to indicate progress and civilized discussion. But what sorts of groups are involved with the world of interfaith?