Imam Ashafa and Pastor James from Nigeria, subjects of the film The Imam and the Pastor, recently visited Scotland at the invitation of the Scottish Episcopal Church. They took part in a four-day conference bringing together Christians and Muslims from UK and Scandinavia. The aim was to foster better understanding among those of different faiths, and to discuss the challenges faced by faith groups in different countries.
On Sunday 30 November (St Andrews Day), Imam Ashafa was the Guest Speaker at the Edinburgh Inter-Faith Week service held at St John’s Episcopal Church. He and Pastor James were introduced to the congregation by Donald Reid, Associate Rector of the church and Co-Convener of the Inter-Faith Week. In the afternoon the Pastor and Imam were keynote speakers at a Scottish Inter-Faith Week event in the university city of St Andrews.
On the evening of 28 November, 35 people gathered in the home of Roger and Monica Spooner, who hosted the Imam and Pastor during their stay in Edinburgh. The evening was chaired by Frank Whaling, Emeritus Professor of the Study of Religion at Edinburgh University and the founder of the Edinburgh Inter-Faith Association 20 years ago. Imam Ashafa and Pastor James outlined their recent work in different countries – they had recently returned from three weeks in Australia and a major inter-faith conference in Cyprus. Also in the past year they have been working in Kenya to help rebuild relationships among different tribal groups following the post-election violence. In Nigeria there was still the need for a “huge amount of mediation” - where people have deep inner wounds that are not healed, and they still want revenge, as was evident when renewed fighting broke out in Jos, at the beginning of the visit to Edinburgh. Talking of Scotland, Pastor James encouraged the inter-faith community to go beyond “polite dialogue”, to tackle difficult issues and to engage more people of different faiths.
Dr Monica Spooner launched an appeal to raise funds to replace Pastor James’ artificial arm – any who wish to contribute can contact her: