Mennonite Weekly Review

QOM, Iran — In this center of religious scholarship in Iran, 17 Mennonite Christian and Shiite Muslim professors found similarities and differences as they discussed peace and justice.

Shiite scholar Muhammad Legenhausen, left, asks a question about the Mennonite understanding of martyrdom. Listening, from left, are professor Mohammed Ali Shomali, and Mennonite professors Jim Reimer and Jeremy Bergen, both of Conrad Grebel University College. — Photo provided by Conrad Grebel University College

They took part in a dialogue conference hosted May 24-27 by the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute.

Mennonite Central Committee organized and sponsored the conference from the Mennonite side.

Participants presented papers rooted in their own tradition’s theological understanding of the nature, mandate and implications of peace and justice. Formal and informal discussions provided opportunities to find commonalities, clarify differences and respectfully engage each other.

The Mennonites’ presentations covered topics such as biblical perspectives, the centrality of Jesus for peace and justice, pacifism, martyrdom and the history of Mennonite practices of peace and justice.

Shiite presentations examined the relationship between justice and peace in the Quran, war and jihad, eschatology, divine mercy and the nature of the international political order.

Some sessions drew several dozen observers.

Most of the Muslim participants were professors at the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute as well as clerics. All were men. Two Mennonite women — Wilma Bailey of the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis and Susan Kennel Harrison of the Toronto School of Theology — presented papers at and spoke with several Iranian women who came to observe.

This conference, the fourth in a series that began in 2002, grew out of an exchange program between MCC and the Imam Khomeini Education and Research Institute.

David Shenk of Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., a participant in all four dialogues, said that because of relationships developed over the years, each side was able to engage and even challenge the other on the assumptions and implications of their positions, he said.