I Am A Christian But Im Not Perfect

Where I live near Melbourne, AU downunder - south of the equator - some deluded optimists thought it would be a good idea for Christians and Moslems to at least talk to one another because even though we disagree in matters of belief and worship we experience many problems in common such as family breakdown and trouble associated with alcohol and drug abuse within the family leading to social isolation, not to mention the many challenges we face bringing up children in today's world and caring for the elderly or disabled. The list goes on and on. We can only benefit from understanding each other's point of view. We do not have to agree on everything in order to live together in peace and harmony but we need mutual respect just to survive. Mutual respect is not a distant or far off goal, the challenge begins now, today otherwise there is no distant or far off future for any of us to look forward to. At first I embraced the proposal enthusiastically and so did a number of others [i]in theory[/i] but very few of them turned up on the days when special arrangements had been made to welcome the visitors and make them comfortable in a strange setting. At the time I was active in a small-ish (aren't they all) Baptist Church in the inner Northern suburbs and there is a larger Islamic centre a few blocks away, not far to travel if you have a car. The meetings I attended were perfunctory and the visitors in attendance were few. It seems to me that the internet and services like SimilarWorlds.com are our best hope of developing and maintaining mutual understanding and respect. Both religions have similar roots tracing their origin back to Abraham and both of them experienced persecution in the early days from the traditional religious order which feared the uprising of something new. Unfortunately both religions appear to have been associated with agencies of oppression, a link which true believers are quick to condemn necause violence and true spirituality are incompatible.