All in Good Faith

Author(s): Jean Potter, Marcus Braybrooke
Publisher: World Congress of Faiths

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Development of Interfaith Prayer and the Discussion
following year the first Commonwealth Day Multifaith celebration was held at St Martin-in-theFields. It was attended by the Queen.
The next year, however, following objections by some Christians led by Rev Christopher Wansey, Vicar of Roydon in Essex, the celebration was moved to the 'neutral' Guildhall, where it was held for a few years. Then in 1972, it moved to Westminster Abbey. The Abbey, despite some opposition, has continued to be the venue for this annual occasion, which is still usually attended by the Queen.
1967 also saw considerable controversy about the WCF Annual Conference service which was held at Great St Mary's Church, Cambridge. The vicar of the church, who had agreed to preach, was Canon Hugh Montefiore. He had attracted some adverse publicity earlier in the summer by remarks about Jesus' sexuality. Rev Christopher Wansey again led the protests and sent a telegram to the Archbishop, who was abroad. The Bishop of Ely allowed the service to proceed and in the event only a handful of protesters gathered outside the church.
Opposition within the Church of England to 'multi-religious services' had already been voiced in the Lower House of the Canterbury Convocation in 1966, when, after a poorly attended debate, Rev E Stride's motion expressing concern was approved. In the following year, 1967, the General Secretaries of the larger Anglican Missionary Societies strongly advised local churches not to provide for inter-faith services. The matter was taken up by the British. Council of Churches, which in 1968 agreed that churches should 'scrupulously avoid those forms of interfaith worship which compromise the distinctive faiths of the participants and should ensure that Christian witness is neither distorted nor muted'. (5). The final draft had read 'all forms of interfaith worship', but this was changed to 'those forms of interfaith worship' a compromise I had suggested on behalf of the World Congress of Faiths.
The final report to the British Council of Churches made clear that Christians would not wish to compromise the uniqueness of Christ and that members of other faiths would not wish to compromise their convictions. 'The presupposition of any interfaith service must be the acknowledgement of our religious diversity rather than a presumption of some (lowest) common denominator What needs to be stressed is the religious approach to life and the common endeavour to bring spiritual values to bear on all its aspects'. The Report suggested exchange visits to different places of worship and 'occasions on which those of different faiths do in turn what is characteristic of their own religion, enabling the others present to share to the extent to which they conscientiously can'. The latter suggestion seems to be the genesis.
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