An ISIS fighter tears down a cross to plant an ISIS flag on a church.
LONDON (Christian Examiner) – A Jordanian prince, who is Muslim, has joined a Jewish interfaith scholar in defending Christianity against Islamic State (ISIS) claims that the faith is an intrusive tool of the West in the Middle East.
In an opinion editorial in the Daily Telegraph, Prince Hassan bin Talal, uncle to King Abdullah II and founder of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies, and Dr. Ed Kessler, founder and director of the Woolf Institute at Cambridge, both say Christianity has been part of “the essential fabric of the Middle East for two thousand years.”
“The reality is that we are all one community, united by shared beliefs and history. But this is increasingly denied, with Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, or Daesh as it is known in our region, taking the lead both in justifying and carrying out these attacks. The most recent issue of its publication Dabiq, headlined ‘Break the Cross,’ explicitly rejects the fundamental belief that we are all People of the Book,” they wrote.
“It is time to call a halt to the hate and atrocities that are causing convulsions throughout our immediate region and beyond. Peace and humanity itself hang upon the success of this interfaith exercise. It is that important,” they wrote.