Evangelism between Muslims and Christians

Bishop Alan of Bucks gives us a useful introduction to the concord on evangelism which seems to have a common ancestry with the recent concordat between Christian and Muslim leaders in Bradford. It seems to me the Bradford concord (scroll down about half the page to get past the newsy personality stuff to the text of the agreement) has one thing going for it, namely the explicitising of an application of the golden rule in the form of not speaking about the other in a way that they would not recognise as fair.

Anyway, the Bishop helpfully sets out some of the reasoning behind the Leicester statement. You can see it here: Bishop Alan’s Blog: Evangelism between Muslims and Christians I think that the difficulty for evangelicals and their Muslim equivalents (I assume) would be point two: "Acceptance that it is God’s providence that both faith communities exist — a theology of “people of the book” or providence, in which believers feel secure enough about their faith to leave it to God to sort things out in the end."
Now, Bp Alan briefly and helpfully evaluates this:
"Positively, this does engage with reality and express tolerance in a way which is attractive to English people. It’s probably where most English people of all faiths and none actually are.
Negatively, it seems to require pure relativism, and requires work to engage with one’s own religion more seriously in its own terms rather than just as cultural identity."
I would add that it requires of those who have some element of exclusivism in their understanding of their religion /faith /spirituality (and that's not the same of being 'Exclusivist' necessarily -I speak from my own perspective in this respect) to pull back from that more than may be warranted. I think that my own nuanced (I hope) position which draws on Barthian insights still would find it difficult to feel easy with the kind of positive regard for other faith systems. Heck, I have problems with the my own religious institutions without having to be nice about other peoples'! What's more, my reading of the gospels seems to encourage us to be leery about religion when it becomes institutional. It should always be under judgement; so I don't want to enshrine religious acceptance in terms that speaks too positively of religious institutions and traditions. That's not the same as recognising, however, that God may not work through them and even make use of them in varying ways and to varying degrees. So while there may be a providential role, we have to recognise that may not constitute a ringing divine endorsement of religion/s. I would like to see this more cautious and 'judgmental' approach to religion more fully expressed in thinking about interfaith relations. I think that the Bradford distinctive mentioned above actually helps here.

For me, this means that the issues of conversion from one religion to another are not simple. Religion may be more cultural than relative-to-God. But that's not to say there is no connection either. There are cultural systems-called-religions which may witness more fully, consistently or effectively to important things but the wider cultural milieux in which they exist may mean that there is no once-for-all-ness about that.

In short, the Leicester background as Bp Alan presents it, seems to ask of me (and perhaps you) to agree that God wills Islam to exist. I'd rather be able to say that God permits it and may use it, but that its existence may testify as much to the failures of Christian discipleship and statesmanship in the seventh and eighth centuries as something that God calls into existence positively. I recognise that many Muslims may wish to hold an analogous position (and do -I've read and heard them). Part of the trick we have to pull off is to recognise this degree of mutually incompatible and, indeed, mutually 'offensive' claims. I think some Muslims at least would want to say something similar of Christianity albeit refracted through a supercessionist narrative.