Participants:
- Angela Abmeier, ARK Deutschland – Discussion host
- Thibault Lion, CASA – Secretary
- François Van Der Meide, ARK Nederlands
- Benjamin Dupays, ARK France
- Sarah Morton, ARK UK
- Claudia Abmeier, ARK Deutschland
- Gonzalo Maestre, Narthex
NB: Before all discussions, we agreed to extend the initial theme of Welcoming Muslims in our churches to Welcoming non-Christians in our churches, as we thought the issue to be wider than just the relationship to Islam.
The discussion started with the official position of all the organisation represented around the table.
– CASA is officially a secular organisation. However, it was founded by a priest and does officially require guides to stay true to all the three dimensions of our sites: historical, artistical and spiritual. Hence, we do ask our guides to be able to speak accurately of the meaning of the site to Christians. All in all, this is easier to achieve for Christian guides and in practice a lot (but not all) of our guides are believers.
– Likewise ARK requires only knowledge and interest for the Christian faith before anything else. As a general rule, ecumenism should the main motivation rather than evangelism.
– Narthex does admit looking actively for Catholics when it comes to recruiting its guys, in an effort to convey best the religious reach of the churches.
We then proceeded to distinguish different archetypes from non-Christians visitors and the challenges which arise with each of them.
Ars et Fides 