Church of England Synod member calls for banning of new mosques
I) Citation: http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=3464
Source: The Muslim News
Date: April 25th, 2008

II) Summary
In this article, a Christian woman and a Muslim man are having a religious disagreement about the building of new mosques in the U.K. The woman, Allison Ruoff, stated that if the Church of England allows the building of these new mosques, then that area will become Islamic. She believes that they will then bring in Islamic law and change the Christian country. Due to her comment, the Christian church is trying to keep their distance from her because they do not want confrontation or problems with the Muslims who were planning on building these mosques. The spokesman for the Church of England, Ben Wilson, told the Islam news that those were Alison’s “personal views” and those thoughts go against Article 9 of the European Convention of human rights. It clearly provides the right for freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. After Alison said those things, many Muslims have been angered and shot saying that she wasn’t a real Christian and “she is going against her own religion.” Another Muslim said that her comments were “narrow-minded and bigoted.” Another thing that really angered the Muslims was when a Christian radio station asked Alison if her opinions were too radical, she said, “I hope it is radical, we need radical thinking.” It seems that there aren’t many people like Alison who belong to the Church of England, but I’m sure there are some.

III) Reactions
A) This article relates to the AP world history theme cultural, religious, and intellectual developments. These Muslims are trying to build new mosques that they say aren’t just a place for worship, but a place where, “they train young people to become law abiding and peace loving citizens of England,” or anywhere else. They also said that they welcome non-Muslims into mosques to benefit from its spirituality. Unfortunately, some do not want something new and different and are trying to stop the beautiful thing that is cultural exchange and learning.
B) Centuries ago, Christians and Muslims were involved in the Crusades, which was also about religion. They had their disagreements and things turned bad. How do we know that this won’t happen again if there are a lot of people like Alison? Well, maybe not a Crusade, but there might be a bigger conflict on the way if things are not resolved soon.
C) This article was written by Zainab Hernani, a Muslim who writes for The Muslim Times. It is not clear if this is a man or woman, but gender has nothing to do with this article. I’m sure it was hard to hear those words for any Muslim, but I wonder how difficult it would have been to write about it.
D) There does not seem to be any wording or phrases that would impact this issue. It is mostly just what went on and what was said. I think if there was any bias, it would have been an angry tone by the writer.
E) It would be helpful to hear from maybe a Jewish person who has been discriminated against like these Muslims were. They had bad words thrown at them for wanting to share their religion with whoever wanted to learn. They would be helpful to hear from because they could tell us how they felt when they were discriminated against and then maybe we could talk to Alison again and see how she would feel if she was ever talked about or told she couldn’t do something because of her religion.
F) I think that it was uncalled for that Alison said those rude remarks and even if she didn’t think that they would be offended, she shouldn’t have said anything at all. It is a bad reflection on the Christian church and especially in England. She should know that her religion is as important to her as the Muslims religion is to them. I feel like not a lot of people are like Alison, but only a few can hold back the world.