Last week was a momentous one for  Scotland with its referendum on whether to leave the United Kingdom and be fully responsible for its own affairs.  Feelings ran high as the day approached and feelings ran even higher after the result. For some it was a moment of elation and perhaps relief, for others bitter disappointment and perhaps anger at the assault from the British establishment.  This was a David and Goliath situation and Goliath won. But it was won peacefully.  As one media commentator said 'the referendum took place without bombs and violence with only one egg thrown!'.

For two years Scotland had talked about its future - not in terms of yes or no but in terms of the kind of society it wanted to become.  My conversations were with people of faith so there was a sense of common purpose  in hoping for a society which was hospitable, welcoming to the stranger, committed to equality, caring for its poorest and most vulnerable, at peace with its neighbours, taking its rightful and responsible place on the world stage, refusing to house nuclear weapons, being proud of its unique character.  It was a wonderful opportunity to talk about our society but what happens now to all those hopes and dreams?  Immediately party politics have come into play. 

One of the concerns throughout the referendum was that Scottish society would be a divided one with the need for reconciliation.  No-one seemed more intent on this than the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who called politicians from different sides to a service in St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh.  Of course religions are for reconciliation but there seemed to be something strange about staging this just two days after a referendum which had emotionally engaged so many people. 

For one thing this was the established church encouraging people to be reconciled. It was an establishment activity which did not endear itself to those who had seen the establishment as closing ranks against any independence.  It was a moment lost for ecumenical and interfaith relations as  it could have been arranged in partnership  with other Christian denominations and people of all faiths. This might have saved it from being seen as 'establishment'. 

But it didn't seem too wise to me.  People were still reeling from the result of the referendum. Being asked to put the past two years behind us and start from fresh was just too much too soon.  Reconciliation is important but it doesn’t come easily. It's a process which requires dialogue, understanding, forgiveness, maybe even a certain compromise on both sides.  This could have been an opportunity for religious leaders to encourage a sharing of vision, a sharing of fears and concerns and an exploration of how to work together for the future of Scotland. Some kind of dialogue, done outside of adversarial politics, might just get different parties working together, seeking a common vision. Then a reconciliation service would be symbolic of a process that's already underway. Much as it's good to encourage people to move on, It's typical of religious systems  to tell people how to act, what to do without taking human processes into consideration and to question it is to sound as though you're against reconciliation.

A famous case of reconciliation is that of Iain Paisley and Matt McGuinness in Northern Ireland. Iain Paisley, who died recently, was vitriolic in his hatred of Catholics, despised the Pope as the anti-Christ, whipped up fear and hatred, all of  which no doubt contributed to the Troubles of Northern Ireland.  And Martin McGuinness will have hated Iain Paisley and all he stood for, seeing the only way to a united Ireland as violence.

But somehow things changed – either through a change of heart or pragmatism the two agreed to share power and work together through the political process. The world saw two people, universally recognised as enemies, sitting together, working together for the good of their country.  And wonder of wonders they actually seemed to like one another! They shared a sense of humour to the extent they were nick-named the Chuckle Brothers.

Iain Paisley and Matt McGuinness are a sign of what reconciliation can do and that it can happen in situations that seem intractable. But it does not come easily or quickly.  I'm not sure the Moderator  achieved much on Sunday.

Eight years ago this week Pope Benedict XVI gave an address in Regensberg in which he quoted a long forgotten Byzantine Emperor and seemed to suggest that Islam was intrinsically violent as well as inhuman and evil. Now some people are suggesting that perhaps he was prophetic and we have come to see in  Islam just what fanaticism can lead to. 

The context for the quotation was a speech about faith and reason. He wanted to show how reason untethered from faith leads to fanaticism and violence.  But is this true of Islam more than any other religion?  The history of Islam and Christianity provide much evidence that contradicts this. History does not show Islam as always and everywhere violent, or Christianity as inherently virtuous and peaceful. All religions have their dark side. Christianity has many instances of persecution, violence and brutality against other Christians never mind other faiths and even just people like so-called witches who were seen as different and therefore came under suspicion.

Should we expect things to be different in the 21st century?  We can certainly hope so but world events don't support our optimism.  At the moment  the focus is on Islam which shows us so clearly what extremists and fanatics in any religion or philosophical belief system can do - in fact what any human being can do when they think their way is the only way and their view right while everyone else is wrong.  How easy it is for human beings to harden their hearts and turn against one another even when we know that our interconnectedness, that our common origins  means we are turning against ourselves.

In the Christian Church today is the feast of the Mother of Sorrows and there is much to be sorrowful about when we look at our world.  Many Muslims feel this sorrow very keenly and want to distance themselves from the atrocities of the Islamic State which seems to be motivated only by hate, not even claiming a religious motivation for what it has done. The Muslim Council of Britain is now asking the media to stop using the name Islamic State because it has nothing to do with Islam.  They fear reprisals after the beheading of David Haines.  Harun Khan, deputy secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said a backlash was experienced virtually every time violence carried out by extremists, who claimed to act in the name of religion, received high-profile media coverage. And so hate is imported into our own communities and we know exacerbated through social media.

Last week Shimon Peres, the former Israeli President met with Pope Francis and suggested “The U.N. has had its time,”  “What we need is an organization of United Religions, the U.N. of religions".  This is not a new idea but one that has inspired the foundation of many interfaith organisations.  The United Religions Initiative, the World Congress of Faiths, the World Conference of Religions for Peace, the Parliament of World Religions are just some of the international bodies working for peace and reconciliation among religions. Then there are the national inter faith bodies like the Interfaith Network here in the UK and Interfaith Scotland here in my own country determined not to let atrocities carried out in the name of religion affect relations elsewhere. But where is the publicity for this?

Today the Muslim Council of Scotland issued a statement condemning the murder of  fellow Scot, David Haines and  distancing Islam from what the statement calls "the depravity of their warped ideology". 

How much publicity has this statement been given? I cannot find it on the BBC news website. Would this not be an
opportunity to counteract the violence that could follow David Haines murder?  Would it not be an opportunity to export peace?  Meanwhile the many, many people involved in interfaith relations throughout the world carry on quietly trying to make the world a safer place for all of us.

This week the Scottish Bishops' Committee for Interreligious Dialogue met with some members of the Shia community. It was a very fruitful conversation and we learned about the difference between Sunni and Shia Muslims, the different approaches to authority and jihad in the communities and the desire of the community to be better known.  We heard a story which I am ashamed to say I knew nothing about though I feel I should have. 

We were talking about how people who perpetrate atrocities in the name of their religion are usually ignorant of the tradition. Their ignorance stems from the fact they think they know and are sure they are right.  The story was about St Catherine's Monastery in Sinai.  It's a Greek Orthodox monastery, commonly called St Catherine's because the relics  of St Catherine are there though its official name is the Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai.  It's located at the very place where God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, at the foot of the mountain where Moses received the 10 commandments so you can imagine what a sacred place it is. It's the oldest inhabited monastery in Christendom but has had to face threats to its existence. one such threat was from Islamic forces in the Middle Ages. It was saved because of a letter from the Prophet Mohammed offering it protection.

According to the tradition preserved at Sinai, Mohammed both knew and visited the monastery and knew the monks there, possibly from his years in charge of his wife's caravans.  When the young Muslim community moved from Mecca to Medina a delegation from Sinai asked Mohammed for a  letter of protection. This was granted, and authorized by him when he placed his hand upon the document.  According to the website In AD 1517, Sultan Selim I confirmed this, saving the monastery from destruction but he took the original letter of protection for safekeeping to the royal treasury in Constantinople. However he gave the monastery certified copies of this document, each depicting the hand print of Mohammed in token of his having touched the original. It was this letter that saved the monastery.

The letter is to be seen in the monastery today. This is what it says:

"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.
Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.
No compulsion is to be on them.
Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries.
No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses.
Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.
No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight.
The Muslims are to fight for them.
If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray.
Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.
No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."

 Do the Islamic State know about this? Would they adopt it if they did? Or does the example of their founder not quite come up to their version of Islam - something found in other religions too.   I think this chapter of privileges would be a wonderful template for all religions to follow. Then we would be on our way to a humanity that might be able to live in peace and harmony.