Imam opens for business in Danish Church

From Kristeligt Dagblad (translation mine):

From November, Imam Fatih Alev will get monthly visiting hours in Saint Stefans Church on Nørrebro in Copenhagen. The goal is to fight preconceived notions about Islam.

Questions about islam must also be answered in the church, parish priest Anne Braad thinks. That is why she has invited imam Fatih Alev into Saint Stefans Church on Nørrebro in Copenhagen. Anne Braad wishes to demonstrate, that the church and the congregation have no problems with moslems.

- Fatih is no more alien to me than the people from Kingo Church. It is a very strong and controversial signal to send, and should have a conciliatory aura around it, she says.

The goal is to fight preconceived notions about islam and give inhabitants in the area the possibility of getting to know more about islam and moslems. ..

Asked about why it HAS to be in the church that Nørrebro´s inhabitants are to be able to meet the imam, Anne Braad answers:

- The differences between we Christians and moslems arent that big. Thus, I also think, that an imam has to have a place in the church, she says. ..

Imam Fatih Alev hopes, that the project can help to bring more nuances into the Danes´ perception of islamic belief and moslems in Denmark.

- I preach in the mosque on Hejrevej in Copenhagen, but there people dont come from outside to ask questions. Many Danes may think, that the church is a more welcoming place to seek information about religion, and thus I think that the initiative is a good idea, he says.

Fatih Alev could well imagine, that a Christian priest would be invited into a mosque under a like arrangement, but doesnt think it relevant in Denmark.

- It is a question of a need to inform. If it had been the other way around, where Christians were misunderstood in a moslem land, and there was a curiousness on the par of the moslems about why the Christians are so weird, then I absolutely think, that imams would arrange some meetings.

Maybe the beheading of three Christian school girls saturday in Indonesia, the anti-christian riots in Egypt the week before last, the religious cleansing of a Christian village in Palestine in September, and the church bombings in Iraq last year by now should have shown such meetings to be quite called for. None have come to my attention.

As to the idea in and of itself, it just goes to demonstrate the self-hate evident in the leftist-dominated Peoples´ Church (the state church). Its not more than a couple months since it officially suggested, that proselytizing among moslem immigrants was a bad idea.

Henrik