The Rumi Forum presented ‘Christian Muslim Dialogue in Europe’ with Revd. Dr. Andrew Wingate, Royal Chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Director of St. Philips Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society.
Dr. Andrew Wingate, the Chaplain of Her Majesty, Queen Elisabeth the 2’nd, adressed the complex issues facing Muslim immigrants and the societies that host them in countries in the European Union. He stressed the importance of involving all the Europeam Muslim community in a fruitful civil participation in the societies they live and improving the existing organizational infrastructure of all religious groups to reflect the need for better representation and better dialogue. He focused on the open approach that should be adapted by both the Muslim community and the societies in which Muslims live.
Dr Andrew Wingate was involved in theological education for 25 years at the Tamilnadu Theological Seminary, in Madurai; as Principal of the West Midlands Course at Queen’s College Birmingham, and as Principal of the College of the Ascension at Selly Oak. He has been in Leicester since 2000, and is now Director of the St Philip’s Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi Faith Society, Bishop’s Adviser on Inter Faith Relations, and Canon Theologian. In 2007 he was appointed Chaplain to The Queen.
In addition, he has been a member of the Network for Inter Faith Concerns (NIFCON) since its inception, is currently the Joint Chair of the Hindu-Christian National Forum, and English representative on the Churches’ Committee for Relations with Muslims in Europe.
He is part of a range of local interfaith initiatives in Leicester, including the Council of Faiths, Faith Leaders Forum, and long standing dialogue groups between Christians and Muslims, Christians, Muslims and Jews, and Christians and Hindus respectively.
He has been appointed an Honorary Lecturer of Birmingham University, from where he did his Doctorate in the area of Inter Religious Conversion, and where the Centre is developing an MA/M.Phil in Inter religious Relations from September 2006.
Author of many articles and eight books, his two most recent books, published by DLT, are Free to Be, and Celebrating Difference, Staying Faithful: how to live in a Multi Faith Society.