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POSTPONED due to COVID-19

First Houston Muslim-Christian Summer School

The Muslim-Christian Summer School at Houston is a one-week residential summer program that brings Muslim and Christian students together to learn about each others’ faith from fellow students and from participating scholars from CMCS Oxford, England; Rice; Houston Baptist University; University of Houston; UH Downtown; Baylor University; and the Hijaz Muslim College.

The course breaks down barriers, enhances the student’s own studies, and equips them for their future careers. Students attend lectures, workshops and tutorials led by Christian and Muslim academics exploring sacred texts, shared history, contemporary issues and difficult questions.  They also share meals and recreational times, and together visit mosques and churches.

The focus is on shared study and understanding of both the similarities and the differences between Christians and Muslims of diverse traditions. Participants discuss difficult topics, disagreements and social problems in a spirit of respect and empathy—not just towards people of other faiths but towards those from other traditions within their own faith community with whom they might have theological differences.

Course Leaders

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Dr. Richard McCallum,
CMCS Oxford

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Dr Georgina Jardim, CMCS Oxford, and Ustadha Shahanaz Begum, interfaith worker and graduate of Ebrahim College London 

  Summer School Ethos

• Learning about each other together

• Not avoiding or denying differences and difficult topics

• Addressing issues with gentleness and respect

• Thinking with academic rigour

• Seeking to understand before seeking to be understood

• Speaking positively of our own faith rather than speaking critically of the other

• So equipping us to live together well.

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Photographs on this page by John Cairns Photography

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