The Council for Christians and Jews

The CCJ are hugely welcoming. Mitzpah drinks, sleeps, rolls over to have his tummy tickled.

They show me their new library of Jewish and Christian books. They tell me what Professor Rabbi Jonathan Magonet said: "The remarkable thing isn't the books, but that here they sit side by side".

The question is how the work of the CCJ can be made even more successful. "What about Jewish-Christian text study at seminaries?" I am asked, with reference to a day at Rippon College near Oxford where I taught last year. I wonder, together with Jane Clements, if on an extensive course where trust is established, leaders of the ‘other faith’ could teach what they experience as a difficult or offensive text, and what their sensitivities to it are. This could be very revealing.

Should all places of worship have a statement of value including something about the principles according to which they interpret difficult Scripture?