DICID receives Pastor Bob Roberts, President of the Open Gates Project, founder of the Multifaith Network of Neighbours, and Chief Pastor of Northwood Church in Dallas, Texas.

10 Jun DICID receives Pastor Bob Roberts, President of the Open Gates Project, founder of the Multifaith Network of Neighbours, and Chief Pastor of Northwood Church in Dallas, Texas.

As part of his visit to Doha, which lasted throughout the first week of June 2021, Pastor Bob Roberts – Head of the Open Gates Project, founder of the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network and Chief Pastor of Northwood Church in Dallas, Texas, USA, and his accompanying delegation Dr. Chris Seibel, Senior Advisor to the Network Foundation Multi-Religious Neighbors and Mr. Daniel Langford – visited the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue on two consecutive visits, the 1st and 2nd of June.

In the first meeting, Pastor Bob Roberts met with members of the Board of Directors of the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, His Excellency Prof. Ibrahim Saleh Al-Naimi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Center, Dr. Aisha Al-Mannai, Vice-Chairman of the Board, Dr. Yousef Al-Siddiqi, Mr. Mohammed Al-Ghamdi and Mr. Saad Al-Rumaihi, members of the Board of Directors; In order to prepare for the joint cooperation between him and the Center in the ‘Open Gates’ project.

Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi welcomed the guests to the center, and stressed the importance of this visit to promote interfaith dialogue and joint cooperation between American institutions that support interfaith dialogue and Qatar, and to work together accordingly toward a clear strategy to spread the values of love and peace throughout the world – For love to replace hate, tolerance in place of intolerance, and integration instead of hateful selfishness.

In the context of his speech, Dr. Al-Naimi indicated that the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, since its inception, has sought to create a dialogue platform for uniting communities on the common goodness of different religions and cultures in order to confront the challenges that threaten security and peaceful coexistence. Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi gave a presentation of the various activities offered by the center; including the Annual International Conference for Interfaith Dialogue, and round tables that are interested in discussing issues related to communities in Qatar, as well as the academic journal Adyan/Religions issued by the Center as well as training activities for school students in the field of dialogue, especially religious dialogue (how to accept the other and build bridges of communication with the other), and cultural forums for different communities that perform their religious rituals with ease and without any significant difficulties.

For his part, Pastor Bob Roberts commented on the importance of the principle of interfaith dialogue. He also praised the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue and its important and much needed work as it calls upon the followers of the monotheistic religions from various countries to engage in dialogue and cooperate to reach solutions to major issues of concern to humanity, at a time when the world is witnessing various ethnic and religious conflicts. He then mentioned the Neighbours Network Foundation, which is part of a similar initiative in Central Asia in 2019. It has achieved great success in Uzbekistan, and the Foundation has a global reputation for being made up of leading intellectuals and specialists in the field of religious freedom and diplomacy, with whom he co-founded a network of Multifaith Neighbours Network Foundation with Imam Muhammad Majid, Imam of the Adam Center in Washington, DC, and Rabbi David Saberstein in 2019 after years of building trust between evangelical pastors and imams in the United States and around the world.

On the joint cooperation project ‘Open Gates’, Pastor Bob Roberts said: “The Multi-Faith Neighbours Network (MFNN) and the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue present in this project a strong record in building trust in complex places. We hope that the network will hold two multi-faith conferences (2022 & 2023) in which clergy of different faiths can build friendships, and then work to serve their communities together and that these delegations will include priests, imams and rabbis from the United States and Qatar.
Then the members of the Board of Directors of the Center accompanied the delegation on a tour to get to know the Center and its specialized library, which includes more than 2,000 books specialized in the field of interfaith dialogue in several languages.

The visit to the center carried on to the next day, which brought together Pastor Bob Roberts’ meeting with representatives of the Ministry of Awqaf and leaders of the Council of Churches in Qatar. The importance of such meetings, which are continuously held by the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue, to enhance the bonds of integration between the spectra of Qatari society, and the Ministry of Awqaf encourages such meetings that achieve compatibility between different beliefs to achieve common human interests.

Pastor Bob Roberts initially expressed his happiness, and gave special thanks to Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi and to the members of the Board of Directors of the Center who gave him this opportunity to meet imams and priests gathered in Qatar. He also mentioned that he was born in a society that does not know much about Islam except what is presented to him by the media., and his actual and direct communication was not with Muslims, except until 2004 when Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi invited him to Doha to attend the Conference on Interfaith Dialogue. Their relationship resulted in a project in Pakistan, with meetings between the Christian minority in Pakistan and the Muslim minority in America. This encouraged Pastor Bob Roberts to continue hosting such meetings in Sudan. Uzbekistan and soon in Nigeria. He will soon complete the project in Qatar with the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue under the ‘Open Gates’ Project.

Professor Dr. Ibrahim Al-Naimi presented several topics for discussion, and they were as follows: Interfaith dialogue in Qatar, the nature of communication between the leaders of the Muslim and Christian community in Qatar, how two societies i.e., Muslims and Christians in Qatar deal with crises such as the Corona crisis and the challenges faced by each of the two parties in order to reach an image that reflects the truth of religion and its tolerance with the other, and the role of religious leaders in promoting tolerance and understanding among the communities living on the land of Qatar.

At the end of the meeting, Pastor Bob Roberts said: “What concerns us in these meetings is to build a true friendship between Muslims and Christians, especially between leaders, and the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue acknowledged this to me on a personal level, and my friendship with Dr. Ibrahim Al Naimi has deepened. It is not enough to hear about Islam, but I have to interact with Muslims and learn what Islam is, and this is what resulted in me having an imam defending Christians and my presence as a Pastor defending Muslims, especially after the events of 9/11 and the misleading media view of Muslims after that. Although I was attacked, I was convinced that it is better to be a true Christian and carry the truth I see in the State of Qatar as a great opportunity to build relations that deepen world peace and achieve coexistence among followers of different religions through experience.

It is worth noting that the Doha International Center for Interfaith Dialogue is considered one of the leading Arab centers in the field of interfaith dialogue, and is active in its field of specialization, in cooperation with all relevant institutions at the local, regional and international levels.