Author calls for increased dialogue between United States, Muslims

Published: 2005-03-10

ROME (CNS) -- The United States must increase its dialogue with Muslims at home and abroad as part of its strategy to counter Islamic fundamentalism, said a religious author and U.S. policy adviser. "What I see is effectively a silence about Islam on the part of the American government," author Jack Miles said during a March 9 informal talk on religion and foreign policy, sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See. "It won't do to say, 'We have no quarrel with Islam' and to simply stop there," he said. Miles, a former Jesuit seminarian who studied at Gregorian University in Rome and Hebrew University in Jerusalem, is a 1996 Pulitzer Prize winner for his book, "God: A Biography." He is currently a senior fellow at the Pacific Council on International Policy, a nonpartisan partner of the Council on Foreign Relations. Miles said that given the ongoing threat of Islamic terrorism and the possibility of fundamentalist governments sprouting up in Lebanon or Iraq, the United States might counter these tendencies by better portraying itself as a neutral promoter of religious freedom and tolerance.

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