Huron College used to be an Anglican theological college. The college’s current Faculty of Theology features Ingrid Mattson as the Chair of Islamic Studies, a discipline that I expect will increasingly find a natural home within Western Anglicanism.
Anglican Primate Fred Hiltz, unable to contain his enthusiasm at the prospect of Islamic Studies being taught in a once Anglican college, endorsed Mattson’s appointment:
“In establishing the “London and Windsor Community Chair in Islamic Studies”, Huron College is on the cutting edge of interfaith dialogue. With delight I endorse the appointment of Dr. Ingrid Mattson as the first occupant of that chair. She is a highly respected scholar and widely published. She is well known for her leadership in nurturing Muslim-Christian relations. The College and Community will be blessed by Dr. Mattson’s academic qualifications, and her capacity to engage people in dialogue, mutual learning and public witness to the values we hold in common as people of faith.”
The Most Reverend Fred Hiltz
Archbishop and Primate
The Anglican Church of Canada
The engaging “people in dialogue, mutual learning and public witness to the values we hold in common as people of faith” hasn’t worked out quite as well as Hiltz hoped: a non-Muslim student has been removed from one of the Islamic courses because he is not a Muslim. Ironically, the course is on Islamic Preaching – to the already converted, it seems.
As Hiltz notes, “Huron College is on the cutting edge of interfaith dialogue.”
From here:
A London, Ont., university is defending its decision to restrict access to a course that teaches Muslims how to proselytize.
The Huron College course — The Muslim Voice: Islamic Preaching, Public Speaking and Worship — was, according to the syllabus, “open to Muslim men and women who offer religious leadership and/or speak publicly about Islam on behalf of their communities.”
The school allowed a non-Muslim to enrol in the course, but then kicked him out because, they said, they didn’t want to open the course to auditors. That student, Moray Watson, is an accountant who says he is an opponent of Islamic extremism and enrolled in the course partly to test the prerequisite in the syllabus.
“I’m not allowed to take the course because I’m not a Muslim”
“[The school] gets $6.5-million [from the government]. Some of it is mine and I’m not allowed to take the course because I’m not a Muslim,” he said.