Our Shared Faiths Our Shared Futures

What is ‘Our Faiths and Our Shared Futures’ Booklet about?

The purpose of this booklet was to show the connections between the different communities of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey. The Our Faiths and Our Shared Futures programme celebrated the fact that faith is a positive thing that could bring the young people of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey together. (This project was also undertaken in Derby and links to the two booklets for Enfield, Haringey & Barnet and Derby are listed below).

In this booklet you can read the words within our religious texts which speak against the message of hate. Islam, Judaism and Christianity are based on social justice and tell us that the messages of extremism are wrong.

We therefore analysed the words from the Qur’an, the Torah and the Bible which tell a different story to the story that extremists tell. These words talk about acceptance, tolerance and mutual understanding.

The words from these religious texts which we analysed were selected by a ‘Faith Narratives Committee’ made up of people from Barnet, Enfield and Haringey and Derby who represent the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities. These knowledgeable people met to discuss the things that the three faiths have in common. The booklets therefore looked at:

• The importance of valuing life as described within the Quran, Torah and Bible
• How these texts instruct us to avoid violence – both towards people of our own faith and to people of other faiths, or those without a faith at all
• Respecting your community and the differences in what people believe, their way of life and their opinions
• Understanding the values of human rights that are at the heart of the Qur’an, Torah and Bible around human rights and respecting the values of the community in which you live.

The booklets can be downloaded here:

Enfield, Haringey and Barnet Our Faiths and Our Shared Futures Booklet, (press the link),

<Derby Our Faiths and Our Shared Futures Booklet, (press the link),

If you do use these resources, we would be grateful if you could inform us of this and your experiences in using these booklets. Do e-mail us on info@faith-matters.co.uk