A COUPLE of weeks ago, in a church in the East End of London, two Asian lads joined the weekday Communion service. They sat at the front of the small congregation. They were chatting, perhaps a little too loudly, and they were politely asked to be quiet. They continued to talk.

Then the boys, who were not more than 15 or 16, stood up. One pulled out of his pocket a toy machinegun and started walking around. “F*** the Church,” he repeated. The other captured the scene on his mobile phone. They strode around a bit and left.

One does not want to over-react — the priest taking the service was not, she says, unduly alarmed — but neither do you want to under-react. Some of the congregation were perturbed, and this was, after all, a hate crime. The question is how do Christian and Muslim leaders work together to sort this out? Perhaps both faith traditions have something to learn from Anglo-Jewry.

“It is tolerably clear what we wish to do with our foreign poor,” wrote Asher Myers, the influential editor of The Jewish Chronicle, in the 1880s. “We may not be able to make them rich; but we may hope to render them English in feeling and conduct.”

Myers was clearly not labouring under public sector diversity directives. His concern, not always popular with new Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe (no doubt living in the same streets as those two Asian boys do today) was that they did not bring shame on the Jews already settled and prospering in England.

To achieve this, the Anglo-Jewish community set up a range of educational and social institutions, many in the East End of London, such as the Jews Free School and the Jewish Lads Brigade. By comparison there are few robust Islamic civic institutions today, particularly at a local level. Indeed you are lucky if the local imam in East London speaks English.

This can make for insular and defensive Muslim communities. It also means that it is difficult for Christians and Muslims to pursue their concerns with each other with any vigour.

Not to do so, however, is patronising and even dangerous. The growing instance of anti-Semitism is a case in point.

Almost three years ago I went to East Ham Jewish cemetery for the funeral of Iris Samuel, who had served as a councillor in the ward of Portsoken, for many years a Jewish corner of the City of London. It was for me an unusual and powerful experience.

A few months later, in May 2003, I read that this same cemetery had suffered the desecration of 386 gravestones. This was clearly not a case of what one might term “old-school anti-Semitism” — a couple of boozed-up National Front supporters on a bender with a spray can. This was a systematic attack on the Jews of the East End, and some observers suspected that it was inspired by Islamic anti-Zionist hatred.

When I raised that suspicion with a few of my Muslim colleagues the suggestion was met with a blank refusal even to consider this as a possibility.

At St Ethelburga’s, the Centre for Reconciliation and Peace where I work in the City, we are committed to trying to pursue these conversations in such a way that people of faith actually talk to each other. We do this by reading our holy books together in a practice called scriptural reasoning.

The idea is simple. Jews, Christians and Muslims each present a passage from their own tradition, linked by a common theme (such as hospitality or conflict) or a scriptural character (such as Abraham) and then open these texts up for discussion. The practice is not concerned with identifying common ground or neutral territory or signing up to a list of shared aims and objectives, but establishing genuine relationships.

It is important, in all of this, to be able to raise and engage with precisely those issues that people do not want to talk about, such as Jew hate. Over time scriptural reasoning may generate surprising levels of trust and, indeed, friendship.

There also needs to be a way of engaging in political reasoning. We are currently hosting a series of seminars on citizenship and faith. And as the Church of England puts energy into consolidating institutional relationships with Muslims, with the imminent launch of the Christian Muslim Forum, let us hope for honesty in the ensuing conversation.

As Christians we like to share the Good News. We need to find ways, particularly with Muslims, of breaking the bad news too.

The Rev William Taylor is a Fellow of St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, London EC2 www.stethelburgas.org