Jay Smith is an American missionary who holds weekly discussions at the historical Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park, London, which provides an open forum for the confrontation between the gospel and Islam.
He serves in Britain under the auspices of Brethren in Christ World Missions, and in October had a weekend conference in Dublin where he debated with Sunni and Shiite Muslims, 'encouraged by the realisation that, as Christians, we have little to fear when faced by the edifice of Islam in its many guises'. Smith and Dr. Elsie Maxwell were flown over by 'Dialogue Ireland', an ecumenical (Catholic/Protestant) group interested in 'dialoguing' with peoples of other faiths.
What authority?
'One of the more difficult aspects of dialogue with Muslims concerns the problem of finding a unifying authority behind the precepts to which they hold,' said Smith.
