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No-one can pretend that Scotland has cracked the prejudice ceiling, but two recent events suggest that the will to do so is strong.

As well as the Peace and Unity Conference, there were the lectures, delivered in the Trades House of Glasgow, under the auspices of the Scottish Ahul Bayt Society (SABS) in collaboration with the Church of Scotland Presbytery of Glasgow Ecumenical Relations and Interfaith Matters Committee, the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Interreligious Dialogue, and the Scottish Episcopal Church’s Committee for Relations with People of Other Faiths.

This was SABS theological forum’s inaugural lecture, entitled ‘Christians and the Muhammadan Covenants’.  The keynote speakers were Dr Anthony Allison of the Bishops’ Committee for Inter-Religious Dialogue, and Shaykh Sayed Ali Abbas Razawi, Director General of SABS. Dr Allison reminded his audience of the Abrahamic tradition shared by Jews, Christians and Moslems and that the Qu’ran calls for dialogue between Moslems and ‘People of the Book’ – Jews and Christians.

The problem today can be what Dr Allison called the Google Bubble, a distorting echo chamber in which people’s own views are reinforced (we’ve all had those ads on the Internet that say ‘If you liked x, why don’t you try y’). This, said Dr Allison, clearly affects our religious literacy, and both Muslims and Christians suffer from it. We become misinformed, too often believing the insidious memes spread about each other’s faiths. Don’t worry – Dr Allison believes the bubble can be burst.

How? Both Dr Allison and Sheykh Sayed Razawi encouraged dialogue and discussion. Sheykh Razawi, however, wanted us to focus on the distinct difference between a covenant and a contract. A covenant is morally binding, offering freedom with responsibilities. A contract contains the element of gain and can be cancelled. A covenant, said Sheykh Razawi, is a moral obligation on people to change, to look after each other. It was this that Mohammed offered to Christians and generously, Sheykh Razawi said it is what he sees ‘being built in Scotland’ – a situation he does not see elsewhere in the world.

That same complimentary tone was adopted towards Scotland at the Third Annual Peace and Unity Conference, organised by Ahl Al-Bait Society Scotland in collaboration with other faith and community groups. Azzam Mohamad, director of Ahi Al-Bait Society, told us not ‘walk away without making new connections’. We didn’t.

Dr Anthony Allison had quoted Hans Küng, the Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic. Küng said, ‘No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions. No dialogue between the religions without investigation of the foundation of the religions.’ Now Professor Saied Reza Ameli, Dean of Faculty of World Studies at Tehran University reminded us that minority discrimination can cause majority discrimination. ‘If a minority is insecure, larger society will feel insecure’.

The professor added ‘Justice is the main source of peace’  - an echo of Pope Paul VI, who said ‘If you want peace, work for justice.’ We really do work towards a common goal.

The late Fr Gerry Prior, Parish Priest at St Peter's in Livingston, started the popular West Lothian Credit Union (WLCU) through his parish's Justice & Peace Group.

His legacy will continue as Angela Constance MSP announced Scottish Government funding of £200,000 for credit unions to be established in schools to encourage learning about saving and investment.

She was one of the many guests at an event in Almond House, Livingston, to mark the success of WLCU, including Neil Finley MSP and Mrs Agnes Prior, mother of the late Fr Gerry.

Ms Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Communities, Social Security and Equalities, spoke about her own relationship with the credit union, going back the 18 years she had spent as a local councillor and now as an MSP.

One women, a member of WCLU told the gathering about how important it has been to her family - allowing them to save money and borrow when necessary. It was her transaction that took them over the £10,000,000 mark.

Local Priests Fr Kenneth Owens, Fr Jeremy Bath and Fr Kevin Dow reflected the original foundations of the credit union, which has let ordinary people receive fair and just financial benefits compared to banks and national lending companies who often charge extortionate rates on their loans.

A letter of congratulations from Archbishop Leo Cushley was read, commending in prayer Fr Gerry and founding members who have sadly passed away to God’s merciful keeping, before Agnes, surrounded by her family, cut a celebratory cake.

Fr Dow, the new diocesan Justice & Peace spiritual director, said: "This is a wonderful example of a Justice & Peace group making a real difference to the lives of so many people since founding a credit union 18 years ago. Everyone was delighted Agnes could attend to cut the celebration cake and hear more about the positive impact her late son and others played in helping bring a credit union to West Lothian."

The vision of the organisers and the delegates was for ‘a Scotland that cares for creation now and forever’.

Eco Congregation Scotland is an independent charity working with all denominations. The Gathering aimed to encourage parishes in Northern Argyll to work for change.

These aims echo Pope Francis’s well-received encyclical Laudato Si’, the 2015 document (http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html ) about care for our common home. It reminds us that we are stewards of this earth and that our interconnectedness means our actions impact on our neighbours.

And our neighbours, of course, live in an Africa beset by more and more frequent droughts, in a Bangladesh more victim than ever of catastrophic landslips and floods, and in a Perth or an Appleby where rescue by boat is becoming a regular feature of life as the Tay and the Eden sweep through homes.

Where I live in Mid Argyll, we can no longer grow the crops common 50 years ago because the land has become too wet. Climate change is as responsible for the lack of barley and potatoes in Argyll as it is for the starving child in Ethiopia.

And Eco Congregation Scotland wants us to do something about it.

For Catholics, this is not a new message. In 1971 Pope Paul VI said ‘Due to an ill-considered exploitation of nature, humanity runs the risk of destroying it and becoming in turn a victim of this degradation.’ The UN at the time was talking about an ecological disaster. Without moral and social progress, Pope Paul VI said, industrial and scientific advances would ‘definitively turn against man’.

Fast forward to Saint John Paul II’s first encyclical warning that we seemed to see the natural environment as something to use and abuse. Now Pope Francis wants a dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet, reminding us that ‘… the urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development, for we know that things can change’.

The Eco Congregation movement has perhaps gained a false image of being about the greening of church buildings – little more than swapping oil-fired central heating that in many ways cost the earth for air-to-air heat pumps that make congregations more comfortable and contribute to saving the planet.

But while it is good to tick the eco-friendly church box, that is far from the true aims of the charity. It wants us all to green up.

Frances Rayner of SCIAF and John Seenan of Justice and Peace Scotland, both now on the board of the charity, would agree that for a parish to register as an Eco congregation is a good first influential move.

But Adrian Shaw from the Church of Scotland took delegates beyond the church buildings, reminding us of the momentum gained at the CoP21 conference in Paris and the hope provided by the Scottish Climate Change Act. We can’t leave it to governments - we must all act in a responsible and generous way to bring about the changes that can cut our carbon footprint.

I took SCIAF’s ‘Caring for our common home’ booklet  to the Gathering. It’s a document that aims to help us ‘bring Laudato Si’ to life in our parish’. It’s a starting place, as is filling in a SCIAF campaign postcard to make sure the national and international legislation on climate change makes progress. Justice and Peace Scotland liaises with Stop Climate Chaos Scotland. The people of North Argyll are planning their own changes: it’s time for us all to act.