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3T as one possible antidote to 9/11 Post Traumatic Stress

September 24, 2011

For many people the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 this month was a helpful catharsis for grief and fear, anger and anguish, all still very real in 2011. In ten years since the traumatic events on that date there have been three responses, two reactive and one proactive. The first two, heightened security and military action, have been well documented. The book Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran is part of a third element, the positive spiritual response in communities all over North America and the world, against a negativity that threatened to drown the American dream, and many other dreams with it. On the security front, there have been affirmations and questions, but acts of terrorism have been faced and managed. On the military front, again some questions, but Saddam Hussain and Osama bin Laden are dead, Muammar Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak have been overthrown, and other developments continue to unfold. With less fanfare, religious leaders and scholars have been at work on the spiritual front in the quest for understanding. Our book, to be published in the spring and launched in New York and Washington on the eleventh anniversary of September 11 in 2012, is an indication of how far we have come in the positive direction. Jews, Christians and Muslims are learning to appreciate each other’s Scriptures at least, and Islam is becoming increasingly integrated into the life of communities in North America and elsewhere. When the Quran is published in the same volume as the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, we will have come a long way since the earlier impetus to burn the Quran. With a long way to go still, we ask, “Are we really ready to move on, even yet?”

Posted by: Brian Arthur Brown