“This is not a new Bible, nor is the Bible a mere prelude to the Quran, but the publication of Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel and Quran is an historic occasion in itself, with social, political and even military ramifications in a time when the latter is being burned elsewhere.”
The first city on the Three Testaments launch tour will be New York, Sept. 5-9, 2012, with our launch as a prelude to the city’s own civic event on September 11. The theme of our event is The Eleventh Anniversary of 9/11: Jews, Christians and Muslims Entering a New Era Together, coordinated by Frank Fredericks of Worldfaith. This blog is intended to whet the appetites of New Yorkers and to stimulate the thinking of those planning the launch tour events which follow in Washington, Dallas, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and Toronto.
I arrive in New York on Wednesday, September 5 to preach at the Riverside Church mid-week service that evening. An Academic Launch at Auburn Seminary is scheduled for Thursday with between 100 and 200 scholars and students with Justice Baird. On Friday morning I am in meetings at church and interfaith offices convened by Lucinda Mosher, with the afternoon reserved for mosque prayers and discussions in lower Manhattan with Hussein Rashid. Saturday morning I preach at a synagogue in that area, followed by an event yet to be announced. I share Sunday morning with Rev. Donna Schaper at Judson Memorial Church in Wellington Square.
The main event in New York is at St. Peter's Catholic Church, across from Ground Zero on that Sunday afternoon, September 9 at 4:00 pm. It is both a "launch event" and press conference, which may become something akin to a "rally" for perhaps several hundred people. The media is keen for the footage for the Monday news as a run-up to the 9/11 civic event at Ground Zero on Tuesday morning, so we are expecting New York City press and National TV news coverage. They will join a dozen religious magazines and various blogs that have already signed on for an event featuring leading spokespersons from the three faith traditions as well as certain high profile media personas ... more to be announced about that in coming days.