Reaching Across Faiths: A Christian and a Muslim Responding to Each Other\u27s Sacred Texts

How can engaging the faith tradition and sacred texts of your neighbor both inspire and challenge dialogue? Is interfaith engagement of sacred texts outside your own tradition appropriate and should it be encouraged? These questions will serve as the basis of this interfaith program, which John Del Vecchio conceived after receiving an English copy of the Qur’an from someone in a mixed-faith marriage. John Del Vecchio, J.D., is an adjunct professor in the ethics and business law department of the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas. He also teaches history of music industry and music careers in the UST music department. He operates a private general practice law firm for people with varied backgrounds, incomes, and faiths. Adil Ozdemir, Ph.D., a native of Turkey, taught Qur\u27anic rhetoric at Nine September University in Izmir, Turkey, for twenty five years. Since 2003 he has been teaching courses on Islam at the University of St. Thomas where he also is co-director of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Center. He is the co-author with Kenneth Frank of Visible Islam in Modern Turkey (Macmillan). Sponsored by the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, Ethics and Business Law Department, and the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Cente