RedDirt717
01-02-2010, 02:12 PM
Oklahoma Muslims, Baptists featured in ABC program about faiths working together to promote peace
NewsOK (http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-muslims-baptists-featured-in-abc-program-about-faiths-working-together-to-promote-peace/article/3428808?custom_click=lead_story_title)
Oklahoma Muslims and moderate Baptists will be featured in a documentary aired by ABC affiliate TV stations this month and in February.
"Different Books, Common Word: Baptists and Muslims” will be broadcast in the Oklahoma City area Sunday on KOCO-5.
The one-hour documentary, produced by EthicsDaily.com, includes several Oklahomans: Orhan Osman, executive director of Institute of Interfaith Dialog in Oklahoma City; the Rev. Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists; T Thomas, executive director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma and executive director of His Nets; Imad Enchassi, imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City; Charles Kimball, director of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma; and the Rev. Mitch Randall, pastor of NorthHaven Church in Norman.
Prescott, of Norman, said he was approached about participating in the documentary when he attended a January 2009 gathering of Muslims and Baptists at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass., just outside Boston. He said he met the film’s producer, Robert Parham, at the gathering, which was said to be the first national dialogue between the two Abrahamic faith traditions.
Prescott said Parham is executive director of EthicsDaily.com, a division of the Baptist Center for Ethics, a nonprofit Parham founded in 1991 that is based in Nashville, Tenn. Prescott said he told Parham about the interfaith partnerships that had developed between some Baptists and Muslims in Oklahoma City after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He said he liked that the documentary presented an opportunity to show how Baptists and Muslims work together on an international scale as well as locally.
Prescott said the documentary’s title fits in with the participants’ main goal.
"We have extremists in both our faiths,” Prescott said. "We’re just trying to find some common ground to promote peace.”
Osman, an Oklahoma City Muslim, said that in the documentary he discussed his mission trip to Kenya with a group of Oklahoma Baptists from Randall’s NorthHaven Church and His Nets, Thomas’ Norman nonprofit Christian ministry that works to combat malaria in sub-Sa-haran Africa.
"I was so proud to be a part of that,” Osman said of the 2008 trip.
Osman said he hopes the documentary helps spread the message that people of different faiths can work together for the common good of helping others.
"We’re working together to try to get people to see we have more commonalities than differences,” he said. "We want to help people to understand both faiths and make new friendships.”
Prescott said recent acts of terrorism have made it more critical for people to understand that all Muslims are not radical extremists. He said he hopes the documentary will shed light on the problems that result when people stereotype others because of their faith.
"I really do think that ... we need to do all we can to convey that individual extremists are just that — individual extremists,” Prescott said.
In addition to the Oklahomans, the documentary covers stories in Washington, D.C., where the Islamic Society of North America maintains an interfaith office; the Texas-Louisiana border, where a Baptist pastor and Muslim businesswoman have pooled resources for hurricane relief and other community needs; and Columbia, Tenn., where the Islamic center was firebombed in February 2008 by white supremacists.
An EthicsDaily.com news release said "Different Books, Common Word” airs on ABC-TV stations pursuant to an agreement between the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission and ABC Television. The documentary is part of a "Vision and Values” series of public-interest and religious programs that the broadcasting commission supplies to ABC, the news release said. ABC, in turn, clears the programs for broadcast and makes them available to any of its affiliate or owned-and-operated stations wishing to carry such programming.
NewsOK (http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-muslims-baptists-featured-in-abc-program-about-faiths-working-together-to-promote-peace/article/3428808?custom_click=lead_story_title)
Oklahoma Muslims and moderate Baptists will be featured in a documentary aired by ABC affiliate TV stations this month and in February.
"Different Books, Common Word: Baptists and Muslims” will be broadcast in the Oklahoma City area Sunday on KOCO-5.
The one-hour documentary, produced by EthicsDaily.com, includes several Oklahomans: Orhan Osman, executive director of Institute of Interfaith Dialog in Oklahoma City; the Rev. Bruce Prescott, executive director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists; T Thomas, executive director of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Oklahoma and executive director of His Nets; Imad Enchassi, imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City; Charles Kimball, director of religious studies at the University of Oklahoma; and the Rev. Mitch Randall, pastor of NorthHaven Church in Norman.
Prescott, of Norman, said he was approached about participating in the documentary when he attended a January 2009 gathering of Muslims and Baptists at Andover Newton Theological School in Newton Centre, Mass., just outside Boston. He said he met the film’s producer, Robert Parham, at the gathering, which was said to be the first national dialogue between the two Abrahamic faith traditions.
Prescott said Parham is executive director of EthicsDaily.com, a division of the Baptist Center for Ethics, a nonprofit Parham founded in 1991 that is based in Nashville, Tenn. Prescott said he told Parham about the interfaith partnerships that had developed between some Baptists and Muslims in Oklahoma City after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He said he liked that the documentary presented an opportunity to show how Baptists and Muslims work together on an international scale as well as locally.
Prescott said the documentary’s title fits in with the participants’ main goal.
"We have extremists in both our faiths,” Prescott said. "We’re just trying to find some common ground to promote peace.”
Osman, an Oklahoma City Muslim, said that in the documentary he discussed his mission trip to Kenya with a group of Oklahoma Baptists from Randall’s NorthHaven Church and His Nets, Thomas’ Norman nonprofit Christian ministry that works to combat malaria in sub-Sa-haran Africa.
"I was so proud to be a part of that,” Osman said of the 2008 trip.
Osman said he hopes the documentary helps spread the message that people of different faiths can work together for the common good of helping others.
"We’re working together to try to get people to see we have more commonalities than differences,” he said. "We want to help people to understand both faiths and make new friendships.”
Prescott said recent acts of terrorism have made it more critical for people to understand that all Muslims are not radical extremists. He said he hopes the documentary will shed light on the problems that result when people stereotype others because of their faith.
"I really do think that ... we need to do all we can to convey that individual extremists are just that — individual extremists,” Prescott said.
In addition to the Oklahomans, the documentary covers stories in Washington, D.C., where the Islamic Society of North America maintains an interfaith office; the Texas-Louisiana border, where a Baptist pastor and Muslim businesswoman have pooled resources for hurricane relief and other community needs; and Columbia, Tenn., where the Islamic center was firebombed in February 2008 by white supremacists.
An EthicsDaily.com news release said "Different Books, Common Word” airs on ABC-TV stations pursuant to an agreement between the Interfaith Broadcasting Commission and ABC Television. The documentary is part of a "Vision and Values” series of public-interest and religious programs that the broadcasting commission supplies to ABC, the news release said. ABC, in turn, clears the programs for broadcast and makes them available to any of its affiliate or owned-and-operated stations wishing to carry such programming.