LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) — A Kentucky Baptist church will be host for an interfaith service Sept. 11 billed as a "peaceful, positive alternative" to a Quran-burning ceremony scheduled the same day in Florida.
The "Honoring Sacred Texts" service is scheduled at 11:30 a.m. Saturday at Highland Baptist Church in Louisville. The service is offered by Interfaith Paths to Peace, a Louisville-based non-profit organization that promotes inter-religious understanding, in partnership with Highland Baptist Church and the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship.
Other sponsors include various local Christian and non-Christian faith groups. The service will include a display of sacred texts from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, the Baha'i faith and other religions. The gathering will also include non-sectarian music and readings from the sacred texts by representatives of the world's major religions on topics related to peace, cooperation and mutual understanding.
"We want to show the world that in Louisville we don't burn sacred books; we honor them," said Terry Taylor, executive director of Interfaith Paths to Peace and one of the organizers. "We may not all agree about every word written in our sacred texts, but we do honor those books and our brothers and sisters in other religions who revere them."
The meeting was organized in response to negative publicity about plans by Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., and its pastor, Terry Jones, to sponsor "International Burn a Koran Day" to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
"Essentially, it's just a way for us to show there are folks of all walks of the religious world that have a different response to people's texts," said Joshua Speight, associate coordinator for missions of the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship. "We may not agree with all that's in there, but we don't go around burning them."
Earlier on Sept. 11, the Kentucky Baptist Fellowship and other sponsors will participate in a 4.5-mile "Voices United for Refugees" walk to raise awareness about the plight of sub-Saharan refugees in Africa.
The walk, which starts at 9 a.m. at Buechel Park Baptist Church and ends at Highland Baptist Church, comes near the end of a series of nine concerts in 12 days by the 2010 Voices United Choir.
Comprised of 12 voices from the Protestant Church in Morocco and 18 from Kentucky Baptist Fellowship churches, the choir learned African songs in French and taught both American and African worship styles. Kathy Collier, minister of music and worship at Highland, is conductor. She traveled alongside 16 fellow Kentuckians in 2009 to Morocco for the first Voices United experience and helped plan the exchange visit to Kentucky.
Speight said the fund-raising march for refugees was already in the works when Highland Baptist Pastor Joe Phelps discussed the 9/11 service honoring sacred texts with Taylor. Phelps put Taylor in touch with Speight, and they decided to end the walk at Highland and combine the two events.
"We thought it all fit very well," Speight said.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Related ABP story:
Baptists, other local religious leaders protest planned Quran burning (9/8/2010)