Campaign teaches religious reconciliation'We've discovered a connect between Muslims, Christians and Jews'By Michael Carl

A new campaign has been launched to encourage Christians, Jews and Muslims to reconcile and focus on their areas of agreement, rather than subjects on which they disagree.
The effort, the Trac 5 program, is being run by former three-term U.S. Rep. Mark Siljander, who is building a national network of personal representatives, colleges, churches, synagogues and mosques.
In the program, Christians openly presenting Jesus to Muslims and attempt to show them that their beliefs about Jesus aren't that far apart from Christians.
The program de-emphasizes the contradictions between Christianity and Islam, such as the Quran's statement that Allah "has no son" while the Christian faith centers on the resurrection of Jesus, God's "only son."
In the program's first five months, the network has grown to have representatives in 20 states and involves professors, pastors, rabbis, imams and lay people who focus on creating an alternative to traditional interreligious dialogue.
Siljander said he believes his program will succeed where others have failed.
His website explains that the first four tracks are diplomats negotiating peace plans, politicians implementing agreements through legal processes, military pressure to comply and economic strategists motivating with incentives.
Then the "Trac 5" is an effort to "coach key influence makers through a process so powerful it can turn enmity into reconciliation."
"In Trac5 we have found a spiritual model by which if enough people get engaged in this process, it can help undermine radicalism in anything, Islam, Christianity, whatever radicalism's face may look like," Siljander stated.
"And empowering hopefully the majority of people who support peace and the way of life we enjoy here in America," Siljander said.
Siljander admits that frequent efforts at "dialogue" have been manipulated by the Islamic groups.
"A lot of these so-called dialogues are rehashing the Abrahamic similarities. We all believe in one God, Abraham, Noah and so forth. They often lead to nothing being done as a consequence and can be manipulated," Siljander observed.
Siljander says his new method is the product of extensive research.
"The difference we're proposing is what we've discovered through years of research and meeting with scholars from the Vatican and all the way to Harvard University," Siljander stated.
"We've discovered a connect between Muslims, Christians and Jews in particular of the monotheistic faith, a spiritual connect taking the very issues that radicals use to suggest that Christians and Jews are infidels and worthy of death," Siljander continued.
Those issues, he said "mostly tend to center around the Trinity, the deity of Jesus the Son of God and very important issues that none of these dialogues deal with."
Siljander adds that discussing Jesus changes the nature of the dialogue.
Worldview Weekend president and cultural analyst Brannon Howse says the talk about Jesus is good, but the key is which Jesus is presented.
"It depends on how you define Jesus. The New Agers talk about Jesus. Mormons talk about Jesus, but if we're not talking about the Jesus of the Bible, then their Jesus doesn't forgive sins," Howse stated.
"So we have to be very specific about Jesus. Are we talking about Jesus Christ, God in His flesh who laid down His life as a ransom for sinners? That this Jesus Christ of the Bible is the One with whom you have to place your trust," Howse continued.
"You have to repent of your sin and accept His atoning work on the cross in order to have true salvation. Otherwise we're talking about the Jesus of the Mormons, the Jesus of the New Agers. You can pray all day long to that Jesus and still end up in hell," Howse added.
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