Wednesday April 17th @ 11am ET

In the spring of 2020, a group of Americans from multiple Christian traditions came together to form LUKE 10 https://www.luke10.faith a non-profit organization dedicated to building friendship and understanding between Christians & Muslims and the  people of North America & Iran.  During the COVID pandemic when US sanctions blocked Iranian purchases of COVID vaccines, LUKE 10 (a reference to the parable of the Good Samaritan in the 10th chapter of the gospel of Luke) sent over $100,000 worth of medical supplies and equipment to the people of Iran.   LUKE 10 has worked to encourage people-to-people communication especially between the academics and faith leaders of our countries.  We have previously organized six webinars https://www.youtube.com/@Luke10_Media with the University of Tehran and other Iranian universities, bringing together American and Iranian religious leaders and scholars to discuss subjects like:  “Interfaith Collaboration to Build a Better World,” “Religion and Environment,” and “Theology of Friendship and Dialogue in the Abrahamic Religions.”  Our webinars have been unique in making Iranian panelists, included an Ayatollah, leaders from the Iranian Christian and Jewish communities, directly available to the American audience.  These webinars have also offered the Iranian audience the opportunity to hear directly from an American Bishop and women clergy from both Christian & Jewish traditions.

On April 17,  2024, at 11:00 EST, LUKE 10 will be sponsoring a joint webinar with the Iranian National Academy of Sciences, “Learning and Mutual Influence of Christians and Muslims, Both Past & Present.”  This webinar will bring together a distinguished panel of scholars and writers to examine the relations between Christianity and Islam, both in medieval and modern times.

The panelists examining the historic period will be:

Ayatollah Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, a member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences, Tehran, where he heads of the Department of Islamic Studies at the Academy of Sciences.  He is also Professor of Law at the  Shahid Beheshti University.  He has spoken about the rapport between Islam and Christianity “as based upon inspirations and propositions of the Holy Quran as founded upon friendship, respect and mutual understanding.” He has spoken at the Global Summit Initiative at Washington DC’s National Cathedral.

Dr. Karen Armstrong, is an English author and one of the most prolific writers of the late 20th and 21st centuries.  Her writing and scholarship have focused on the spectrum of monotheism and the elements of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  A few of her book titles are The History of God, Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths, Fields of Blood, Religion and the History of Violence, The Spiral Staircase, St. Paul, The Misunderstood Apostle, The Case for God, The Lost Art of Scripture, Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life, Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time, Muhammad: a Biography of The Prophet.

Dr Seyed Mohammad Ghari S. Fatemi is a member of the Iranian National Academy of Sciences where he heads the Department of Biomedical Ethics. He is a faculty member at Mofid University, Qom and the Al-Mahdi Institute, Birmingham, UK. He also instructs the Governance and Public Law in Islamic module at the University of Birmingham. Professor Seyed Fatemi is an author of books and articles in both Persian and English, with a focus on the philosophical underpinnings of human rights, Islamic legal theories, and hermeneutics.  The first edition of his book titled An Introduction to Human Rights in the Contemporary World: Concepts, Foundations, and Sources was published by the UNESCO Chair for Human Rights in 2004.

Dr. Carl W. Ernst is Founding Director of the University of North Carolina’s Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies and editor for the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Network Series at UNC Press.  He has focused some of his more recent work on Islamic Study addressing issues of public scholarship relating to Islamophobia, the problem of reading the Holy Quran, critical re-thinking of Islamic Studies and the problems of understanding Islam.  He is a prolific author and has written several books, How to Read the Quran, a New Guide with Selected Translations, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World, It’s Not Just Academic; Essays in Islamic Studies and Sufism.