COSTA MESA : Mideast Religious Conference to Begin

Orange Coast College is sponsoring a three-day conference beginning today that examines the three dominant religions in the Middle East and the conflicts among them.

The conference, “Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Sister Faiths in Conflict,” will feature a public dialogue and debate at 7:30 tonight between prominent representatives of each religion. The free event will be held in the Robert B. Moore Theatre on the campus, at Fairview Road and Adams Avenue.

Speakers will be Rabbi Daniel Landes, a founding faculty member at Yeshiva in Los Angeles; Greg L. Bahnsen, a scholar at the Southern California Center for Christian Studies in Irvine, and Muzammil H. Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Center of Orange County. Tonight’s dialogue will be moderated by two OCC professors.

At 1 p.m. Wednesday, the scholars will be questioned by a group of panelists in Room 119 of the Fine Arts Hall.

During their three days on campus, the scholars also will speak with individual classes as part of the college’s fourth annual Visiting Scholar in Residence program.

Landes, a director of national educational projects at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, holds the university chair in Jewish ethics at Yeshiva of Los Angeles, an affiliate of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary of Yeshiva University in New York. He is the founding rabbi of the Upstairs Minyan of Beth Jacob Congregation of Beverly Hills.

Bahnsen, an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, received his doctorate in philosophy from USC. He also holds degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and Westmont College in Santa Barbara. Bahnsen is the author of “Homosexuality: A Biblical View” and four other books.

Siddiqi, an adjunct professor of Islamic studies at Cal State Fullerton, has served as an expert in religious affairs at the Muslim World League office to the United Nations and is past director of the Islamic Center of Washington. A graduate of the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, Siddiqi received a master’s degree in theology from England’s Birmingham University and a doctorate in comparative religions at Harvard University.