American Bible Society: $60 Million Attraction Coming To Philadelphia's Independence Mall

One of America’s most immersive and interactive experiences coming to Independence Mall, showcasing the Bible’s role in America’s ideals of liberty and justice

PHILADELPHIA-A $60 million attraction with unprecedented technology will open on Independence Mall in fall 2018, highlighting how from past to present, the Bible has changed those who changed America, American Bible Society announced Wednesday.

The Faith & Liberty Discovery Center is expected to draw 250,000 visitors annually, accelerating strong growth for America’s most historic square mile.   The immersive experience of the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center is being led by the award-winning firm Local Projects, which recently spearheaded the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and ranks as one of the most innovative in the nation.   Architectural design is being led by the Philadelphia principals of SaylorGregg.  Once opened, the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center is projected to add over $10 million annually to Philadelphia’s economy.

“In the city where William Penn chartered religious freedom, I am excited that the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center will help tell an overlooked story of our history,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney. “This will be a tremendous addition to Philadelphia, and an amazing experience for all our visitors.”

“We are thrilled to open this exciting new experience for Philadelphia and our nation,” American Bible Society President and CEO Roy Peterson said.  “What the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center should be, at its finest, is a place that unites -- celebrating a diversity of faiths, backgrounds and points of view.  And ultimately, the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center will spark a curiosity: How did the Bible influence the people who shaped our nation?  And what difference can this book make in our lives today?”

The Faith & Liberty Discovery Center will explore how core passages from the Bible on justice, liberty, mercy, and love have guided and inspired not only the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, but generations of Americans who have wrestled with Abolitionism, Women’s Right to Vote, Civil Rights, Hurricane Katrina and 9/11. In war and in peace, from one generation to another, the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center will bring to life the stories of people across a full faith spectrum who have turned to the Bible for wisdom in times of conflict, for motivation to create change, and for comfort in moments of crisis.

“This experience will use groundbreaking technologies to allow visitors to not just witness history, but participate in it.  It will be like nothing anyone has seen before,” saidJake Barton, principal of the award-winning firm, Local Projects.  With the 9/11 Memorial & Museum to its credit, as well as two of the 20 most influential exhibit designs this century – Gallery One at the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum – Local Projects is breaking unprecedented ground with new technology that will connect visitors to the institution and beyond.

Even as details continue to be finalized, in a survey of 1,000 Americans, 59 percent said the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center would actually motivate them to come to Philadelphia, according to America’s Research Group, a consumer behavior research and strategic consulting firm.

Econsult Solutions, Inc., a Philadelphia-based consulting firm, found that the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center’s construction will create 540 temporary jobs and drive $110 million in economic impact. Once open, the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center will employ about 60 people, is expected to generate $267,000 in state taxes annually and will have an economic impact of $10.5 million each year.

As the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center comes to life, a diverse committee of top historians, religious experts and legal scholars from across the nation is helping shape the narrative experience while ensuring full historical accuracy. 

“There’s a fascinating intersection of religion, politics, and law in the founding of America,” said American University professor Daniel Dreisbach, whose scholarship on constitutional law and history, First Amendment law, and church-state relations has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court.

“The Bible is woven into the fabric of the American experience.  You have to know something about the Bible to understand America,” said Dreisbach, author of the new bookReading the Bible with the Founding Fathers. “From early colonies that were founded as Bible commonwealths to our nation’s first laws, the Bible provided basic building blocks of American civic life.”

American Bible Society CEO Roy Peterson said, “As we learn to celebrate a growing diversity of religious experiences, we realize that America had three anchoring documents– the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bible.  The new exhibits will raise plenty of thought-provoking questions, but the answers will ultimately be up to each visitor to discover for themselves.”

About the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center

An initiative of American Bible Society, the Faith & Liberty Discovery Center explores the relationship between faith and liberty in America from its founding through today, illuminating the influence of the Bible on individuals in key historical and personal moments. Among America’s essential founding documents, the Bible is a significant organizing cultural force that has inspired, influenced, and informed American ideals of liberty that continue to shape our national identity as a free people.   Learn more at FAITHANDLIBERTYCENTER.COM.

World's First Combined Mosque-Synagogue-Church To Be Built In Berlin

Idea behind the project is to bring all Muslims, Jews and Christians of the area together. PHOTO: FAST COEXIST

A church which was built in the middle of Berlin in the 13th century and destroyed in World War II, is likely to be rebuilt as the world’s first all-in-one church-mosque-synagogue, called the House of One.

Though the property belongs to the church, authorities hope to build a sacred spaces for Jews, Muslims, and Christians, rather than just a chapel.

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“They had to face the question of what do we do with this ground, and what do we want to give back to the city — what do we need in this time?” says Frithjof Timm, a theological speaker for the House of One.

According to Tim, the idea behind the project was to bring the people of the area together, regardless of their religion.

PHOTO: FAST COEXIST

“The minister had the vision that there could be a table on this former parking lot,” he said. “People from different religions could sit together, and eat together, and be together.”

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In order to include as many people as possible in the project, the minister, along with a rabbi and an imam decided to launch a competition to design a building that would simultaneously include sacred spaces for people belonging to all three religions.

Further, the way Tim explained it, the project seemed like a practical decision for several reasons. Berlin, a place where not many religious people exist, the speaker said “We don’t have that much money to keep a new church alive. We don’t have so many Christian people to fill up a new church.”

PHOTO: FAST COEXIST

However, he added, House of One will also serve as a symbol of what Berlin is currently – a city where once Adolf Hitler signed death warrants for 6 million Jews, has now become a city with the fastest-growing Jewish population in the world. Further, he claimed, with the increased number of refugees coming to Germany, it also serves as a home for Muslims.

Two faiths, one prayer: Muslims and Jews come together to pray

According to the design of the building, everyone will enter through the same front door and while there is a central common space, there will be three equally sized (but differently shaped) spaces for each religion.

“We have only one entrance in the building,” Timm said. “So everyone who is going to pray—whether Jewish or Muslim or Christian—has to use this one entrance. The entrance leads to the common room, and from the common room there’s a stair going up to the second floor and then you decide which way you go.”

Reports suggest that while some individuals from the Muslim community have opposed the idea, majority of them are in favour of it. A reason for this may be that according to the plan, each of the assigned spaces respects orthodox practices, with a given place to perform ablution in the mosque, Muslims will also have separate spaces for men and women to offer prayers in the synagogue.

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“Being in the building doesn’t mean anyone has to change anything about their own faith, Tim said while adding, “If you’re not afraid to look around and see what are the other religions are doing, it can enrich your life and your faith.”

The organisation began collecting funds last year and have so far only raised about €1 million out of €43 million needed (a basic version of the design would cost €10 million).

“We hope this will shine out in the world—that this will go out to the world and be a sign to bring more peace between people,” Timm said. “Especially at this time when war comes from Islamic State, and after what happened in Paris.”

This article originally appeared on Fast coexist.