Samir and Vesna Selmanovic are leaders of Faith House Manhattan, a new community to be launched in summer 2007 which seeks to connect Christianity with Judaism, Islam, Atheism, and beyond among the secular postmodern people of New York. Samir, currently an associate pastor at Crosswalk Seventh-day Adventist Church in Loma Linda, California, grew up as a Muslim in communist Croatia. However, during an obligatory service in the army, his quest for counter-cultural ideas led him to join a Christian church through an underground network of believers. Upon returning home, he was disowned by his family for several years for being a Christian. He was able to work his way back into his family, an experience through which he found strength in God while learning to value the worldviews of the people who opposed his faith. After coming to the United States and completing master’s and doctoral degrees in theology and religious education at Andrews University, Samir pastored a multi-ethnic church in Manhattan for six years. During this time, his post-9/11 work to promote interfaith cooperation earned him honors by the Muslims Against Terrorism organization in 2002. Samir and Vesna, with their daughters Ena and Leta, will move to New York City this year and launch Faith House Manhattan.

This new venture you’re about to start—the “Faith House” project—how would you describe it in 3 sentences or less?

Religious people are used to monologues aimed at cloning or condemning the “other.” In the name of Christ and for the sake of the world that God so loved, we want to learn to find our God in the other and be blessed and changed through it. We believe this will make for better Christians, better Christianity, and a better world, which is what God wants. Three sentences, right?

When will you be moving to New York and when will the project kick off officially?

We are moving in July this year and beginning to meet with the core group of people weekly. Three to six months into it, we will be ready to launch a monthly public gathering that will become a weekly event. All the plans are still like “wet cement” at this time. Local people will shape the project the most.

It must be both exciting and scary. How are you preparing for the move and launch?

The most daunting tasks at this time are finding a place to live and adequate schools for our daughters, Ena (11) and Leta (9). If it was only my wife Vesna and I, we could go with sleeping bags and work ourselves to death. As a family, we must raise enough funds (pledges) to be able to live a sustainable life in the city over a long term.

What experiences in your life have prepared you for this project?

Being brought up in a Muslim family, growing up in a thoughtful atheist educational system, observing Sabbath ever since I first believed, going through September 11 while living in New York for six year, this all helps. But by far the most important experience I have had is encountering the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. I think Christ would come to Faith House.

How and when did you come up with the idea for Faith House to begin with?

The idea grew over time through a community of friends such as yourself. It is not something I came up with. It is something God has been growing among us and we have recognized it simultaneously. It is a gut-wrenching experience to leave behind the “supremacy” of Christianity but the pain is matched only by the joy and beauty of digging deeper into Christianity in order to find strength to do it.

What or who were the influences in your life that have helped shape your thinking and encouraged you to make your dream a reality?

I wish this dream is a reality but the reality is quite stark at this time. The world is convulsing with religious strife and people who are watching are losing hope. Even when they want to believe—and many people do want to—that the world is saturated with God, grace, and goodness, all we have to offer them is religion. Religions are unavoidable, but are helpful only when they take a back seat to something larger than themselves. That’s the main influence in my life—this hope swelling inside me that, paradoxically, God will reward those who disarm themselves.

Why Manhattan? Why not southern California where you are now. Aren’t there are just as many pockets of multicultural, multireligious, secular people here?

Manhattan is like a Jerusalem/Babylon combo: diverse, troubled, and glorious. I can imagine a “Faith House” community developing there. The city went through 9/11 and there is certain legitimacy there. New Yorkers feel they have a right to try this, so to speak. Here in California, where I live now, people seem much more segregated than in the city and I would be afraid Christians would dominate the project from the start.

Obviously, this will not work without full support from your family. Could you describe briefly your wife’s perspective on this project?

We have gone through many months of turmoil to make this decision. Although she supports the project wholeheartedly and has no doubts about whether the project will be blessed by God, she has a real difficulty with being uprooted and replanted again. We are so lucky to have each other!

What will be the formal connection that you’ll have with the Adventist church?

We will be working for Adventist Metro Ministry, which is endorsed by the North American Division. We are also being endorsed by a growing number of individuals and organizational entities from within the church. We will also support Adventist Church financially. Of course, once we have local people who give! Ten percent of our local offering will be given to religious organizations that help us build and run this ministry and additional five percent will be given to other innovative groups that God will start up in the future.

Because your project is so radical and unlike other Adventist ventures, there are critics who are concerned about what you’re about to do. What are the top three criticisms you’ve heard and how do you respond to each?

It is less radical than people think. It is from the past (and present!) Adventist leaders that I have learned to regard Christianity as a movement. As for criticisms, they come three ways. First, you are playing down Christ for the sake of relevancy. Second, you are creating a mixture of religions. Third, you are creating your own institution. There will be plenty of time and space for responding. You know people don’t read blog posts that are too long.

Be real with me and tell me what are your greatest fears are as you pursue this project.

Myself. I feel utterly inadequate to do this and I “lie” to others when I say I can do this. Hope is all I have.

Seven years from now—in 2014—what do you hope to see happening in Faith House Manhattan?

This is such an American question. If we can claim Abraham’s story as our own, we who dream of Faith House don’t know how Isaac will be born, but we know God will bring life in His own time and in His own way.