I will spending the afternoon at the library working on my novel. Then tonight I have a meeting with the District Superintendent about planting a church in the Chicago Loop and church board meeting after that (whew!). I won’t be back on the computer today, but I will read any comments you leave tomorrow and respond.
I hope everyone has a good day!
This is a letter that 34 evangelical leaders sent to President Bush regarding Israel and Palestine. It of the evangelical leaders who signed were Ron Sider, Ray Bakke, Tony Campolo, Leighton Ford, and Luci Shaw. This letter was also published in The New York Times.
July 27, 2007
President George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington DC 20500Dear Mr. President:
We write as evangelical Christian leaders in the United States to thank you for your efforts (including the major address on July 16) to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to achieve a lasting peace in the region. We affirm your clear call for a two-state solution. We urge that your administration not grow weary in the time it has left in office to utilize the vast influence of America to demonstrate creative, consistent and determined U.S. leadership to create a new future for Israelis and Palestinians. We pray to that end, Mr. President.
We also write to correct a serious misperception among some people including some U.S. policymakers that all American evangelicals are opposed to a two-state solution and creation of a new Palestinian state that includes the vast majority of the West Bank. Nothing could be further from the truth. We, who sign this letter, represent large numbers of evangelicals throughout the U.S. who support justice for both Israelis and Palestinians. We hope this support will embolden you and your administration to proceed confidently and forthrightly in negotiations with both sides in the region.
As evangelical Christians, we embrace the biblical promise to Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you.†(Genesis 12:3). And precisely as evangelical Christians committed to the full teaching of the Scriptures, we know that blessing and loving people (including Jews and the present State of Israel) does not mean withholding criticism when it is warranted. Genuine love and genuine blessing means acting in ways that promote the genuine and long-term well being of our neighbors. Perhaps the best way we can bless Israel is to encourage her to remember, as she deals with her neighbor Palestinians, the profound teaching on justice that the Hebrew prophets proclaimed so forcefully as an inestimably precious gift to the whole world.
Historical honesty compels us to recognize that both Israelis and Palestinians have legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine. Both Israelis and Palestinians have committed violence and injustice against each other. The only way to bring the tragic cycle of violence to an end is for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate a just, lasting agreement that guarantees both sides viable, independent, secure states. To achieve that goal, both sides must give up some of their competing, incompatible claims. Israelis and Palestinians must both accept each other’s right to exist. And to achieve that goal, the U.S. must provide robust leadership within the Quartet to reconstitute the Middle East roadmap, whose full implementation would guarantee the security of the State of Israel and the viability of a Palestinian State.
We affirm the new role of former Prime Minister Tony Blair and pray that the conference you plan for this fall will be a success.
Mr. President, we renew our prayers and support for your leadership to help bring peace to Jerusalem, and justice and peace for all the people in the Holy Land.
Finally, we would request to meet with you to personally convey our support and discuss other ways in which we may help your administration on this crucial issue.
You can view all the leaders who signed the letter here. You can also add your name to a list of signatures being collected if President Bush does meet with these leaders.
I would also like to point you to two responses to this letter. The first is from an Arab-American Christian: Deanne Murshed: Evangelicals and Israel. The second is from a Palestinian Christian: Daoud Kuttab: Good News for Palenstinian Christians.
I’ve started an online urban ministry course. Part of the assignment I am working on was to listen to a presentation Ray Bakke gave to the Christian Community Development Conference. He had a really good interpretation of the books of the Bible from Iran and Iraq. The books of the Bible written in Iran are Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther. The books written in Iraq are Jonah and Daniel. He called these books the Gospel from Iran and Iraq. Then he took the theology he developed to apply it to ministry in the city today. Below is my summary of what he called the Gospel from Iraq. If you have time, go listen to the whole thing. It is very thoughtful and very good.
The Gospel from Iraq begins in Israel with Jonah. God commands Jonah to go to Ninevah and “cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” Jonah does not want to go and for good reason. Ninevah is the capital of Assyria, and Assyria is the ancient world’s Nazis and terrorists. They are brutal and show no mercy. They have been attacking Israel and killing its people for years. God has just told Jonah to go to his worst enemy and “cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.”
Jonah does the exact opposite: he jumps on a ship and heads in the opposite direction. But God sent a storm that threaten to break up the ship. The sailors on board were praying to their gods when they find Jonah asleep. The wake him up and tell him to start praying to his god. They cast lots to see who was causing the calamity. The lot fell to Jonah, and he tells them that he worships Yahweh, the God of the heavens, land, and sea, and he confessed that he was running from what his God wanted him to do. The description of Jonah’s God frightens the sailors, and he tells them to throw him overboard. The sailors try to row back to land, but they can’t make it.
ReverendMother just returned from a pilgrimage to Iona, the “cradle of Scottish Christianity.” She says, “It has provided much food for thought, to say the least, and so, to keep the pilgrim mojo going:”
1. Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? (however you choose to define the term) Share a bit about it. If not, what’s your reaction to the idea of pilgrimage?
No, I haven’t been on one, but I would love to go.
2. Share a place you’ve always wanted to visit on pilgrimage.
I’ve always wanted to go to Avila because of St. Teresa, Kildare because of St Brigid, and Iona.
3. What would you make sure to pack in your suitcase or backpack to make the pilgrimage more meaningful? Or does “stuff” just distract from the experience?
Bible, journal, Book of Common Prayer, and may be one or two books about Teresa and Brigid.
4. If you could make a pilgrimage with someone (living, dead or fictional) as your guide, who would it be? (I’m about thisclose to saying “Besides Jesus.” Yes, we all know he was indispensable to those chaps heading to Emmaus, but it’s too easy an answer)
Obviously Teresa and Brigid at Avila and Kildare, and I think I’d just want to wander around Iona alone taking it all in.
5. Eventually the pilgrim must return home, but can you suggest any strategies for keeping that deep “mountaintop” perspective in the midst of everyday life? (don’t mind me, I’ll be over here taking notes)
Pictures and any writings I did. I’d make sure to write lots of poems then combine the pictures with the poems to hang around the condo.
The picture is St. Brigid of Ireland by Richard Kent.
In the RevGals Wednesday Festival, EarthenSoul was mourning that, at this point in her life, she would never have children. I am unable to have children due to health problems. Like EarthenSoul and Her Mate, My Hubby and I have decided not to adopt due to how old we will be when we get the kids off to college! Sally posted the wonderful prayer below in the comments on the post. It spoke to me and resonated in my heart. In the past few years, I have come to realize that just because I cannot have children does not mean I cannot nurture and love others and give birth to new ideas, books, and projects for the Kingdom of God. In fact, as a pastor I get to do one of the most incredible things there is: I get to love, nurture, and lead people into an intimate relationship with God. If that’s not mothering, I don’t know what is! I take my example from Deborah, who is called “a mother in Isreal” (Judges 5:6). Deborah is not called a mother because of her biological children. She is a mother for leading and defending the people of Israel, which were her children. Here is the prayer that Sally left for earthsoul and the rest of us who are unable to have children. It is from Nicola Slee’s “Praying like a woman.”
Though this belly has never been swollen with the burden of a baby, let me grow big with the longing for justice which will be for all of the children of God.
Though these breasts have never suckled an infant, let my largess of love nurture those who are hungry for the feast of life.
Though these arms have never cradled my own child, let them reach out tenderly to those who pine for a mothers love.
Though these lips have never spoken my own babies name, let me croon blessing and balm and healing on many a charmless unlullabied life.
Though this mind cannot truly imagine my own childs life, may I dream dreams for children whose prospects are pitiful and whose hopes are slender.
And though I have wept over my unborn child’s unfulfilled possibilities,
may I never be so absorbed in my own small griefs that I have not compassion to weep with the motherless child, and the childless mother, to grieve the abandoned infant and to rage over the still born babe.To sorrow over the squandered life and to lament over each uncherished son and daughter.May I offer these arms,
Open this heart,
proffer this body,
to each baby screaming for justice,
each child reaching for love
each neighbour longing for mercy
each mother mourning the useless spilling of blood.Childless and childbearing we belong together
We are each offspring of the body of God.
