wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Lutheran says church leaders should take lead in making

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Note #8878 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05454
Sept. 1, 2005

If politicians can't achieve Mideast peace,
Lutheran bishop says, church leaders must
 
by Peter Kenny

JERUSALEM - If world leaders can't make peace between Israel and Palestine,
Lutheran Bishop Munib Younan said Wednesday, Christian, Jewish and Islamic
leaders should take on the task.

	"If world leaders and politicians cannot make this dream a reality,
and if they cannot get out of their narrow national interests and see the
human suffering and hear the prayers of both," said the leader of the
Lutheran church in the Holy Land, "then the church ... must more proactively
assume its responsibility with people of good conscience and courage from
Judaism and Islam."

	Younan spoke during the opening service of a meeting of the council
of the Lutheran World Federation, which is taking place in Jerusalem and
Bethlehem between Aug. 31 and Sept. 6.

	Jerusalem's Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was overflowing during
Younan's sermon. His audience included Roman Catholic, Orthodox and other
Protestant leaders and members of the local Islamic and Jewish communities.

	Younan, the Palestinian-born leader of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Jordan and the Holy Land, won applause from the mostly
Arab-speaking congregation in Jerusalem's old town.

	Opening the annual meeting of the main governing body of the Lutheran
World Federation, which represents about 66 million Christians from 77
nations, Younan said the conflicts in the Middle East show how perverse
ideologies and untruths can produce hatred and mayhem.

	"It is fitting today that Christians, Muslims and Jews, Palestinians
and people from all over the world gather here to celebrate the
reconciliation that has already been accomplished in our Lord," the bishop
said. "I grew up as a refugee in the shadow of this very church. In my church
and in my family, I was taught to respect Islam, Judaism, Christianity and
other traditions."

	He added: "I appeal to the Lutheran World Federation to use this
church in Jerusalem as the site of an annual prayer rally for Christians,
Muslims and Jews, Palestinians and Israelis, to pray unceasingly until just
peace and reconciliation becomes a reality."

	He said the globalized world is becoming one without values, a world
that "seems to believe more in the love of power than in the power of love."

	ounan said "the new wave of anti-Semitism, the growth of Islamophobia
and xenophobia, stigmatize and demonize people through racism, fear and
ignorance." He said his church has always believed that it is possible to
achieve peace with justice in the Holy Land.

	"It is possible when people come to see that the security of Israel
is dependent on freedom and justice for Palestinians, and, simultaneously
freedom and justice for Palestinians is dependent on the security of Israel,"
he said. "This formula is one that seeks true peace and healing for both
people, but ... allows both people to live in their own viable states
according to the international standards of justice, equality and equitable
sharing of resources."

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