wfn.org | Disciples, UCC leaders write on future of Jerusalem

[powellb@ucc.org]

Date:  January 7, 1997
Disciples News Service
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

Contact:  Clifford L. Willis
E-mail:  CWillis@oc.disciples.org
On the web:  http//www.disciples.org

United Church of Christ
Contact:  Hans Holznagel, (216) 736-2214
E-mail:  holznagh@ucc.org
On the web:  http://www.ucc.org

97a-1

      INDIANAPOLIS (DNS) -- Leaders of the Christian
Church (Disciples of Christ) and the United Church of Christ
recently issued a joint pastoral letter on the future of
Jerusalem.
      The letter, signed by the Revs. Richard L. Hamm,
Disciples general minister and president, and Paul H. Sherry,
president of the UCC, is a prelude to the expected introduction
of resolutions concerning Jerusalem at 1997 meetings of each
denomination's central deliberative body.
      The future of Jerusalem is one of several "final status
issues" that will not be settled until various interim matters are
resolved between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.  Final
status talks, scheduled for May 1996, were stalled indefinitely
after the November 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
      The pastoral message cautions that "Christians should not
presume to define and delineate the significance of Jerusalem
for their partners in the Abrahamic tradition."  Nonetheless, it
seeks to "articulate principles and hopes that we, as Christians,
believe should be realized in the determination of the status of
the Holy City."
      Chief among the positions is that Jews, Christians and
Muslims share a passionate regard for Jerusalem as a "city of
hope and holiness...where redemption and renewal have been
promised."
      The letter commends Israel for extending free access to
Jerusalem's holy places to the international Christian
community since Israel assumed control of the city in 1967. 
But it also laments that under present conditions, Palestinian
Christians and Muslims living in the West Bank and Gaza are
deprived of the right to worship at the places held sacred to
their traditions.
      Furthermore, the continuous closure of Jerusalem and of
Israel itself to Palestinians in the Occupied Territories has "had
a devastating impact on the Palestinian economy, on education,
on health care and on the unity of families."
      Israeli actions in Jerusalem prior to agreements on the
future of the city are "of grave impact as well."  They include: 
extensive building of exclusively Jewish settlements in and
around the city; the expansion of the municipal limits of the
city to include those settlements; and building on confiscated
Palestinian land.  Such policies have displaced Palestinians and
magnified "the fears of...Palestinian residents that they will be
overwhelmed and marginalized in the city that they consider to
be the center of their national life."
      "For Jerusalem to realize its vocation, it cannot...'belong'
to any one people or religion," the pastoral letter asserts.
Hamm and Sherry state clearly that neither they nor their
communions can "presume to define this solution in political
terms."  But they call on those who negotiate the future of
Jerusalem to "recognize its truly unique role...(and) define new
modes of sovereignty and governance so that Jerusalem
will (be)...a living antidote to the contemporary diseases of
bigotry, intolerance, ultra-nationalism and exclusivism."
      The Disciples 1997 General Assembly and the
United Church's 1997 General Synod are expected to consider
resolutions that call for the communions to examine the
significance of Jerusalem in their theologies, their inter-
religious relations, and their practices of tourism and
pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
      The Disciples, with general offices in Indianapolis, have
nearly 1 million members and more than 3,900 local churches
in the United States and Canada.  The UCC, with national
offices in Cleveland, has 1.5 million members in more than
6,100 local churches in the United States and Puerto Rico. 
The two denominations have been in "full communion" as
ecumenical partners since 1989.
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