wfn.org | BETHLEHEM: NEW INTER RELIGIOUS STUDY CENTRE

[Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>]

Oct. 21, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

[97.10.3.1]

BETHLEHEM: NEW INTER RELIGIOUS STUDY CENTRE

(ENI) A new academy for inter religious and intercultural studies which
has been launched in Bethlehem is expected to promote relationships
between Christians and Muslims.

To be known as Dar Al-Kalima (House of the Word), the academy will serve
Christians and Churches in the mainly Muslim countries of Asia and
Africa, and will research the theology and church practices of these
Christian communities. The academy will also provide information about
the Palestinian people in an attempt to break their relative isolation.
The academy is to open this year in temporary premises in Bethlehem, but
will have specially designed new quarters by Christmas 1999 when world
Christian leaders are expected to arrive in Bethlehem.  The buildings,
which will also accommodate creative programmes in music and the arts,
are being designed as part of a vast renewal of the city of Bethlehem
for the year 2000.

The academy, which will be broadly ecumenical in its policy, is being
sponsored by Bethlehem's Christmas Evangelical Lutheran Church and by
the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Palestine and Jordan.

A "Concept Conference" for the academy, which ended on 13 October, drew
scholars from Asia, Africa, Europe and North America. The keynote
address was presented by Bishop Kamal Bathish, a Palestinian Catholic
who serves on the Vatican's planning committee for the Year 2000 and on
ecumenical committees in Jerusalem and Bethlehem which are planning
celebrations.  He said the Roman Catholic Church wanted the year 2000 to
be a time for increased ecumenical efforts.

Bishop Bathish also emphasised that the Churches of the Holy Land needed
to offer direction to the plans for celebrations of the new millennium,
and not simply react to the efforts of others.

The President of the Palestine National Authority, Yasser Arafat, said
the new academy was especially welcome in Bethlehem. He has taken a
personal interest in the development of the academy "which will play a
great role in the cultural, scientific and intellectual life not only of
Bethlehem but also of all of Palestine".

The academy would, he said in a message read by one of his deputies,
provide "cultural interchange and links among peoples and
civilisations".

His message also acknowledged that the Concept Conference was being held
at a time when the peace process was passing through a "very critical
and dangerous stage".  According to Dr Mitri Raheb, pastor of the
Christmas Church in Bethlehem, the academy will be the only institute of
its kind in the emerging state of Palestine.  He promised that it would
relate losely to scholarly programmes in Jerusalem and elsewhere. He
added that Dar Al-Kalima would bring grassroots Palestinians into
contact with educators, musicians and artists from all over the world.

The academy would try to build links with the World Council of Churches,
the Middle East Council of  Churches and with the Fellowship of Middle
East Evangelical Churches, he said.

"Our methodology will be inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary," he told
ENI. "It will be our contribution not only to North-South dialogue but
also to South-South and East-West dialogue."

The three departments of the academy will include a programme of
contextual theology, as well as music and the arts.

The academy will be located next to the Christmas Lutheran Church on
the renovated "souk" or market street, known as Paul VI Street.
According to plans for the city, the market street will become a
pedestrian mall leading to Manger Square and will connect the Christmas
Church with the Church of the Nativity.  An area where pilgrims today
trudge over broken stone steps will be rebuilt to serve as an outdoor
amphitheatre.

Much of the work being done to renovate Bethlehem is being funded by
sister-cities around the world.  The city became run down during 30
years of Israeli occupation.