The EvangelicalLutheranChurch

in Jordan and the Holy Land (ELCJHL)

Salaam and grace to you from Jerusalem, City of Peace September 2006

On Sunday, Sept. 17, after some churches were attacked in the West Bank, four Jerusalemheads of local churches here went to Nablus to stand in solidarity with Christian sisters and brothers there. His Beatitude Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah; Bishop Riah Abu el-Assal of the Episcopal Church of Jerusalem and the Middle East; Bishop George Bakar, the Greek Catholic Exarch and I viewed the minimal damage mostly on the outside of the four churches.More serious, however, was the symbolic meaning of the acts. Bishop Riah and I worshipped and con-celebrated at the Anglican Church there, and His Beatitude and Bishop Bakar worshipped and con-celebrated together in the Roman Catholic Church. Our aim was to encourageall of the people, Christians and Muslims, and to discuss events with congregations and officials in Nablus, including all of the political factions. I reminded them of the verse from Luke 12:32: "Have no fear, little flock."

We all – Christian and Muslim leaders and government officials of all factions – denounced the violence that has occurred. At the same time, we asked if the relationship between Palestinian Christians and Palestinian Muslims was so shallow that a statement from thousands of miles away should spark such actions. We know the answer – for the majority of us – is no. We concluded that these are the acts of a few irresponsible people who do not represent Islamor Palestine. These are extremists trying to drive a wedge between Palestinians – Christians and Muslims – and somehow disrupt the long history of co-existence we have enjoyed until recently, when political disputes are being made into religious ones.

According to Father Awad, the Roman Catholic leader in Nablus,"the goal of these actions is to create a rift among the peoples who have lived for hundreds of years with love and tolerance." Bishop Alexus, Bishop of the Arab Orthodox community in Gaza, echoed this sentiment: "We live together as one family."

We cannot allow these irresponsible few to hold the many of us hostage to extremism and fear and to turn us against one another. Nor can we allow this to distract us from the urgent issues of justice that we face together. Christian and Muslim religious leaders here have fully denounced violence – whoever the perpetrator – and stand together against it.

The Mufti General of Palestine, Sheikh Muhammad Hussain, as well as Chief Islamic Judge Sheikh Tayseer At-Tamimi and spokesmen for Hamas have denounced the attacks.

"We are a people of Muslims and Christians who live together, feel each other's hopes and pains, and so we have to be united and wise towards every insult on our religious symbols," the Mufti said.

These acts call us to higher ground. We cannot respond with extremism and stereotype an entire religion from the acts of a few. Instead, let us follow the path of Jesus, who lived with openness, tolerance and respect while standing firm against violence and hatred. Let us banish fear and anger from our hearts and continue to serve everyone, regardless of their politics, religion or ethnicity, as equal children of God worthy of love and respect. This strengthens our civil society and is the fabric of our Body of Christ.

Even if an incident takes place, our responses must be wise, measured and strategic. The Pope's comments were understood to be unnecessarily provocative and offensive, and they were not helpful to either Christians or Muslims here. However, we must find other ways to expressthat. We mustconfront conflicts in dialogue at their roots and not let them fester or tempt us into violence. This is the only path to deepen our ability to live together as Christian and Muslimneighbors.

We are aware that some elements are trying to portray Islam as a negative, violent religion. Most of us Palestinian Christians do not agree. The Islam with which we have lived all our lives has given us peaceful, good neighbors within Palestine. This is why I question those elements who did this: "Why are you trying to strengthen those who label you?"

In Tubas, a village near Jenin where someone tried to burn a church, local Muslims stopped him. Then a delegation visited the church to express their solidarity within their town between Muslims and Christians. Tubas Mayor Oqab Daraghma said that the person who attempted this act was probably "ignorant" because this town has a "fraternal relationship" between Christians and Muslims.

As His Beatitude said, "we need Muslims and Christians to continue to be partners for finding common values that can build the globalized new world order." Our urgent call in this fragile time and place is to join together as Muslims, Christians and Jews to promote justice, peace, forgiveness and reconciliation which are the only foundations of a civilized world. And at the same time, we must stand firm against dehumanization, stigmatization, stereotyping and demonization, which only foster anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, xenophobia and all targeted hatred.

If you ask me what do I think of what happened, I will continue to say there is no systematic persecution of Christians in Palestine or the PA. These kinds of incidents between Muslim and Christian are so rare that I can remember each one over my 30 years in ministry here. That's why it was so good for me to go from these problems in Nablus to a wedding in our Lutheran Church of Hope in Ramallah, where 700 Christians and Muslims danced and celebrated together. That is what we do and how we live. No police, no security, no need for such things. We are, in the end, all Palestinian sisters and brothers.

So I say to you few who did these acts, "May God forgive you, for you don't know what you are doing."

I again call on Christian and Muslim leaders to sign a code of conduct that promotes respecting one another's sacred writings, symbols and places and fosters religious pluralism, mutual respect and co-existence. Bishop Munib Younan

Bishop Younan Attends Installation of New Swedish Archbishop and Conference
Bishop Younan was in Sweden to attend the installation of the new Swedish Archbishop Anders Wejryd. He then addressed a Swedish conference on the role of Religion in Conflicts. The Bishop said that religion has been kidnapped by politics, and he is frustrated that religion is more frequently used to cause political conflicts rather than solve them.

The Bishop reiterated his belief that it is the underlying injustices of our world and the failure of moderate religious leaders to address them that is fueling the growth in extremist religions. The greed and narrow self-interest of the Western world is allowing Islam to portray itself as the only religion that stands for justice in that arena. The Western world's emphasis on democracy is misplaced, according to the Bishop, because justice must come first. He pointed to the US invasion of Iraq as an example of what happens when you try to force a country into democracy, then hand out Bibles after the invasion.It doesn't work.

Bishop Younan Attends World Conference of Religions for Peace

8th General Assembly in Kyoto, Japan
Jerusalem faith leaders Bishop Munib Younan, Sheikh al Tamimi, the Chief Islamic Justice in Jerusalem, and Rabbi David Rosen, the International Director of Inter-Religious Relations with the American Jewish Committee and the International Jewish Committee, were among the faith leaders gathered at the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP) 8th General Assembly in Kyoto, Japan, in the end of August. The Assembly ended on 29 August with 800 delegates from more than 100 countries and all major religious traditions endorsing the Kyoto Declaration on Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.

"At a time when religion is being hijacked by extremists, the religious leaders gathered in Kyoto demonstrate for all the world the power of religious communities to illuminate the path to peace when they work together." William Fe. Vendley, Secretary General of the WCRP.

The Kyoto Declaration offers a new vision of shared security that properly places religious communities at the centre of efforts to confront violence in all its forms," said Vendley, a Roman Catholic from the United States.

During the conference, special meetings of Christians, Muslims and Jews were organized to discuss the problems in the Middle East. Bishop Younan said he believed the Oslo peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993 failed have failed because there was no religious input into them.

"Religion should play a positive role and be a driving force for solution for the sufferer," Bishop Munib Younan said.

For the Full Kyoto Declarationgo to

ELCJHL Schools Open School Year While Public Schools Remain Closed on Strike

The school kids at the Lutheran schools in Palestine are lucky. While most of the 1.2 million Palestinian students are not in school because of a general strike, the Lutheran schools are leading the charge to ensure their students don't pay the price of this latest situation.They have mostly remained open in the face of pressure to close and support the strike, and they are working with other private schools on an initiative to encourage schools to remain open.

In situations like this, the ones who lose in the end are the children. That is not acceptable," said Dr. Charlie D. Haddad, Lutheran Schools’ Director. He expressed his sympathy and support for the teachers who have not been paid, but also said the children should not suffer.

According to Mr. Basre Salih, Director of International Relations for the PA Ministry of Education, only about 10% of the public schools opened their official school year on Saturday. Government workers are on strike because they have not been paid salary for over six months since the international boycott on aid began shortly after Hamas was elected in January. But the situation changes daily, and information is sketchy because those who track information for the government have also been on strike.

According to Dr. Haddad, ten percent of the 1.2 million Palestinian students attend private schools, like the ELCJHL, which are mostly open, and 12% go to UNRWA (United Nations Refugee Welfare Association) schools, which are also open.

ELCJHL Schools to Participate in "Challenge 20/20"

Student-teacher teams are forming in ELCJHL schools to participate in an innovative hands-on, international initiative designed to empower and challenge students minds and hearts. The Challenge 20/20 program is an initiative by the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) in the US that pairs a US school with an international school to work together to develop local solutions to global problems. It is based on the book High Noon: Twenty Global Problems, Twenty Years to Solve Them, by Jean Francois Rischard.

Sister Sylvia Countess, Assistant to the Schools' Director Dr. Charlie Haddad, said "the Challenge 20/20 project is promising because it implements the goals and objectives of the ELCJHL Schools by integrating academic subjects-science, information technology, social studies and English – with higher-level thinking skills, research and cooperative learning through local and international partnerships".

For more on the initiative, see www. nais.org The schools, partners and topics are listed below:

Dar al Kalima School in Bethlehem Topic: Education for All

EagleRockSchool and ProfessionalDevelopmentCenter, Estes Park, Colorado

MarshallAcademy, Falls Church, Virginia

LutheranSchool in Beit Sahour Topic: International labor and migration

AthensAcademy, Athens, Georgia

TalithaKumiLutheranSchool in Beit Jala Topic: Biodiversity and Ecosystem Losses

SayreSchool, Lexington, Kentucky

LutheranSchool of Hope in Ramallah on Topic: Water Deficits

DesertAcademy in Sante Fe, New Mexico

Christian - Muslim Dialogue in ELCJHL Schools

Dialogue begins at home, at least in our schools. Depending on the school, between 40 - 50% of our students are Muslim, and we welcome them because we think it is important for all three religious groups here to live together in peace. The Muslim religion classes are taught by Muslim teachers, Christians by Christian teachers, and both with our guiding principles of tolerance, mutual respect and co-existence. The Christian and Muslim classes also meet and dialogue together.

This week, the dialogue at these joint classes inELCJHL schools was a lively exchange of ideas. Tony, the Dar al Kalima Christian religion teacher, was impressed by the maturity of the dialogue with the 10th grade class, which stressed the importance of listening, seeking to understand one another and rejecting violence in any form. One student remarked, "Here we are like sisters and brothers. We worship the same God."

Since the founding of the Lutheran Schools by German missionaries in the mid-nineteenth century, our schools have been open to both religious groups. The schools would also be open to Jewish students, according to ELCJHL Schools' Director Dr. Charlie Haddad, but this is impossible because the Israeli governmentforbids Israelis fromcrossing the checkpoints and visiting the West Bank where our schools are located. Those Israelis who live in illegal settlements on Palestinian land use separate roads and do not have much contact with Palestinians, who are forbidden to use the same roads as Israelis. Dr. Haddad said they are still involved with some Christian, Muslim and Jewish dialogue in joint workshops and seminars and he hopes for more when the situation improves.

Environmental EducationCenter Sponsors International Clean-Up Day

In September, the Environmental Education Center (EEC), one of the 4 ELCJHL Educational programs, sponsors a clean-up day in Ramallah and Bethlehem. This is part of their year-long campaign to teach the importance of cleanliness, nature and a healthy environment among citizens and to change negative behaviors into positive ones. These campaigns involve clean-up of schools, neighborhoods or environmental projects and encourage the local community to be involved in the work.

This year, Ramallah Mayor Miss Janet Michael kicked off the Ramallah event to clean up 6 schools and their streets. She encouraged the importance of environmental cleanliness for schools, streets and cities, and then EEC Executive Director Simon Awad spoke about the history of this event and how important it is for young people to help their communities and serve their country. About 200 participants worked for three hours.

In Bethlehem, more than 80 students worked for three hours on their clean up day – in partnership with the Bethlehem Peace Center (BPC) - by painting the streets in Bethlehem area on Monday, Sept. 18. BPC Executive Director Mr. Michael Naserwelcomed the volunteers, and then Bethlehem Mayor Dr. Vector Patarsa spoke about positive attitudes.

The students sent letters to partner schools the previous week to encourage them to clean their schools and keep the environment healthy and pollution-free.

During this month, there is a drawing competition to celebrate this event under the title "I love my country clean." Ads ran in local newspapers, and at the end of this month the winner will be announced and made into a poster.