Review by Brian Grantz“With new understanding we can reject both despair and old patterns that merely choose sides.” This is both the central thesis and an honest plea from Alex Joyner in A Space for Peace in the Holy Land. Joyner’s concise book explores how Christians might distinctively and effectively engage the deep divisions and conflicts that characterize relations … [Read more...] about Make Room for Healing
Israel
Church Repudiates 9/11 Post
The Church of England has issued a statement about an item that the Rev. Stephen Sizer posted to his Facebook account:Our attention has been drawn to comments by the Rev. [Stephen] Sizer made earlier today [Jan. 29] on social media. In those comments Rev. Sizer linked to an article entitled “9/11/Israel did it.”These comments would rightly be seen as unacceptable whenever they … [Read more...] about Church Repudiates 9/11 Post
Leaders Welcome Ceasefire
From a press release by the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle EastAs leaders of American Jewish, Christian, and Muslim national religious organizations, united in the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East (NILI), we welcome the ceasefire agreement of Israel and Hamas, and the negotiations to make it … [Read more...] about Leaders Welcome Ceasefire
Hanging On with Chalcedon
Review by Joseph L. Mangina We might think three things are certain about the theological movement known as postliberalism. First, it is quintessentially Protestant, and mainline Protestant at that; thus its alternative designation as the “Yale School.” It can be seen as the natural successor to neo-orthodoxy and the Biblical Theology movement of the 1950s. Second, it is … [Read more...] about Hanging On with Chalcedon
The Church and Israel
First Place, Student Essays in Christian Wisdom competitionBy H. Peter KangIntroductionIn this short essay I take up and develop an argument presented by George Lindbeck, longtime professor of historical theology at Yale University and prominent ecumenist, that the Church should view herself as Israel in such a way that she takes the Old Testament narratives of Israel to be … [Read more...] about The Church and Israel
Israel Prepares for Refugees
By Gary G. YerkeyMichael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, said March 10 that his nation has begun to prepare for a possible influx of Christian refugees from Syria. Oren said that the Christian community in Syria, estimated to be 10 percent of the country’s population of about 23 million, continues to be the most vulnerable to the two-year-old civil war.“We’re … [Read more...] about Israel Prepares for Refugees
Jesus as Martyr for Israel
By Robert Russell Smith In 2010 I wrote a play, The Inquiry: A Story of the Passion of Jesus, to resolve some of the conflicts between the Gospels and modern biblical scholarship. I resolved that it would not reenact the Passion Narratives but would be a dramatic reconstruction based upon my years of study of circumstantial though compelling evidence. I wrote from this … [Read more...] about Jesus as Martyr for Israel