by returned EA John.
“God has broken the dividing walls (Ephesians 2:14)”
The reading from Ephesians 2:11-22 is concerned with building a new community where Jews and Gentiles are united in peace. There are no longer insiders and outsiders, rather God’s grace extends to all. Christ is the cornerstone of a new temple (or community) marked by unity and reconciliation.
Northern West Bank. 2016 Photo EAPPI
by EA P. Morgan, Bethlehem team.
“The checkpoint takes all that man has, all his efforts, all his time, all his nerve… The checkpoint is the chaos and the order, it is within the law and outside of it, operating by rationality and idiosyncrasy through order and disorder.” Azmi Bishara, ‘Checkpoints: Fragments of a Story’ (2006)
Letter from the World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit to WCC member churches in Palestine and Israel concerning the renewed wave of violence in Jerusalem. 19 October 2015
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ – our Lord and Saviour, the Prince of Peace, the child of Bethlehem.
I write to you at a time of renewed violence between the peoples in the land of Christ’s birth, to commend the witness of our Christian sisters and brothers in Palestine and Israel, and to express the concern and solidarity of the global ecumenical fellowship represented in the World Council of Churches. We are following with increasing dismay events throughout the region and especially in the Holy City of Jerusalem, which we hold in our hearts and prayers as an open city of two peoples (Israelis and Palestinians) and three faiths (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). We continue to work and pray for a just peace for both Palestinians and Israelis, promoting respect for the status quo of the holy sites of Jerusalem as an important contribution to reducing current tensions.
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