June 5, 2008

NEW YORK – Australia is focusing on Gaza; Brazil has seminary students debating conflict over the term "holy" land. Canadians, Scots, Norwegians, British and French are contacting lawmakers; and on the high Wall that hems in Bethlehem, Palestinians are "showing" prayers at night.

Here in the United States, humanitarian agency Church World Service is co-sponsoring a noon prayer service on June 8 at the Interchurch Center in New York City and continuing its advocacy in support of a just peace in the Holy Land.

The events all are part of the June 4-10 celebration of World Week for Peace in Palestine and Israel, a week of advocacy, education and prayer led by the World Council of Churches in Geneva and recognized by countries throughout the world.

While "World Week" prayers ask for help from heaven, church advocates also seek changes on earth.

Church World Service, long an advocate for peace with justice in the Holy Land, regularly calls people to action (see http://www.churchworldservice.org/speakout/) around legislation and other issues related to peace and justice in the Middle East, along with other social concerns.

Following President Obama's speech this week in Cairo, the Rev. John McCullough, executive director and CEO of Church World Service, joined major Christian leaders from Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Orthodox and historic African American traditions to declare support for bold U.S. action and to call for meaningful progress toward a just and lasting peace in the Holy Land.

The agency now is urging other concerned people to sign on to the June 4 letter to President Obama, which thanked him for administration efforts to reach out to the Muslim world and efforts to make Israeli-Palestinian peace an administration priority.

An ecumenical service sponsored by the Heads of Churches in Jerusalem has anchored World Week for each of its four years. This year, the East Jerusalem event is Sunday, June 7th. A prayer from the Jerusalem church leaders is available on the web at http://www.oikoumene.org/en/events-sections/wwppi/pray.html.

Church World Service