I’ve been waiting for this, for heartland America to take its power, for the intelligent and balanced folk out there to insist on fairness. The Denver Post has a great piece by John Kane calling on Christians to decry the injustice in Israel/Palestine. Kane is a professor of religious studies at Regis University in Colorado, and he is joined by other religious figures in this op-ed, including Rob Prince of Progressive Jewish News:
American Christians for too long have been largely silent about the most dangerous conflict threatening peace in our world: the decades-old crisis in Israel and Palestine.
…Such "Christian silence" is rooted to a great extent in ignorance of what is actually happening in the Holy Land, and it is also rooted in a legitimate fear of offending Jewish neighbors and fellow citizens.
Yet those who seek true peace in the Holy Land and who want to stop the spread of ethnic and religious hatreds throughout the Middle East must challenge the sacred pieties and the raw political power that so far have stymied President Obama’s efforts for Middle East peace…
In responding to the call of the Christian leaders in Israel and Palestine, Christians in this country will also be joining with newly powerful voices in American Judaism, such as the Jewish lobby J Street and the activist group Jewish Voice for Peace. They, too, see this as a new moment, no matter that the headlines remain filled with cycles of terror, of occupation and response, of injustice and violence on both sides in the Holy Land.
