How good it is to raise hell sometimes

Sunday May 22, 2011

Today was our first full day of the conference. We attended church at the National Cathedral where the themes of the readings were acting as living stones to build the church together. Dean Sam Lloyd’s sermon spoke to the challenge of the rise of religion worldwide and the divisiveness that sometimes accompanies it. What an apropos lesson! The beautiful service was followed by a tour (my third since moving here last summer – the main characteristics of Gothic architecture are still 1) pointed arches, 2) ribbed vaulting and 3) flying buttresses) and lunch at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, Cactus Cantina. Oddly enough, I ran into a colleague who has been working with m to re-blog my posts here to a foreign policy blog we both contribute to. After the events of my afternoon and evening, I am now incredibly jealous that he is leaving for Israel on Wednesday. But I am getting ahead of myself.

We received a true crash course in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a number of sources, including Alex Baumgarten, Director of Government Relations for the Episcopal Church and the international policy analyst in charge of the Middle East portfolio. Alex, along with Mary Getz of the Office of Government Relations (OGR), went over a history of the Episcopal Church’s (TEC) involvement in the issue via legislation. I hope to post a brief summary of the facts of the case in a later post, but suffice it to say our legislation has typically been reactionary, due in large part to the fact that our governing body only meets every three years, but has focused a lot on encouraging a negotiated settlement which respects the human rights of both parties. I will be learning more about the details of the position tomorrow before I participate in Lobby Day on Tuesday. The real star of today’s show was our opening plenary in the evening.

Our guest speaker was Archbishop Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Arab Christian living in Israel. He himself admits up front that this is a very complicated and contradictory identity, but points out with characteristically loving insight that “behind the contradiction is a hope waiting to thrive”. There are 150,000 Christian Arabs living in Israel, which constitutes about 25% of Christian Palestinians. The other 75% are refugees or have emigrated elsewhere. The last important statistic he mentioned is that only 9-10% of those living in Bethlehem are Christian. This being primarily a struggle between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians, the Christian Arabs tend to get lost in the shuffle and have a difficult time expressing their identity in such an environment. Many have chosen to leave.

But Archbishop Chacour, ordained in the Greek Melkite Catholic Church in 1965, has begun a revolutionary ministry there. He built a school in a small village called Ibillin. At one time education spanned pre-school through university level but it now only extends to the high school level. In this school, Christian children go to school with Jews and Muslims; none are turned away. And they have a 90% pass rate for standardized tests. In Israeli public schools, Jews have a pass rate of around 70% while Arabs of a pass rate of around 50%. So, the ministry has been incredibly successful and has bridged cultures in a way unparalleled in the region. But the most important lessons I drew from the Archbishop were less about his education ministry and more about his approach to the peace process.

Archbishop Chacour encourages Christians and Americans to support Jews and Israel as fully as we are called. The problem comes when friendship with the Jews means implicit enmity towards the Palestinians. Likewise he welcomes our friendship and support, but if it means hating the Jews, he says he has no use for our friendship. He begs for friendship and solidarity for both sides so they may not learn how to live together, but to “remember how we used to live together, and put the last 60 years in parentheses.” As he is fond of saying “together, we are stronger than the storm.” For American Christians, this means getting our hands dirty in the name of peace and justice. Especially with such a polarizing issue, this can be frightening. But, as Chacour went on to say, “how good it is to raise hell sometimes, not against one side, but for the benefit of both sides.”