Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian and other books (including the forthcoming A New Kind of Christianity), has recently visited Palestine (I think he's there even as I write this). It's always interesting to hear how people respond when they are given the opportunity to interact with Jews, Christians, and Muslims who live in the region.McLaren summarizes some of the words of Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem: "A highlight of our time yesterday was hearing Rev Mitri Raheb share five observations about this part of the world. He said ...
1. There are too many peace talkers and there are too few peace workers.In a post titled Reflections from Ramallah, Taybeh and Beit Sahour, McLaren writes: "The struggle here is about people being held in various forms bondage - both occupiers and the occupied each in their own ways, and everyone needs liberation. . . . People aren't the enemy. Rather, it's harmful ideologies and world views and narratives that rule and exert power in and through people's lives." CLICK HERE to read more of this post.
2. There is too much politics and too little care for people on the ground.
3. There is too much religion and not enough true spirituality.
4. There is too much humanitarian aid and not enough economic development.
5. There is too much pess-optimism (swinging from optimism about the next big project to despair when it doesn't work) and not enough steady hope in action."
And he concludes his post titled Dead Sea, Nazareth, Capernaum Region, Dead Sea with this: "I've been an avid reader on the subject for quite a while, but being here now, I see how many of my most basic assumptions were skewed from a lifetime of half-truths, unfair and imbalanced news, well-planned propaganda, and misinformation."
Mike Todd provides a concrete example of such misunderstanding at the end of the story he tells in his Guest Blog: "The narrative we are exposed to back home tells us this is a dangerous place, that simply to be here is risky. It goes without saying that the narrative says don't get into cars with strangers, that every Palestinian is a danger. This is not true. It seems the intent of this narrative is to keep us from coming, from seeing, and from abandoning the wrong story we have been told."
Here are a few more posts worth reading:
More from the West Bank
Guest Blog by Greg Barrett on Day 1 in Bethlehem
Jewish Voices
Last Day in Israel-Palestine. There are links here to other blogs by tour members Dave Gibbons and Mike Todd.
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