Tag: peacemakers

Palestine and Global Peace

I wonder if you can remember the comedy film Miss Congeniality staring Sandra Bullock. There’s a scene in which she appears in  the Miss USA beauty pageant. Each contestant steps up to the microphone to answer the question, “What’s the most important thing our society needs?” They each smile and give the same cliched answer – “world peace”. All except Sandra Bullock who replies, “Harsher punishment for parole violators”. When the crowd goes silent and Sandra Bullock realises they don’t share her enthusiasm for justice, she adds, “And world peace” and then the crowd goes wild. 

Although the humorous scene makes light of ‘world peace’, implicitly, it raises the question, “If we all believe in ‘world peace’, if we all want ‘world peace’ why, oh why, is it so elusive? I suggest the clue lies in Sandra Bullock’s unpopular reply, but lets leave that for now and come back to it later. 

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A Christian Perspective on the Life and Teaching of Imam Ali al-Raza 

A paper delivered at a conference organised by Astan Razavi in conjunction with the University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technology entitled, “Civilisational Thoughts of Imam Raza (peace be upon him): Justice for all and injustice for no one.” (download a copy here)

In this short presentation I will be reflecting on the life and teaching of Imam Ali al-Raza as summarised in the Razavi Codes of Ethics,[1] comparing and contrasting them with ethical instructions taught by Jesus Christ found in the four Gospels of the New Testament.  Given that those participating will likely already be familiar with the example and teaching of Imam Raza, I will elaborate more on the teaching of Jesus to illustrate similarities and differences, recognising that Imam Raza, living many centuries after the New Testament was written, may well have been influenced by it, consciously or otherwise. 

This will not however, be an exhaustive or comprehensive analysis of Islamic and Christian ethical codes, but rather a comparison of some of the 13 examples contained in the Razavi Codes of Ethics with similar statements found in the teaching of Jesus. 

However, I am not a specialist in Islamic studies, or indeed of comparative religion. Nevertheless, I have helped organise, or have contributed to, several international conferences on Christian-Muslim dialogue, for example, with the World Islamic Call Society, Libya (2009), Fuller Theological Seminary, USA (2009); the League of Arab States in Qatar (2012) and Iraq (2013), the New Horizons conference, Iran (2014), and the Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia (2023). 

The Razavi Codes of Ethics, as you probably know, were written to help prepare pilgrims visiting the shrine of Imam Ali Al-Raza in Mashhad. 

“Through studying this book, it is hoped that the dear readers, respected pilgrims, and lovers who bore great pain and suffering for going on a pilgrimage to Imam Raza’s tomb will become more familiar with Imam Raza’s words and manners, will be determined to follow his teachings in their daily life, and make their life more fruitful and prosperous in this world and the world to come.”[2]

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Celebrating 2023: A Year in Review

If you are like me they you probably find January a challenging month. After the highs of the Christmas season, the short-lived New Year resolutions, long dark nights, and typically cold weather, we can easily become discouraged or demotivated. 

In my former parish, just after Christmas I would invite the whole church family to reflect upon the previous year and identify their personal ministry highlights. Having collated their answers, we gave a copy to every church member encouraging them to keep it in their bibles and use it in their daily prayers, giving thanks for God’s abundant blessings in the year that had gone. Each January we found this really strengthened our faith and raised our expectations of what the Lord could accomplish in and through us during the year ahead. 

I have done the same in what follows, highlighting an event or initiative for each month of 2023. I have also appended news of two exciting new initiaitves in 2024. Thank you for making this all possible, through your prayers and support. We look forward to partnering with you in the year ahead. 

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University of Malaya Lecture Tour

During the last week of November, I spoke at several events in Kuala Lumpur at the invitation of the University of Malaya, Hashim Sani Centre for Palestine Studies, the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue and also the International Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies.

Inevitable Solutions to the Palestinian Plight

A lecture given at the invitation of the Centre for Civilisational Dialogue and Hashim Sani Centre for Palestine Studies. Read my text here.

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Peacemaking in Action

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Taken from Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals

Common Prayer is a book that is designed to help individuals, families and groups of congregations pray, sing and act together in the Christian faith. The book will help you each day to come together as communities and families with the books scripture songs and prayers.

The book Common Prayer is by authors Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Enuma Okoro.

Common Prayer includes traditional prayers that have been put together by a Liturgy team of authors so that celebrates the best of each tradition across denominations of the Christian religion. The book also includes a unique songbook that also celebrates the Christian faith. The songbook is composed of music from classic lyrics and traditions from all denominations using traditional hymns and Mennonite gathering songs.

Common Prayer is ideal for those who desire a deeper prayer resource for their worship and are familiar with Shane Claiborne and New Monasticism

Jonathan Kuttab Receives Mennonite Peace Award

Jonathan Kuttab, the Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA) was recently named the 2023 Legacy Peacemaker by the Mennonite Church USA.

Jonathan was raised in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. He is an international human rights attorney and is a member of the Bar Association in Palestine, Israel and New York. He has represented Mennonite Central Committee and Christian Peacemaker Teams (now Community Peacemaker Teams) in Palestine and was the head of the Legal Committee that negotiated the Cairo Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1994.

Jonathan has also been involved in the leadership of several Palestine-Israeli human rights groups, such as Al-Haq, Nonviolence International, MennoPIN, Friends of Sabeel North American, Holy Land Trust and Bethlehem Bible College. He worships at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster (Pennsylvania).

He represents people and groups from various religious and secular backgrounds, and emphasizes universal principles that offer alternatives to violence across political, social and religious divides.

“Working for peace and justice allows me to combine my faith commitment with my burning desire to do something about the oppression and struggle of my people in Palestine,” said Kuttab. “It allows me to care not only for my ‘tribe’ but also its enemies.”

Jonathan is also a member of the Peacemaker Trust International Board of Reference

Ranjan Solomon joins Peacemaker International Board of Reference

We are delighted that Ranjan Solomon has kindly agreed to join the Peacemaker International Board of Reference. Ranjan is a freelance writer, organisational consultant and human rights activist living in Goa. 

Ranjan served for 33 years with the YMCA in refugee services in Bangladesh and India. He was also Executive for Justice and Development in the Asia-Pacific Alliance of YMCAs. 

Before retirement he was Executive Secretary, Communications, Mission and Ecumenical Concerns, World Alliance of YMCAs. He was also General Secretary, Ecumenical Coalition for Third World Tourism (ECTWT) and a consultant for the Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum, World Council of Churches (2009-2016). He was President, National Confederation of Human Rights (now banned by the Government of India). 

Ranjan is executive director of  Badayl (Arabic for ‘Alternatives’) is a Consultancy that deals with Organizational Development for organizations that address questions of justice, peace, and human rights. Badayl facilitates’ ‘Future Search ” process which results in arriving at new paradigms of organizational development consistent with leadership/management trends that are  contemporary and out-of-the-box in scope. Some of Badayl’s projects include a Global Review-Research on “Environmental Democracy, An Evaluation of an NCCI initiative: “Freedom of Religion and Belief”. Other evaluations involved a review of the work carried out in Chechnya at the height of the war with Russia. The evaluation looked at Future Search and a capacity-assessment of the organization. A major evaluation of the Yakkum Emergency Unit in Indonesia during the inter-religious conflict in Medan. Badayl served as Consultant to the Caritas-Goa’s programme for justice in tourism in Goa (Centre for Responsible Tourism). Badayl supported a study on “The Question of Water in tourism (Water as a right of ‘The Commons’)”. 

Ranjan is the co-founder and Core Group member/Program Coordinator of the Movement for Liberation from Nakba (MLN) a coalition of organizations and individuals from Southeast Asia, South Asia, Australia, the UK and South Africa which disseminates knowledge about Palestine in the Global South. He is Convener of Indo Palestine Solidarity Network and Global Kairos for Asia Pacific Palestine Solidarity Network. He is an Op Ed writer for The Goan.