Contact: Jim Wetekam,
Churches for Middle East Peace
jim@cmep.org

(WASHINGTON, October 11, 2002) American church leaders today criticized the Christian Right for ignoring their bonds with the Christians of the Holy Land. Reacting to uncritical support for Israel by some fundamentalist Christian leaders, and to Jerry Falwell’s statement on "60 Minutes" that defamed the prophet Mohammed, church leaders voiced concern at assertions made by some Christian fundamentalists.

Jim Winkler, General Secretary of the United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church and Society, declared, "President Bush often reminds the American people that intolerant words of a few militant Islamic leaders are not representative of Islam. I am here to tell the American people that the comments of Rev. Falwell and others on last Sunday’s ‘60 Minutes’ are not representative of American Christianity."

Winkler spoke through a national coalition of Protestant and Catholic organizations named Churches for Middle East Peace. He and others expressed the hope that today’s Christian Coalition rally designed to show support for Israel would also remind participants not to forget their Christian brothers and sisters who live, work and worship in the sacred sites of Christianity.

The moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Rev. Fahed Abu-Akel, is himself an evangelical Christian and a Palestinian American. "Perhaps most troubling," he said, "is that some prominent Christian ministers misunderstand the situation of Christians who live in the Holy Land, Israel, Palestine, the Middle East, and other parts of the world." Rev. Abu-Akel continued, "Half of the world’s population is either Christian or Muslim. These two religious faiths need to respect one another and work together for a better future for our world. At best, Rev. Falwell and others have shown a lack of political understanding; at worst, his words encourage religious hatred."

Rev. Dr. Charles Kimball, a Baptist minister and chair of the department of religion at Wake Forest University, noted, "It is my hope that Christians in the U.S. will affirm solidarity with both Israelis and Palestinians in their quest for peace, justice and security. Jesus was a peacemaker. We are called to a ministry of reconciliation as peacemakers. To suggest that Jesus would want the expulsion of Palestinian Christians and Muslims from Israel and Palestine or that he would support the continued killing of any people in the Middle East represents Christian theology at its worst."