Episcopal Press and News
Former President Jimmy Carter Urges Middle East Churches To Live in Harmony and Unite in Their Search for Peace
Episcopal News Service. April 12, 1990 [90096]
Margaret Larom, World Mission Information Officer
During a three-day trip to Israel, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter met with Israeli government leaders, prominent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and religious leaders, including Anglicans.
While attending Sunday services at St. George's Cathedral in Jerusalem, Carter delivered a stern message to Christians, urging them to find a way to unite in their search for peace.
"It is very important for us to realize that now not only the Muslims and the Jews and the Christians must live in harmony, but the Christian Church -- in order to be strong and forceful and to exemplify the teachings of our Saviour Jesus Christ -- must also be in harmony.
"I would guess, as a distant observer, but a very interested observer," Carter said, "that there is less division among the Christians, Jews, and Muslims than there is among Christians here in Jerusalem. The only contest among us should be who can best personify in our ministry the true teachings of Christ."
Referring to the sermon in which the Rev. John Peterson said that "Christians have no alternative but to live that radical lifestyle of Christlikeness, to work for justice and peace," Carter added, "Reaching out for those less fortunate, ministering to those who have different beliefs, maintaining an attitude of humility, of service, opening communications where they do not exist, loving most those who are less loveable, bridging gaps between those who hate, being the epitome of peace, as the minister has so brilliantly described -- these are humbling thoughts for all of us Christians. And my prayer is that here in this holy place, in this troubled land, that the church of our Saviour Jesus Christ, in its multiple facets, multiple denominations, can be united in the search for peace."
Carter reiterated this theme at an evening meeting with religious leaders of Jerusalem. According to Canon Na'em Ateek, pastor of the Arab-speaking congregation at St. George's, Carter listened with close attention to the clergy present, especially after they stopped itemizing the various abuses that individual churches had suffered and began to discuss the broader justice issues they had in common.
Ateek said that Carter seemed surprised by the extent of the human rights violations as recounted by the church leaders. "If you Christians can get your act together and speak with one voice, I'll do something to help," he told them. For example, he suggested that every time they complained to the Israeli government about abuses they send him a copy. "But write collectively," he said.
To achieve Christian unity in Jerusalem would not be easy, according to Ateek, the only Palestinian at the meeting. He expressed gratitude "for the recognition that it's time to talk to some clergy, that Jerusalem is significant not only to Muslims and Jews, and that we have a stake as much as anybody else."
During the morning service at the cathedral, Carter said that the welcome they received was "compatible with the friendship and love that our Saviour exemplified. To hear about his meeting with the Samaritan woman (in the sermon by Peterson) is particularly pertinent in these days because there is a great deal of incompatibility between the rulers here and the Palestinian people. Some deplore the inferior position in which the Palestinians live, but it is nothing compared with the inferior position that the Samaritans lived in then." Carter continued, "And the fact that our Saviour could reach across this chasm in the spirit of love, compassion, understanding, and peace is indeed a message for us all."
Bishop Samir Kafity of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem was not present but did leave a message for the former president, read aloud by Canon Ateek. Kafity called Jerusalem as "the mother" and described how it absorbs the spirit -- "the spirit of all its past residents, its present residents, and of all the pilgrims of all three monotheistic Abrahamic faiths. It is a very special spiritual focus, a symbol that could perhaps change our present world."
"The significance of the motherhood of Jerusalem to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam lies in the fact that true motherhood does not discriminate or have any preferences," Kafity wrote. "Jerusalem is a mother who loves all her children equally and without distinction. This symbol of motherhood, of love and peace, is what Jerusalem has offered to humanity across the ages. We pray that it may regain this eternal symbolism and may once again be the answer to the quest for peace. May it be a city completely shared in every respect and at every level by Jews, Moslems, and Christians," he added. "Jerusalem the mother, not the city, is the abode of God."
In addition to Peterson, an appointed missionary of the Episcopal Church who is dean of St. George's College in Jerusalem, other clergy present were the Rev. Peter Crooks, dean of the cathedral, and representatives of Southern Baptist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, and Armenian churches, the Church of Scotland, several U.S. evangelical churches, and the liaison officer for the Middle East Council of Churches.
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