On Friday, November 3, 2017 130 people gathered at Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem, as Sabeel, together with Bilda (Swedish Christian Study Centre), The Educational Bookshop and the Tantur Ecumenical Institute hosted a book launch to introduce Rev. Naim Ateek’s latest work, A Palestinian Theology of Liberation; The Bible, Justice and the Palestine-Israel Conflict (Orbis, 2017). Following are excerpts from endorsements given by Cedar Duaybis and Rev. Páraic Réamon:
Rev. Páraic Réamon:
From Gutiérrez and Ateek, Gustavo and Naim, I and many others have learned that the calling of the worldwide church – a calling the Western church finds particularly challenging – is to stand with the poor and the downtrodden. But that calling is also to invite those who tread them down to stop doing that – to invite the exploiter, the oppressor and the dominator instead into the new community of those who live as equals because we are all God’s children.
My friend Robert Smith was blogging recently about the New Christian Zionism. He concluded that all of us are confronted with a threefold task: “Now is the time for a new conversation about Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, a new conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a new conversation about historical Christian responsibility.”
In that complex conversation, the Palestinian liberation theology that Naim began now almost thirty years ago, and that continues today in his own writings but now also in the writings of so many others, is an essential voice that must be heard.
Let my last word therefore be Walter Brueggemann’s word. “This important book will be a great learning among us to which Western Christians of every ilk should pay attention.”
May it be so.
Cedar Duaybis:
The context is Palestinian, the experience is Palestinian, the need is Palestinian and the theologian is Palestinian, but the Theology is liberating, and the Theology is liberated. “A theology of liberation is a way of speaking prophetically and contextually to a particular situation, especially where oppression, suffering and injustice have long reigned.“
Rev. Páraic Réamon is currently serving as pastor of St. Andrew ‘s Scots Memorial Church in Jerusalem. Cedar Duaybis is a co-founder of Sabeel.