The Rev. Roy Hayes
Priest-at-Large in Cyberspace
(Episcopal)
Mideast Peace = Peace of Jerusalem = World Peace

Peers,

My Allies on AOL and I are calling for Christians and Muslims to stand in solidarity on the Holy Land issues and call for Jews to SHARE JERUSALEM.  It’s a simple matter of calling for justice.  Peers, have you noticed?  Every time we find the word “righteousness” in the Bible, we’re getting a reference to justice.  For the word “righteousness” is a synonym for the word “justice”.  Islam, the faith, insists on justice.  The word “Jihad” literally means “effort”.  Jihad, rightly understood, is the struggle for justice which makes peace possible.  Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a contemporary Christian leader, teaches:  “Let us work for justice.  Reconciliation and peace will follow soon enough.”  Bishop T is right.  Let us work together. Peers, please take another look at The Official Website of A Common Word.  Study the details at that site very, very carefully.  Tell your friends about it, because a great deal depends on the general public being purged of our  prejudices towards Arabs.  Beware The Swarm.  Many Christians are Arabs.  The majority of Arabs are Muslims, but regardless of the numbers, bigotry …. whether conscious or unconscious … does not facilitate the peace process.  Neither does fear, whether real, imagined or exaggerated.  Neither do mis-representations. If Jesus and Mohammed had been contemporaries, they would have been friends and allies.  It’s their followers … ordinary folks like you and me … who sometimes foul things up.  There’s a postscript. Peace, Roy+

P.S.   As we Christians make our rightful claim to Jerusalem, we acknowledge that Muslims and Jews also have rightful claims to Jerusalem from their perspectives.  It is useless to quarrel about sovereignty in the Holy City.  Sovereignty in Jerusalem belongs to God alone, and God is ONE.  Jerusalem is truly an international city and must be SHARED.  Amen