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The grittiness of Christian Faith

Written from Jerusalem: Walking through the narrow, winding streets of Jerusalem’s Old City on my first visit here in fifteen years, I was powerfully struck once again by the grittiness of Christianity, the palpable connection between the faith and the quotidian realities of life. For here, . . . . Continue Reading »

A New Christian Zionism

Critics of Christian Zionism usually dismiss it for one or more of three reasons: 1. They say it makes mincemeat of the New Testament, where (it is alleged) the Old Testament focus on a particular land is replaced by the vision of a whole world; 2. They think it is the exclusive concern of premillennial dispensationalists, whose theology supposedly uses Jews to advance its own role in presumptuous schedules of End Time events; 3. It is said to be more political than theological, attached to right-wing American and Israeli political parties that wrongly identify the current Israeli state with the eschaton.Scholars at a recent conference at Georgetown made the case for a “new” Christian Zionism that takes a fresh approach to all three of these problems. Continue Reading »

The Pope and the Patriarch

On Sunday Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew will join one another in their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Fifty years after the historical meeting of Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI, this new meeting aims to do more than commemorate the past. Continue Reading »

The Bishops and the Middle East

The U.S. Catholic Bishops' Statement on the Middle East, adopted unanimously during the bishops' fall 1989 bicentennial meeting in Baltimore, is a surprisingly straightforward document. When the U.S. government deals with the Arab-Israeli conflict, its language is often more ambiguous. President . . . . Continue Reading »

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