In December 2009, a group of Palestinian Christian theologians launched Kairos Palestine, a call for Christians locally and around the world to mobilize against the injustice imposed on all Palestinians, Christian and Muslim, by the Israeli occupation.

“We ask our sister churches not to offer a theological cover-up for the injustice we suffer,” wrote the scholars, in a powerful call for non-violent resistance against injustice in the Holy Land. Almost two years after the launch of Kairos Palestine, one of the document’s co-authors has written a book offering new insight to the Palestinian situation and the Kairos project.

In “Kairos for Palestine,” Rifat Odeh Kassis explains Kairos in the context of the situation of Christians both in Palestine and the broader Arab world, their realities and their dreams. “A Moment of Truth,” as the Kairos document is officially known, recalls the Kairos Document released by black liberation theologians during the worst years of Apartheid in South Africa. Kassis analyses the South African document and compares the experience of the Kairos Palestine Initiative.

In February of this year, the World Council of Churches urged member churches to “study and disseminate the Kairos Palestine document, and to listen and concretely respond to the Palestinian Christian aspirations and calls expressed in this document."

Kassis takes this call further, examining the tactics of non-violent resistance promoted by the Kairos project. His book is an important contribution to the literature of non-violent resistance in Palestine as well as a useful guide to Kairos and how churches can use it as tool against injustice.

“Kairos for Palestine” by Rifat Odeh Kassis is available for $20 or €15 from www.spreadthe3rdvoice.blogspot.com.

You receive this message because your name is on our 'PIEF Alerts' distribution list. Please send an e-mail to Beatrice Merahi (beatrice.merahi@wcc-coe.org) if you no longer wish to receive PIEF Alerts.