Occupied Territories: The revolution of love from
Bethlehem to the ends of the earth
Garth Hewitt
IVP £11.99
(978-0-8308-3670-3)
Church Times Bookshop £10.80 (Use code
CT597 )
Peace-ing Together Jerusalem
Clare Amos
World Council of Churches £7
(978-2-8254-1636-5)
Church Times Bookshop £6.30 (Use code
CT597 )
THESE two admirable books differ greatly. Garth
Hewitt is personal and enthusiastic, on a wide canvas. Clare Amos
bases her book more on reflections on the five years she spent in
Jerusalem. Each will appeal to some, but probably not both to
all.
Hewitt's Occupied Territories has the subtitle The
revolution of love from Bethlehem to the ends of the earth. This
is, indeed, a grand theme, and a driving force for the author - for
which, he recognises, he owes gratitude to Naim Ateek.
Hewitt's message is passionate but level-headed:
clear, simple, and easy to follow. "Somewhere around 4 BC the
Prince of Peace was born." So his book opens.
This reviewer sensed: he loves Jerusalem, Bethlehem,
and more. Indeed, he clearly has a passion for the whole area. His
own love for it shows through. It comes out in the poetry and other
items (it would be wrong to call them "asides") that he weaves into
his text. His book is richly endowed with passion and insight.
He is also the founder of the Amos Trust, "a small,
creative, Christian human-rights agency that works with vibrant
grass-roots partners around the world". So, not just "words, words,
words". But, if his own enthusiastic words should irritate some
(and there is no good reason why they should), they will certainly
excite others.
Clare Amos works with the World Council of Churches,
and was recently awarded a Lambeth Doctorate in Divinity. Her
writing about her time in Israel is evidence of her good grasp of
the "feel" of the land, of Israel - and of Jerusalem, in
particular. She writes at one point of how her five years there
enabled her to discern and get inside the feel of the place, and
led her to search for further understanding - of the place and its
people. And she understands (important, this) that Jerusalem has
meaning not just for Jews, but that Muslims and Christians also
have a feeling for the city and its long history.
She discusses, under four headings, the meaning of
the city - for those who live there, and for herself: the new or
heavenly Jerusalem; Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God;
Jerusalem, the centre of the world; and Jerusalem, the rejected and
suffering one. All that brings home both the complexity and the
attraction of the city - to all kinds of people, in all kinds of
ways.
For any reader of this article whose senses are
alerted, this reviewer would say: "Go there - the sooner, the
better."
Canon John Armson is a former Precentor of
Rochester Cathedral.