Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: CEIE Staff Reflections
Posted: January 19, 2024
Read the reflections and find additional resources
In a time of global unrest and conflict, the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (Jan. 18-25) calls Christians from across the globe to remember and embody this simple commandment of Jesus, to love all people and show compassion and care to those on the margins. With this resource, you can read reflections on this year’s theme written by CEIE leadership.
“We don’t have to agree on all things, nor do we have to abandon our ecclesial identities to experience unity and be a catalyst for transformation and healing. Ultimately, it is love that binds us together. Love that is embodied both in our theological understanding and our compassionate action for the sake of the other. Love is at the heart of what is means to be Christian, and it is love in action that moves us into deeper relationship with one another and with the Source of Love at the heart of all things.”
– Rev. Dr. Kara Markell, CEIE Assistant Director
“All my life I grew up hearing this narrative referred to as the story of 'The Good Samaritan,' the problem being that the act of identifying this Samaritan as good plays into the racialized trope that Samaritans were somehow an inferior group of people. Many well-meaning preachers have succumbed to the sin of making this Samaritan man ‘exceptional’ rather than challenging the racism of the community that Jesus directed this story to. Point by point Jesus meticulously dismantles the racial animosity between his own community and the Samaritans which was a long standing religio-ethnic disdain rooted in superiority.”
– Rev. Dr. Edward Donalson II, CEIE Provost Fellow
- Read CEIE's January newsletter.
- Engage more with CEIE and its programs at CEIE’s website, the Religica Theolab website and The Interfaith Observer.