Editorial.

Gill, Theodore A., Jr.

The historic events of the last year in the Middle East have highlighted the aspirations of citizens for their dignity and freedom all around the region. They have also raised new and serious challenges for the many Christian communities there. The deep issues--demographic and political, religious and theological-raised by and for contemporary Christians there, are the focus of this issue of The Ecumenical Review.

Christians everywhere, of course, evince concern over the presence of Christians in the land where Christian communities have lived their faith for 2000 years. Full solidarity, spiritual communion and understanding are gospel imperatives. Today, the witness of these Christians is challenged by the momentous political developments around them. It is true that Christians themselves were and are still fully involved actors in the struggles for human rights and freedoms in all the countries of the region. Nevertheless, they are aware that the construction of new societies based on the very basic principle of full and equal citizenship is still far from reach, and necessitates that they continue to join forces with different actors in the society, including people from other faiths.

The journal issue is inspired and engendered by a June 2011 consultation, jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches and Volos Theological Academy, in Volos, Greece. There 30 theologians, social scientists, politicians and church representatives gathered to discuss and debate the full range of issues, especially in light of the December 2009 "Moment of Truth" document, known as "Kairos Palestine" by Palestinian Christians from many Christian traditions as well as the February 2011 minute from the WCC Central Committee on "The Presence and Witness of Christians in the Middle East."

The articles here further develop the Volos conversation and centre on both the socio-political realities of the many and historic Christian traditions in the region, (especially against the background of the recent uprisings in the Arab world and the continuing stalemate in Israel/ Palestine) and the deeper theological and ideological streams that clarify and in some cases muddy the lived experience of all peoples there.

The questions engaged here are but a sampling of the many yet, we hope, among the most vital for ecumenical Christianity. Whether in Israel/Palestine or the other Middle Eastern countries, full appreciation of the overarching problems and potentialities requires us to wrestle with the sometimes-checkered biblical legacy and its themes of promised land, nationhood, election and people of God. Also indispensable is some understanding of the complex and often fraught relations among Christian traditions there, and among Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities. We invite readers to encounter these questions themselves in the articles in this issue of The Ecumenical Review and with the lives and witness of Christians in the Middle East longing for just peace.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1758-6623.2012.00148.x