TEXTS and QUOTES

John 4 ¹⁹The [Samaritan] woman said to him, ‘Sir, I see that you are a prophet. ²⁰Our ancestors worshipped on this mountain, but you^* say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.’ ²¹Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. ²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. ²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.

Acts 15 The Council at Jerusalem 1Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved." 2This brought Paul and Barnabas into sharp dispute and debate with them. So Paul and Barnabas were appointed, along with some other believers, to go up to Jerusalem to see the apostles and elders about this question.

John 10¹⁶I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Romans 14 ⁴Who are you to pass judgement on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord^* is able to make them stand. . Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat; ²¹it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister^* stumble.^*

Acts 2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. …⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ….14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ¹⁷“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

Lamin Sanneh in Pluralism and Christian Commitment comments on Acts --from their understanding of the life and work of Christ, they came to a fresh view concerning God's impartial action in all cultures. The watershed for this new departure was Pentecost which set a seal on mother tongues as sufficient channels of access to God, ^….That was how such taboo cultures, regarded through time and eternity as outside the pale of salvation, came to qualify as among the first fruits of God's measureless bounty

John 17 My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Ephesians 1And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.

The world oikos of God's household impacts not only unity and dialogue, but every relationship –culture, how we witness and seek justice, do ministry mission and discipleship, and replace war with peace/shalom/salaam. The mandate is all encompassing - it is a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth

Isaiah 56 And the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, to minister to him, to love the name of the Lord, and to be his servants, all who keep the sabbath, and do not profane it, and hold fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. Thus says the Lord God, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, I will gather others to them besides those already gathered..

Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

"What if the approach to the "other" -- (even in NW Pakistan) was not force, but respectfully being with and enabling aspirations--education, health, reverence for the best in each one's faith?" Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace by Greg Mortenson

"We are who we are not because we are separate from the others who are next to us, but because we are both separate and connected, both distinct and related; the boundaries that mark our identities are both barriers and bridges." Exclusion & Embrace: a Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation by Miroslav Volf.

Ubuntu: An African word (and proverb) meaning “I am human because you are human.”

"There will be no peace among the nations without peace among the religions. There will be no peace among the religions without dialogue among the religions." - Hans Kung

A fractured world without empathy	OR	A world household with empathy?
"Ralph Peters said, 'If we want to avoid the needless, thankless deaths of our own countrymen, we must learn to watch others die with equanimity.' ... Would it make a difference to U.S. security if every Hutu killed every Tutsi, or vice versa; every Palestinian killed every Israeli, or vice versa; or if Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians exterminated each other to the last person? . . .All evoke empathy and stir emotion, but it is, as always a cruel world and each nation's one mandatory duty is to care for and defend itself." Imperial Hubris - Michael Scheuer		"A sad truth of human nature is that it is hard to care for people when they are abstractions, hard to care when it is not you or somebody close to you. Unless the world community can stop finding ways to dither in the face of this monstrous threat to humanity those words NEVER AGAIN will persist in being one of the most abused phrases in the English language and one of the great lies of our time." An Ordinary Man, Paul Rusesabagina, manager in Hotel Rwanda