4 January 2007
BETHLEHEM: No Room for Peace
What does it mean to say "Peace on Earth", when you're standing in Bethlehem under the shadow of a gun?
Feed the Minds, an ecumenical Christian organisation, has produced a documentary film for ITV about the recent visit by four prominent UK Church leaders to the Holy Land.
With exclusive access, through Feed the Minds’ partners in the UK and the Holy Land, this documentary goes behind the greetings card images of the baby lying in the manger, to the gun towers currently surrounding Bethlehem. We follow the Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the Archbishop of CanterburyRowan Williams, Free Churches Moderator Rev David Coffey, and Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian the Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain, on their ecumenical “pilgrimage of peace” in the days before Christmas.
Feed the Minds Director Rachel Searle says, “The Christmas story announces ‘Peace on Earth’ but, if you stand on the street corner in Bethlehem, there is anything but ‘Good Will to All’. The Holy Land is the most contested front line of every spiritual and material battle in the Middle East.” The delegation from the UK Christian Churches arrived in the midst of this situation to witness the harsh realities of life in the middle of conflict.
No Room for Peace is an uncomfortable documentary probing the claim that “Peace on Earth” arrived in perhaps the world’s most violent region. The film tells the Christmas story in a way that mixes the horrific images of conflict with a sense of the divine mystery.
“We were transformed by the stories we heard on this trip,” comments Searle. “ It was disarming, inspiring and devastating, all at the same time.”
No Room for Peace shows on ITV on Sunday 7 January at 22h45. For more information, please contact Nicola Spurr at 0207 592 3901.
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