27 SEP 2007

Newspaper Ad (ran in Intelligencer Journal & Lancaster New Era)

CALL FOR AN END TO THE BLOODSHED

We, the members of the Board of the Lancaster Interchurch Peace Witness, support the Pastoral Letter of the leaders of the United Church of Christ and we invite all persons of conscience to join us in promoting this call for peace.

“We call for the humility and courage to acknowledge failure and error, to accept the futility of our current path, and we cry out for the creativity to seek new paths of peacemaking in the Middle East, through regional engagement and true multinational policing.

“We call for acknowledgement of our responsibility for the destruction caused by sanctions and war and a beginning to rebuild trust in the Middle East and around the world.

“We call for repentance in our nation and for the recognition in our churches that security is found in submitting to Christ...

“We will join protest to prayer, support ministries of compassion for victims here and in the Middle East, cast off the fear that has made all of us accept the way of violence and return again to the way of Jesus. Thus may bloodshed end and cries be transformed to the harmonies of justice and the melodies of peace. For this we yearn, for this we pray, and toward this end we rededicate ourselves as children of a loving God who gives “light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

You may endorse this letter to the United States Government at www.ucc.org/100kforpeace.

We have advertised our messages of peace on local billboards. The messages included:

> Pursue Peace... Peaceably
> Pursue Peace... War Spreads Terror
> Pursue Peace... Overcome Evil with Good