— for U.S. leaders who are setting policy, for American and British soldiers and their families, for civilians in Iraq who just want to survive. Abu-Akel asked Presbyterians “to pray for the end of war, and for peace in Iraq and the Middle East.”
During Lent and Holy Week, Presbyterians need to be “clear-minded” and to remember that “war is death and destruction,” said Abu-Akel, a Palestinian Christian. “I have strong feeling because I am a child of war . . . I know what war means.”
Abu-Akel also spoke of his recent travels — to China, where he preached at a church where every seat was taken a full hour before the worship service started; to Indonesia, a predominantly Muslim nation which has the largest Presbyterian and Reformed presence in the world; and to Korea, where the Presbyterian church is younger than in the United States, but sends out more missionaries to the world than does the PC(USA).
The moderator also spoke of the recent decision of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission regarding the efforts to call last year’s Assembly back into session. Abu-Akel opposed that move, but promised to follow the denomination’s Constitution and to reconvene the Assembly if enough commissioners requested it. The judicial commission supported much of what Abu-Akel did, but said he should not have sent a letter in January asking commissioners who’d signed on to the effort to change their minds.
Abu-Akel said he prays for the Presbyterian Church every day, and always closes the prayer by saying, “Lord Jesus, your will be done, not mine.” The moderator said that “no one is above the Constitution and all of us are accountable to one another in the body of Christ.” And he said “this experience taught me about the power of media and the power of communication, how they can create a perception in the mind of the people that is more powerful than the truth.”
As the issue swirled through the church, “my focus on Jesus and the church everyday during that time was my salvation, because I did not allow the outside forces to overwhelm me,” Abu-Akel said. “So when I read that the moderator, the stated clerk and the staff in Louisville have a conspiracy, I became strong in the spirit, because I knew that this statement was a lie and I realized that the truth is more powerful than the lie.”
