Journal

By D. Mc. Peace Studies Student at Bethlehem Bible College. The wisdom from above, as described in James 3:17-18, is "pure, peaceable, considerate, and filled with love," and it calls us as Christians to reflect the heart of God in all situations. As we look at the ongoing violence and suffering in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the Middle East, it’s clear that the world desperately [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice (BIPJ) launched its fall semester course, Introduction to Peacemaking and Justice in the Palestinian Context 1, on September 9. This asynchronous online course has its most robust enrollment yet, with forty students from various countries, from the Philippines to Hungary to Australia. Rev. Dr. Jack Sara, the president of Bethlehem Bible College, and Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac welcomed the course participants, expressing [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice at Bethlehem Bible College is off to a strong start this academic year! Thirty-one participants from Japan, the Philippines, India, Tanzania, Palestine, Canada, and the United States gathered online to launch the fall semester course, Introduction to Peacemaking and Justice in the Palestinian Context 1.   Jack Sara, the president of Bethlehem Bible College, began the session by describing BBC's more than forty-year history [...]

Have you given up on the Book of Revelation as too irrelevant to daily life?  Tired of recycled ‘prophetic’ teachings? The Bethlehem Institute of Peace at Justice at Bethlehem Bible College is offering a new five-lecture  online course entitled  Apocalypse, Empire and Palestine offers insightful new perspectives. As John in Revelation warns Christians to come out of the corruption and idolatry of the Roman Empire in his day, so [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice completed its two-week Summer Intensive in Peacemaking and Justice course (www.bipj.org). Participants from Canada, the United States, Palestine, Belgium, Jordan, and Wales explored the conflict and the difficult road to peace and justice in Palestine and Israel through classroom lectures, field research, readings and student-led in-depth personal interviews. Conducted every year during the last two weeks of May and based at Bethlehem Bible College, [...]

On April 28, the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice (BIPJ) at Bethlehem Bible College conducted an academic symposium entitled "Normalization and Resistance: Christian Responses to Oppression." This topic is not theoretical to the Palestinian community, which must live under the burden of the occupation every day and is at times divided by how to respond. [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice’s online courses continue to gain wide approval. Eastern University in St. David’s, Pennsylvania, approved all three BIPJ’s Certificate Program courses to be added as electives to its MA in Theological and Cultural Anthropology. These courses include the semester-length Peacemaking and Justice in the Palestinian Context 1 and 2, offered in the Fall and Spring semesters, respectively, and the Summer Intensive, a residential [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice (BIPJ) at Bethlehem Bible College has successfully completed its inaugural year of its Certificate Program in Peace and Justice!  More than seventy students participated in the Program’s course offerings from a wide range of countries including China, the Philippines, Liberia, South Africa, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Scotland, England, Wales, Canada and the US. Andrew Bush, the director of the BIPJ at BBC, says, [...]

Andrew Bush, the director of the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice (BIPJ), with the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East (NEME) recently conducted a webinar to celebrate the launching of  Bishara Awad’s new autobiography, Yet in the Dark Streets Shining.  In this webinar, Andrew interviews Bishara about his life story.  Co-written with Mercy Aiken, this is a moving account of a Palestinian family trying to survive the [...]

An interview with Dr. Tanas Alqassis about Considering Israel and Palestine from a Bi-Cultural Perspective

 An Interview with  Dr. Jonathan Kuttab about his new book Beyond the Two-State Solution.

On International Day of Education, meet Marcy Heinz, a Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice student, speaking briefly about her experience studying with us! “The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. When I stepped off the plane at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, [...]

Lisa Loden, Co-chair of the Lausanne Initiative for Reconciliation in Israel-Palestine and Board member of the Israeli Bible Society

Students from more than half a dozen countries are deeply engaged in the first fully online course of the Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice. The course is entitled Introduction to Peacemaking and Justice in the Palestinian Context 1.    The materials challenge the participants to consider what it means to be a peacemaker in our troubled world. Noted Palestinian lecturers are taking the discussion out of the ivory tower [...]

The Bethlehem Institute of Peace and Justice at Bethlehem Bible College launched its inaugural online course entitled Introduction to Peacemaking and Justice in the Palestinian Context 1. Andrew Bush, the director of the BIPJ, states: “We are excited that the course is fully enrolled with twenty-nine students from Liberia, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Canada, the Philippines, and the United States. This fourteen-week course can be taken for credit or [...]

Global Peacemakers Speak: An Interview Series of the BIPJ Around the world, peacemakers are bringing transformative change in places of conflict and hardship. Often these visionary women and men do their work under the radar, with only those in their closest circles of associates appreciating their sacrificial work. Global Peacemakers Speak is our effort at the BIPJ to bring their voices and insights to a broader audience. Martin Accad, [...]

The “Gandhi of Palestine” has returned to the place that needs him the most Dr. Mubarak Awad is a world-famous Palestinian nonviolent activist. He is also known as the “Gandhi of Palestine.” Dr. Awad is the founder of the Nonviolence International, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and has worked with the likes of Yasser Arafat, the ex-president of Palestine, to advocate for nonviolent approaches to conflict resolution. Our [...]