Thursday, April 3, 2025, 7:00 PM EDT - 8:30 PM EDT - Online
A Call to Conscience: Bonhoeffer's Wisdom - for Today’s Traumas in Israel and Palestine
Join Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), Evangelicals4Justice (E4J), and the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East (NEME) on April 3rd for a conversation on Middle East peace through the eyes of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. CMEP Executive Director Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon will join expert speakers Andrew DeCort and Rabbi Or Rose to discuss how we can respond faithfully in these desperate times in the Middle East, taking wisdom from Bonhoeffer's life and legacy.
Andrew DeCort has been called a dissident theologian by his friends. His work is deeply inspired by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his writing by James Baldwin, his spirituality by Etty Hillesum.
Andrew received his PhD in religious and political ethics from the University of Chicago. In 2016, he founded the Institute for Faith and Flourishing in Chicago. In 2019, he co-founded the Neighbor-Love Movement in Ethiopia. IFF and NLM have reached over twenty million people with the invitation to nonviolent spirituality. Andrew has taught ethics, public theology, peace and conflict studies, and Ethiopian studies at Wheaton College, the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, and the University of Bonn.
Andrew is the author of Flourishing on the Edge of Faith: Seven Practices for a New We (BitterSweet Collective) and Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation (Fortress Academic). His words have appeared in Foreign Policy, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the BBC, The Atlantic, The Economist, Christianity Today, Comment Magazine, Sojourners, The Other Journal, Wheaton College Magazine, The Journal of Religion, Political Theology, All Africa, BitterSweet Monthly, and numerous other platforms. Andrew writes the newsletter Stop & Think at andrew-decort.com. He lives in Chicago with his wife Lily, a gentle spirit and luminous painter.
Rabbi Or Rose is the founding Director of the Betty Ann Greenbaum Miller Center for Interreligious Learning & Leadership of Hebrew College and a senior consultant to Interfaith America. He previously served as the Associate Dean for Informal Education at the Rabbinical School of Hebrew College and as co-founder and co-director of CIRCLE, a center for interreligious education co-sponsored by Andover Newton Theological School and Hebrew College. Rabbi Rose is publisher of The Journal of Interreligious Studies and the co-editor of the award-winning anthologies, My Neighbor’s Faith: Stories of Interreligious Encounter, Growth, and Transformation (Orbis, 2012) and With the Best of Intentions: Interreligious Missteps & Mistakes (Orbis, 2023). Rabbi Rose is currently completing a contemporary multifaith commentary on the Book of Psalms (Paraclete Press, 2025) and a biography of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel for teen readers (ages 12-15, Monkfish, 2025). His writings have also appeared in The Huffington Post; Forward; MyJewishLearning; Patheos; Religion News Service; Tikkun; and The Washington Post.
Rev. Dr. Mae Elise Cannon is the executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) Cannon formerly served as the senior director of Advocacy and Outreach for World Vision U.S. on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC; as a consultant to the Middle East for child advocacy issues for Compassion International in Jerusalem; as the executive pastor of Hillside Covenant Church located in Walnut Creek, California; and as director of development and transformation for extension ministries at Willow Creek Community Church in Barrington, Illinois. Cannon holds an MDiv from North Park Theological Seminary, an MBA from North Park University’s School of Business and Nonprofit Management, and an MA in bioethics from Trinity International University. She received her first doctorate in American History with a minor in Middle Eastern studies at the University of California (Davis) focusing on the history of the American Protestant church in Israel and Palestine and her second doctorate in Ministry in Spiritual Formation from Northern Theological Seminary. She is the author of several books including the award-winning Social Justice Handbook: Small Steps for a Better World and editor of A Land Full of God: Christian Perspectives on the Holy Land. Her work has been highlighted in The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Chicago Tribune, Christianity Today, Leadership Magazine, The Christian Post, Jerusalem Post, EU Parliament Magazine, Huffington Post, and other international media outlets.
To register: A Call to Conscience: Bonhoeffer’s Wisdom for Today’s Traumas in Israel and Palestine – Churches for Middle East Peace
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