Sailing through Troubled Waters: Christianity in the Middle East
Dr. Mitri Raheb is the President of Diyar Consortium and of Dar al-Kalima University College in Bethlehem, as well as the president of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land in addition to being the Senior Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author of 16 books including: Das Reformatorische Erbe unter den Palaestinensern, I am a Palestinian Christian; Bethlehem Besieged. He is the Chief Editor of the Contextual Theology Series at Diyar Publishing including: The Invention of History, A Century of Interplay between Theology and Politics in Palestine; The Biblical Text in the Context of Occupation: Towards a new hermeneutics of liberation. His books and numerous articles have been translated so far into eleven languages. The 50 year-old multilingual contextual theologian received for his ‘distinguished service to church and society’ the prestigious Wittenberg Award from the Luther Center in DC (2003). He also received for his ‘outstanding contribution to Christian education through research and publication’ an honorary doctorate from Concordia University in Chicago (2003) and for his ‘interfaith work toward peacemaking in Israel and Palestine’ the “International Mohammad Nafi Tschelebi Peace Award” of the Central Islam Archive in Germany (2006) and in 2007 the well-known German Peace Award of Aachen. In 2012 the German Media Prize, a Prize granted mainly to head of states, was awarded to Dr. Raheb for his “tireless work in creating room for hope for his people, who are living under Israeli Occupation, through founding and building institutions of excellence in education, culture and health.” The work of Dr. Raheb has received wide media attention from major international media outlets and networks including CNN, ABC, CBS, 60 Minutes, BBC, ARD, ZDF, DW, BR, Premiere, Raiuno, Stern, The Economist, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair.  Dr. Raheb holds a Doctorate in Theology from the Philipps University at Marburg, Germany.  He is married to Najwa Khoury and has two daughters, Dana & Tala. For more, www.mitriraheb.org