As the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity fast approaches, moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) Faith and Order Commission Rev. Dr Susan Durber reflects on the theme \u201cWe saw the star in the East,\u201d and on what unity means for the world today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rev. Dr Durber: Sometimes I hear Christianity described as a \u2018Western religion\u2019, but my experience of the world church has taught me that it is not. Missionaries in the early Church first went East and some of the earliest churches are very far from the Western world. And in the heart of the infancy stories we have this tale of those who saw the star \u2018in the East\u2019 and came to worship the Christ child. I have been formed in a culture that has tended to exoticise \u2019the East\u2019, in what the Palestinian philosopher Edward Said famously called \u2018orientalism\u2019.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This story and theme reminds me that \u2019the East\u2019 is more than a source of spices and colours for my Western life, but denotes a wealth of culture and wisdom which is offering gifts to us all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n