Call to Observe Each Monday as a Day of Prayer
For a Peaceful Resolution of the Iraq Crisis

Encouraged by the positive response to our last call to prayer on Iraq on Monday, January 27, 2003, I am calling on all people of faith to observe each Monday as a national day of prayer until our nation’s leaders reach a peaceful resolution of the Iraq crisis.

On February 4-5, I am leading a delegation of the National Council of Churches USA to Berlin in order to bring our message of a hope for a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis to our international church partners and to support their own positions of peace. This will begin a series of NCC delegations to countries that are members of the United Nations Security Council to support their continued support in slowing the rush to war with Iraq. (Click here for additional information.)

We will be in Berlin as Colin Powell delivers an address to a special session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, February 5th to disclose "evidence" to support the need for war on Iraq. This occasion also presents a continued need to pray for religious heads and heads of state to find peaceful ways to resolve this crisis.

I am calling on churches in the U.S. and also churches in the countries of our international partners to observe these prayer Mondays until we can find a way through this situation that does not involve war. And again, I urge people of faith to pray for President Bush, for all our nation’s leaders, and for our military personnel, their families and friends. Let us pray for the suffering people -- especially the children -- of Iraq and all others in the region and around the world who may be affected by war. And, believing that no one stands outside of prayer, let us pray also for Iraq’s leaders, including its president, Saddam Hussein.

Together, let our hearts, our minds and our prayers be as one, witnessing to the ways of peace; witnessing to the fact that war is not the answer. Let all people of faith join in these days of prayer and fasting as we seek peace in our day.

The Rev. Bob Edgar
General Secretary
National Council of Churches
February 3, 2003