Former CJP visiting scholar named director of peace studies at Nazareth Evangelical College

Rula Mansour, a visiting scholar at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) from 2015-17, has been named the director of peace studies and lecturer on the theology of reconciliation at the seminary Nazareth Evangelical College (NEC) in Israel.

Mansour will develop NEC’s peace studies program to “equip students with academic and practical tools to approach conflict and its management as they work for justice and peace,” according to a news release from the Association of Baptist Churches in Israel (ABC). She will also offer conflict management training to churches.

“The continuing nature of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict calls for leaders to be trained specifically to work within the challenges and issues of this conflict,” Mansour said. “As well, trained personnel strong in their Christian faith are needed with the courage to develop positive programs embedded in peace, justice and love for neighbors. At NEC, the biggest impact we can make is through our transformative teaching, which aims at encouraging our participants to engage in their communities and become agents of change and peace.”

For 13 years Mansour was a public prosecutor and deputy head of the public prosecution office in Nazareth, and was the first Palestinian Arab to hold such a position in Israel, according to the release. She left her post “to pursue a vision God had laid on her heart to promote reconciliation and peacemaking.” 

“Creating educational programs that promote justice and impart practical skills for managing conflict is important work – especially in places that have experienced sustained conflict,” said CJP executive director Jayne Docherty. “We are happy to see Dr. Mansour’s dream coming to fruition and look forward to opportunities to work together.”

In 2018, she received her PhD from the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in Oxford, which was completed under the supervision of professor Miroslav Volf. The topic of her PhD dissertation was about reconciliation theology in the Middle Eastern context in dialogue with Volf’s theology of reconciliation.

NEC was founded in 2014 by ABC, the Bethlehem Bible College and the Convention of Evangelical Churches in Israel through the merger between Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary and Galilee Bible College. 

Strategically located in Nazareth, where Jesus was raised, it trains male and female church leaders “to follow Christ faithfully and to be equipped and qualified for serving the church in the Holy Land,” its website states. The region’s “main institution for training church leaders and servants,” it seeks to influence, in order of priority, Evangelical Arabs in Israel, Christian Arabs, Jewish Christians, and then Christians worldwide. 

Its programs include a bachelor’s degree in biblical studies and a master’s degree in leadership and Christian ministry.