It has been nearly three years since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. More than 80,000 Israelis and Palestinians have died in the ensuing conflict and more than 174,000 Palestinians have been wounded in Gaza.
And still, the Canadian Council of Churches, which represents about 85 per cent of Canadian Christians, is struggling to issue its first collective statement on the war.
“I think it’s a tragedy that we have not been able to speak to the situation in Gaza, Israel, Palestine,” outgoing Canadian Council of Churches general secretary Peter Noteboom told Canadian Affairs.
“It’s been very difficult, not only for me but I think for all the staff of the council, to live with that inability to express together the position of justice and peace that would be more than, you know, ‘We pray for the people who are victims of the conflict.’”
But for Gazan academic Philip Jahshan, who lives in Gaza City, it does not matter whether some distant group of churches in Canada ever does agree on what to say about the war surrounding him.
“Here, here in Gaza, it’s destroyed — destroyed life. And it’s a hard life here,” he told Canadian Affairs.
“Here is not, is not life. It’s not life… I need hope. I need help — help to continue us to live in Gaza,” added Jahshan, who is an essayist and researcher on the relationship between the Vatican and Palestinians. “Because everything is destroyed.”
Jahshan cut off the interview so he could accompany his children and nephew to pray at a Greek Orthodox church nearby. But before doing so, Jahshan made it clear he is long past listening to statements from distant churches, including statements from the Vatican or the World Council of Churches.
“Maybe for a man like me, the first month I listen about this… People here are researching about food, about electricity, because all the life is destroyed. Do you understand the situation here?
“They don’t care about any things like this.”
‘Forum model’
Since 1996, the Canadian Council of Churches has operated on a “forum model” that requires each and every one of its members to sign-off on any statements issued in the council’s name. The council’s current 26 member organizations include churches from the Protestant, Orthodox, Eastern and Roman Catholic traditions.
While the process is sometimes awkward and slow, when a statement is finally issued it has the full-throated, unequivocal backing of the broadest possible range of Christian leaders, Noteboom says.
While the council struggles, other coalitions have put pen to paper.
In July 2025, a group of faith leaders submitted a joint letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That letter was endorsed by the Canadian Council of Imams, as well as leaders of various members of the Canadian Council of Churches.
These include the general secretary of the United Church of Canada, the primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, the national bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, and executive director of the Mennonite Central Committee of Canada.
“We write to you with deep urgency and a shared moral obligation to speak out against the catastrophic humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza,” the leaders wrote July 9, 2025, months before a third ceasefire was declared Oct. 10.
“Across our sacred texts and traditions, we are taught that every human life is sacred, and that protecting the innocent, especially women and children, is a sacred trust.”
In their letter, the coalition of clerics said, “This moment demands moral leadership that affirms our common humanity and refuses to stay silent in the face of mass suffering.”
In August 2025, Canada’s Catholic bishops urged their faithful to pray and fast for peace in the Holy Land, while also raising the issue of rising anti-semitism.
“The power of prayer should never be underestimated,” said the Permanent Council of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops. The conference is also a member of the Canadian Council of Churches.
More strident
The Group of 78, a foreign policy nonprofit, has been more strident in calling out Israel. In a Sept. 14, 2026 letter to Carney, the group named the Israeli government and Israeli settlers as aggressors in the current context of the war.
The group, whose board includes a roster of former ambassadors and foreign policy experts, called Canada’s joint effort with 11 European countries to ban products from illegal settlements in the West Bank inadequate.
“We submit that banning trade in settlement goods is unlikely by itself to make the two-state solution viable,” the letter said.
“Working with its allies and through international bodies, including the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, Canada must say more and do more to halt the rampant killing and bring the Israeli leadership to justice.”
Edward Jackson, chair of the Group of 78, thinks some kind of statement from the Canadian Council of Churches would matter.
“These statements really are important and there are lots of people who care very deeply,” said Jackson, who noted his own group would distribute and amplify a statement by the council in their own circles.
“I don’t underestimate the difficulty or the politics across and within churches, but it’s really important that the churches do as much as they can on this.”
Striking a balance
The Canadian Council of Churches has not given up, says Janet Anstead, the council’s new general secretary.
“The Council remains committed to consensus-building and forum,” Anstead told Canadian Affairs in an email. Anstead succeeded Noteboom’s as general secretary on Sept. 1.
“Among all the topics we have discussed around tables of the Council, since the mid-1990s, public statements about the Middle East have been most difficult to achieve consensus on,” she added.
Getting the balance right is a “process that will have to be filled with grace, compassion and love,” she wrote.
“The concern we have at the Council is not so much the health of the ‘forum model’ as the current health of Canadian Christian-Jewish relations. We must attend to these relations at this time,” said Anstead.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a leading Canadian Jewish advocacy group, did not respond to Canadian Affairs’ request for comment.
