If we believe that we all are children of God, why is it so hard for people to accept one another?

Why must we fight, kill and condemn those who live or believe differently from us?

For the past century, those questions have fueled a worldwide event — Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. For one week between the Feast of St. Peter’s Chair and the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, Christians around the world devote a week of prayers and meditation to the desire of unity among all denominations.

The 101st Week of Prayer for Christian Unity starts Sunday and will run through Jan. 25.

An ecumenical celebration commemorating the week will be held 7 p.m. Jan. 25 at First Christian Church, 16th and K streets. The featured speaker is the Rev. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches for Christ in the USA, and a minister who has long preached about the need for unity among mankind, regardless of disagreements people may have.

“Unity is not synonymous with agreement,” Kinnamon said in a speech this past fall. “We understand that we have deep disagreements and try to address them. This is a consequence of being in Christ. … We can fight like cats and dogs, and still sit at the same table.”

Booking Kinnamon for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity was quite a coup, said Marilyn Mecham, executive of Interchurch Ministries of Nebraska, which sponsors the week here.

“He is a powerful advocate for unity of the church,” Mecham said.

Kinnamon is a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergyman, author, educator and ecumenical leader. He was elected this past fall to serve as the ninth general secretary of the National Council of Churches for Christ of the USA.

The idea of calling Christians of all faiths together to pray for an entire week for unity among all people started in 1908 with Father Paul James Wattson and Sister Lurana White, co-founders of the Franciscan Friars and Franciscan Sisters of Atonement. Their hope was to bring non-Catholic Christians to the Roman Catholic Church.

Over time, the focus shifted to bringing all Christians together to pray for the fulfillment of Christ’s prayer: “That all may be one.”

This year’s theme is Ezekiel 37:17: “That they may become one in your hand.”

The Rev. Michael Livingston, who prepared a homily for the 2009  Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, noted at this time in history unity is more needed — and more visible — than at any other time before.

Livingston, executive director of the International Council of Community Churches, points to all the violence in the world from Darfur to the Middle East, and yet notes this week of prayer falls on the time when we honor Martin Luther King Jr. and will swear in the first African-American president, Barack Obama.

“And along comes the week of Prayer for Christian Unity, for its 101st year of faith in the promise of God that we are one people, one human family over the entire world — all of us created in the very image of God,” Livingston writes in his homily. 

“The challenges to peaceful coexistence, to the unity of all God’s children are profound and acute. We must dialogue with other Christians and people of other faiths, we must speak our truth in love and listen with compassion seeking understanding,” he said in the homily.

“And if we listen carefully to our neighbors of other faiths, we can learn something more of the inclusiveness of God’s love for all people, and of his kingdom.”

 Reach Erin Andersen at 473-7217 or eandersen@journalstar.com.