Description
A double album of songs, prayers and stories about the Land once known as ‘holy’ – for those on pilgrimage
Overseas orders welcome – if you experience any difficulty with your overseas order please go to GingerDog Records here
Click here for download version
Garth says, ‘St Jerome in the third century described the Holy Land as ‘the fifth gospel’, and when I use the phrase ‘fifth gospel’ I am thinking, not just of the land, but especially the people of the land.’
Songs suitable for pilgrimage, born out of the stories of this land, but also out of the stories of the people of this land. The album is a prayer that Palestinians and Israelis will be treated as equal human beings, so the occupation of Palestinians will stop, justice will come, and then there will be peace and security for all.
If you are ordering internationally, particularly from the US, and have any problem with your order going through, you can order instead from Garth’s record company GingerDog Records, here
A Prayer for the land once known as holy
God of justice and compassion
Hear the cries of your wounded people
Hear the cries of those imprisoned
in a land once called ‘holy’
May we be part of the community
that raises our voices
and challenges our governments
to speak up for those who get ignored.
We pray for justice to come
because peace cannot come
without justice
And yet when there is justice we know
that both Palestinians and Israelis
will find freedom and hope
In the sadness of a deeply wounded Middle East
we pray that the plight of the victims of injustice
will not be forgotten any longer
by the governments of the world
nor by the church leaders of the world
May we hear the call of this kairos moment
to walk with the values of Jesus
and to campaign and pray
that peace with justice
will become a reality –
so both Palestinians and Israelis will find peace,
so both may move forward to a new day where all are respected,
and where both communities find hope.
And when we travel there as pilgrims
may we be renewed by our encounter with the ‘Fifth Gospel’
that opens our eyes to the values of your kingdom
and the way of healing and hope.
Garth Hewitt
Comment by Rev’d Mitri Raheb, Paster of the Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, Palestine:
“Thanks for highlighting Palestine, Bethlehem, Gaza, the hopes and fears of all the years in these albums.”
Mitri Raheb has authored many books on the Holy Land including Faith in the Face of Empire and I am a Palestinian Christian
Review by Tony Jasper in Crisis magazine:
For many people Garth Hewitt is a nuisance.
In a long career that has seen countless albums, appearances at festivals, and welcome tours, his overriding basic biblical thought is rooted in the Sermon on the Mount. This is where he finds, so powerful and life changing, the “God of the just heart.”
In the world of Jesus Music Garth stands virtually alone as the outspoken troubadour of justice for the oppressed, and so top of the list in recent times he keeps shouting the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Hewitt is not some “woolly” liberal – a man ‘from afar’ – he visits regularly the holy land.
His new double CD album Songs from the Fifth Gospel (Ginger Dog Records) in title springs from the comment of the third century apologist Saint Jerome, someone who described the Holy Land as “the fifth gospel” and Hewitt says on the sleeve of his CD that when he uses the phrase “fifth gospel” –“I am thinking, not just of the land, but especially people of the land.”
Those Christians who exercise a benign indifference to the Palestinian suffering will not find Garth a soothing assurance that all is well. In his folk story telling style he comes up with tracks such as Beautiful Resistance, Hymns of Liberation and The Broken Heart of Gaza. He talks of land taken, homes razed, thousands in refugee camps, the ever present watching army units, and he wonders about the people so precious to him. He asks in song lyric “will they forever be without a home?” One of the most moving tracks is On An April Day where among other aspects, he almost sings in anguish of children emotionally scarred by violence and death.
Of course there are those who say he has got it all wrong, that perhaps he should realise social and political realities are muddy kingdoms, and please do not bring up the Sermon on the Mount.
Click here to see the original of this review in Crisis magazine
CD One
1. Ten Measures of Beauty (Pray for the Peace)
2. Deep Silence
3. God’s Revolution of Love
4. O Palestine
5. The Broken Heart of Gaza
6. I Didn’t Speak Up (with Ben Okafor)
7. Bethlehem Is Calling
8. Words of Peace
9. There Is an Ancient Peace
10. Beautiful Resistance
11. Where is the Land of Palestine
12. Cast Your Net Again
13. Hymns of Liberation
14. Twilight
15. On an April Day
16. Far and Wide
17. On the Other Side
CD Two
1. Moonlight on Galilee
2. Humans Too
3. Three Trees (and an Open House)
4. Blood Brothers
5. They’ve Cancelled Christmas in Bethlehem (The Wall Must Fall)
6. The Followers
7. Death of Trees with Traditional Palestinian Lament (with Reem Kelani)
8. No Injustice Will Last Forever
9. The Writing on the Wall
10. The Devil’s Moment (with Abi Hewitt)
11. Hidden from View
12. In the Name of God
13. Light a Candle in the Darkness (Rachel Corrie Version)
14. Song for Miriam
15. Chain of Love
16. Jesus of the Scars
