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WORLD VISION'S NEW NATIONAL DIRECTOR IN PALESTINE
Like so many Christian evangelicals, Dan Simmons, an ordained minister with the Evangelical Covenant Church, was raised in that Pentacostal tradition which holds the theological view of Zionism to be a given truth of biblical prophecy and supports the state of Israel without question. That was 35 years ago. Now, after more than two decades of activism on behalf of Palestinian human rights, the 65-year-old Simmons will embark on a new job as Jerusalem World Vision's national director for Palestine and Israel, replacing Tom Getman, who now serves with World Vision in Geneva.
Simmons attributes his transformation from an uninformed supporter of Israel to human rights advocate for Palestinians to a conversion of mind and heart which began in 1978. It was then that he was recruited by Wes Grandberg Michaelson, then U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield's (R-OR) chief administrative assistant and later editor of Sojourners magazine, to be a signatory to the La Grange Declaration. That document, Simmons...