God’s Love Knows No Borders

media release: Mennonites, Christians and friends will gather on Saturday, April 12, 2025 from 10 am – 11 am for a public service of song and prayer on the King Street corner of the Dane County Farmers Market, proclaiming the message “God’s Love Knows No Borders.” They will call on officeholders to extend the circle of compassion to include Palestinians as they gather around a display of over two hundred pairs of shoes, many women’s and children’s, representing those killed in Gaza.

“Jesus said, ‘Whatever you did to the least of these, so you did to me’ (Matthew 25:40)” said organizers of Mennonite Action Madison. “We are calling for an end to the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the West Bank, an end to US offensive weapons shipments to Israel, and restoration of humanitarian aid in Gaza”

This action is co-sponsored by Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ, Madison Friends Meeting, Madison for a World BEYOND War, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Palestine Partners, Interfaith Peace Working Group, and Jewish Voice for Peace

Mennonites in Madison, WI are part of a new movement known as Mennonite Action, which has focused attention this past year on the situation in Gaza. Thousands of Mennonites and friends have been holding public actions across the United States and Canada, calling for a permanent ceasefire, an arms embargo against Israel, and a political solution that includes an end to the occupation of Palestine. The action on April 12 will continue to press these demands.

Dozens of “God’s Love Knows No Borders” actions are being organized by thousands of Mennonites across the United States and Canada. The intention of the actions is to promote a vision of life, liberation, peace, justice, and compassion that extends to all of God’s children — and to push against a climate of fear and division, and specifically to oppose and offer an alternative to rising Christian nationalism.

“We are distraught by the hijacking of Christianity to justify hate and division,” said organizers of Mennonite Action. “Christian nationalism is not Christlike. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the teachings and the example of Jesus Christ, who called us to love our neighbor and to care for the vulnerable.”

Mennonite Action is a movement of Mennonites, Christians, and friends following in the example of Jesus Christ, who called us to live as active peacemakers, standing firmly on the side of the downtrodden and the oppressed. Mennonite Action takes public action against the occupation of Palestine and for a world where all God’s children are free. Mennonites are members of a historic peace church with roots in the Anabaptist Reformation.

Five hundred years ago, our Anabaptist forebears took collective public action in opposition to oppressive state and church institutions for political freedom, religious freedom, and a world modeled after the revolutionary example of Jesus Christ. We take action in continuation of that legacy.