Shalom-Salaam
Shalom-Salaam
Last November, at the CCDA conference in Grand Rapids, a room full of people sang one word back and forth in two languages. Shalom. Salaam. The theme that year was Zechariah 8:12, “there shall be a sowing of peace.” We wrote the song just before the conference and sang it live. It connected in a way none of us planned. A year later we took the multi-tracks from that room, tweaked them a little, and put it out to 2,000 people at this year’s conference in Richmond.
CCDA described shalom-salaam as more than peace, more than unity: wholeness, well-being, justice, harmony, a state where nothing is missing and nothing is broken. Most of us hear “peace” and think of quiet, the kind that shows up after somebody finally stops complaining. The word is bigger than that. It’s a house where everybody is accounted for. All found. All home. All free. All loved. Hebrew and Arabic are linguistic cousins, and shalom and salaam share a root. Two peoples fighting over the same ground are begging for the same thing in nearly the same breath.
When Israel’s response to Hamas’ attack began, we wrote a song called “Ceasefire,” and Ayanna Gregory recorded and released it. Together, “Ceasefire” and “Shalom-Salaam” form a song cycle: one is the cry, the other is where the cry is headed.
This past week marked three years since October 7, when Hamas’ attack killed more than a thousand people in Israel and took hostages. There is no denying the pain Israelis carry from that day. There is no denying what has been done in answer to it, either.
Common People has roots in late apartheid South Africa, and our study of that history makes certain things hard to unsee. Permits and checkpoints. Separate roads and separate rules for people living a few miles apart. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israel’s own B’Tselem have all called it apartheid. In 2024 the International Court of Justice found that Israel’s policies in the occupied territories breach the ban on racial segregation and apartheid. Racism is one of the most egregious injustices in this world. It doesn’t get smaller when it changes address, or flag, or scripture.
Then came Gaza. Nearly the entire population forced from their homes, many of them more than once. Aid choked off until UN-backed food experts declared famine in Gaza City. In September 2025, a UN Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch have accused Israel of genocidal acts. Israel rejects the finding. We call it what the commission called it. A terror attack became the justification for all of it, and calling that “complicated” is how comfortable people stay comfortable. Somewhere tonight a mother is still counting the empty places at a table, and no ruling will fill them.
Many American Christians have contributed their theology, and their tax dollars, to this war. So somebody has to ask the question out loud: does Scripture condone a military response like this? What does God think about how we treat the people we hate? Jesus had plenty to say about enemies. None of it was a targeting strategy.
Peace that never asks who is missing or what is broken isn’t shalom-salaam. It’s silence with good manners. We’re justice people, and that’s not a hat we put on for conferences. It means we don’t get to love peace in the abstract and go quiet when it costs us something. Believe me, we know the temptation of silence without peace.
No one in that room thought a song could stop a war.
Every tear wiped away is a promise still yet to be fulfilled.
We sing it anyway.