Palestinian believers light candles in the Church of
Nativity, Palestinian town of Bethlehem
When we talk about Christians in
Palestine-Israel it is important to pay attention to
our language of who is "in" and who is "out."
September 22, 2007
For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both
groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall,
that is, the hostility between us.—Ephesians 2:14
"On a pleasant Sunday afternoon in July 2000, members
and pastors belonging to local Palestinian Evangelical
congregations from the Palestinian territories
gathered at the Bethlehem Hotel to celebrate the
formation of their council. An American woman who was
present at the meeting approached one of the pastors
and asked him if she could say a few words to the
assembly…When the lady took the microphone, I couldn't
believe the words that came out of her mouth. She
professed to the Palestinian Evangelical Christians
assembled there that she had a word from the Lord for
them. 'God,' she said, 'wanted them all to leave
Israel and go to other Arab countries.' She added that
they must leave to make room for God's chosen people,
the Jews. She warned the pastors and the audience that
if they did not listen to the instructions which God
had given her, God would pour his wrath on them. When
her agenda was recognized, one of the pastors came and
whisked her away from the pulpit, but not before she
served the whole assembly a mouthful of what is known
today as Christian Zionism."
This story, related by Alex Awad, the Palestinian
pastor of the East Jerusalem Baptist Church,
poignantly reveals the extent to which some Christian
voices invalidate the concrete historical realities of
their Christian brothers and sisters living under
occupation. Such Christian Zionist voices not only
ignore the realities of dispossession that have marked
the experiences of both Christian and Muslim
Palestinians, past and present, but also go so far as
to justify violence, dispossession, and discrimination
perpetrated against Palestinians.
Stories like these reveal our need to be constantly
vigilant about how we read Scripture and how we do
theology. We need to ask basic questions about our
identities, the agendas that we bring to the text, and
about who benefits from our reading and
interpretation, so as to avoid doing violence to
others.
When we talk about Christians in Palestine-Israel it
is important to pay attention to our language of who
is "in" and who is "out." As the story above
indicates, some people may not see our Palestinian
brothers and sisters as being "in." From one
perspective, Palestinians, be they Christians or
Muslims, are usurpers who should leave the land. A
reading of Scripture that erases Palestinians from the
land is tantamount to a biblically-justified ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinian people.
Reflecting biblically on these lines we draw, if we
take a look at the ministry of Jesus and the witness
of the early church we see that all people are invited
to become part of God's household. In the book of
Ephesians, Gentiles are welcomed into "one new
humanity" (2:15), because Christ has made peace
between Jew and Gentile.
For Christians living in the United States, it is
sometimes difficult to think about the church as the
new multi-ethnic, multi-racial people of God. Many
Christians have a hard time seeing and relating to
Christianity in the Arab world as living, vibrant
communities of faith with rich spiritual and
theological traditions. This may be partly due to our
lack of understanding about the shape of Christianity
in other parts of the world, and may also be partly
due to our often racist and ethnocentric notions of
what a Christian should look like.
Christianity in Palestine-Israel today is experiencing
what many describe as a crisis. This crisis is not due
to the growth of so-called Islamic fundamentalism or
the persecution of "believers" by their Muslim
neighbors, misrepresentations that are unfortunately
used to distract from the realities of military
occupation. Instead, the plight of the Palestinian
Christian is very much connected to that of the
Palestinian Muslim in that both, whether in the
Occupied Territories or inside Israel itself, are
experiencing daily injustices in the form of
oppressive policies imposed on them by the Israeli
government.
Palestinian Christians, like their Muslim brothers and
sisters, have experienced a long history of
dispossession and have not been immune to Israeli
policies of occupation and discrimination. If
anything, they have felt more strongly the feelings of
forsakenness, knowing full well that many Christians
in North America and Europe support without question
the state of Israel in its oppression of their people.
Meanwhile, daily experiences of humiliation at
checkpoints, of land confiscation to make way for the
separation barrier, the illegal occupation and
colonization of Palestinian territory, lack of
mobility and access to basic services, unemployment,
poverty, and no sense of hope for a better future for
their children all contribute to a growing emigration
of Palestinian Christians from the historical land of
Palestine.
Struggling with the tensions of feeling forsaken while
seeking a critical hope is a great challenge. Despair
in the Holy Land is very real, and learning how to
talk about God in the midst of such pain requires
recognizing that the starting point of any relevant
theological reflection must begin with the question
"My God, why have you forsaken us?" For Western
Christians concerned with justice, peace and
reconciliation in Palestine-Israel, discovering our
role as one of listening to the cries of despair
seriously while being a witness to critical hope
begins with seeing our inextricable connectedness—it
begins with us not forsaking each other.
As Christians who come from a privileged part of the
world, our convictions should compel us to listen to
the voices of our Palestinian brothers and sisters,
voices too often silenced. As we learn from Jesus'
experience of "God-forsakenness" we should also learn
from Palestinians who share their lives with us—their
despair and their hopes—what it means to participate
in God's reign of peace and justice.
-A regular contributor to PalestineChronicle.com,
Timothy Seidel is Peace and Justice Ministries
Director for Mennonite Central Committee U.S. He and
his wife Christi served as peace development workers
with MCC in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from
2004 to 2007. This article is taken from his chapter
"Palestinian Christians: The Forgotten Faithful" found
in Under Vine and Fig Tree: Biblical Theologies of
Land and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Cascadia
Publishing House, 2007).
