The
Forgotten Faithful
By Timothy Seidel
29 September, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
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."
[1]
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 West Bank and Gaza 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.
Timothy Seidel
is Peace and Justice Ministries Director for Mennonite Central Committee
US. 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).
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