The HyperTexts
Should Christians favor Jews and Israel over Muslims and the other Children of Abraham?
with an introduction by Michael R. Burch, an editor of Holocaust and Nakba poetry
Is God a bigot?
It is obviously bigotry to favor children of
one race or ethnicity over other children. And yet
according to many Christian churches, it would seem that God
vastly prefers Jewish babies to Palestinian babies. We see this strange idea
expressed particularly in evangelical
Christian circles, where the thinking (or lack of it)
is that Christians must always support Israel, even when Israel has Jim
Crow laws and kangaroo courts that deny even completely innocent Palestinian
children and their mothers any possible hope of freedom or justice. This is not
the first time that Christians have acted as if God is a bigot, because we all know (or
should know) that Bible verses were once used to excuse the inexcusable things
done by white Christians to Native American and African American children and
their parents.
If Christians were wrong about God being a racist in regard to Native American
and African American children in the past, is it possible that they are wrong
about God being a racist in regard to Palestinian children today?
While Native American mothers and their children walked the Trail
of Tears, Christian pastors preached sermons about the "manifest destiny" of
white Christians. Shortly before the Civil War, Jefferson Davis quoted Bible verses to Congress,
"proving" that slavery was the "will of God." Mark Twain pointed out that
when he was a boy the
Bible was used in churches and schools throughout the South to convince white
children that slavery was not evil, but "good." Today very few Christians would
agree that the Bible should be used to justify racial injustices against
Native American or African American children. But when the lives, liberty and
happiness of Palestinian children are at stake, once again the Bible is being used to excuse the inexcusable.
Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not,
for of such is the kingdom of heaven." He also that it would be better for a man
to have a millstone wrapped around his neck and be drowned in the deepest sea,
than to harm or mislead a little one. So one must wonder what Jesus would say
about people who profess to love him, then turn around and give millions of
innocent children the impression that he's a bigot who always favors Jewish
adults to Palestinian
children and their oppressed mothers and fathers. Many of those Jewish adults
are currently acting like robber barons, stealing land from Palestinian farm
families. Why are so many Christian churches excusing acts of overt racism, just
as in the past they once excused acts of overt racism against other beleaguered
children and their parents?
I think something is clearly wrong with this picture, so I'd like to suggest
that Christians ask themselves what Jesus meant when he said, "Whatsoever ye do
unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me." Would Jesus join
Christians in treating Palestinian children and their mothers like animals,
herding them into giant walled corrals, or would he
consider them his brethren and treat them with love, compassion and respect?
David P. Gushee and Glen H. Stassen are evangelical Christians who have raised
an important question. It might be phrased like this: Would Jesus himself
dehumanize and persecute millions of completely innocent Palestinian
children, using the idea that they were "born wrong" as an excuse to steal their
parents' ever-dwindling land via acts of racism: apartheid, ethnic cleansing and what appears to be slow genocide? Here is an excerpt
from a letter Gushee and Stassen wrote to other evangelical Christians:
"We are not Old Testament prophets, nor do we pretend to see the future. But
we have seen enough to claim that the occupation practices of the modern state
of Israel are a direct violation of the most basic biblical moral principles. It
is immoral to steal anything, including people’s land, homes, and vineyards. It
is immoral to dehumanize people, as occurs daily at Israeli checkpoints. It is
immoral to choke people’s freedom and deprive them of their dignity. And it is
foolish, a violation of every lesson of history, to think that through sheer
intimidation and superior military power a people can be subjugated indefinitely
without rising up in resistance or attracting more powerful allies who will do
so on their behalf. God gave humanity a recognition of justice and a nearly
endless capacity to resist injustice. It is wired into our nature, and the
Palestinian people and the neighboring countries have it just like everyone else
does."—David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics,
Mercer University, and Glen H. Stassen, Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological
Seminary
The full letter that follows makes the important point that, according to the Bible, God did not
promise the land of Israel and surrounding regions solely to the Jews, but to
all the children of Abraham. Ishmael was a son of Abraham, just as Isaac was,
and modern-day Palestinians and other Arabs claim to be the blood (and spiritual)
descendants of Abraham, through Ishmael.
Genesis 15:18 says, "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying,
‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great
river, Euphrates.’" The land between the Nile and Euphrates includes Lebanon, Syria, Jordan,
Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. It also includes parts of Iraq,
Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. But the Jewish people have never possessed anything more than a small sliver of that
land. By the time of Jesus, only the small southern province of Judea remained Jewish.
(The terms Jew and Judea derive from the tribe
of Judah, which was just one of twelve ancient Hebrew tribes, Judah being one of the twelve
sons of the patriarch Israel.) Ten of the twelve tribes of Israel
were famously lost, and no longer exist today. The tribes remaining at the time
of Jesus were Judah
and Benjamin. (Jesus was of the tribe of Judah and the great evangelist Saint Paul was
of the tribe of Benjamin). Benjamin, being a small tribe, was more or less
assimilated into Judah. The Bible did not grant all the land
mentioned above to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, nor did the Bible even grant
them all the land of Palestine. Rather, the land allotted to Judah and Benjamin was just a "southern slice" of
Israel/Palestine, as this map illustrates:
When Jews began returning to Palestine in the early 1900s, some of them
(the more fanatical Zionists) claimed to "own" all the territory of Israel/Palestine. Some of
them, even to this day, claim that all the land promised to Abraham
"belongs" to the Jews, even land lying outside the borders of
Israel/Palestine. But millions of
people who also claim to be the children of Abraham live on that land. Are they not entitled to inhabit the land they and their ancestors have occupied
for thousands of years?
How would Americans react if foreigners showed up on their doorsteps, demanding
that their land be vacated without compensation because God loved someone
else’s ancestors more than he loved theirs? Wouldn’t Americans who believe in
God shake their heads in disbelief, saying that God cannot be so unjust, and
that we cannot use ancient religious texts to decide who owns land and property in the modern
world? Who can possibly credit the idea that one person's land and property can
be stolen because God preferred someone else's ancestors
thousands of years ago? But if everyone in
the region is a child of Abraham, there is no need for bigotry and wild
injustices to be practiced in the name of God and religion.
And yet many American Christian Zionists are willing to suspend
disbelief and ignore the golden rule, when the land, property and rights of
Arabs are at stake. Isn't that yet another example of religion-inspired bigotry?
How can anyone believe that God is a racist who wants the Bible to be used by
Jews and Christians to justify the theft of land and property from people of
other races and faiths? So an important question for Christians becomes: "Do the
covenant and the golden rule apply only to a tiny fraction of the children of
Abraham (the Jews), or to all his children?"
In Genesis 15:4-5, God told Abram that his descendants would be as numerous as
the stars, but the Jews have always been vastly outnumbered by their neighbors. In Genesis 17:4, God said: "This is my covenant with you: You shall
be the ancestor of a multitude of nations." The Bible is clearly not talking
about a single small tribe, but of many diverse nations and peoples.
And we have good cause to believe that Abraham really did become the father of many
nations. With Sarah he became the father of Isaac and the ancestor of many
tribes (not just the Jews), through Jacob/Israel and Esau. With Hagar he became the
father of Ishmael and all in his line. And with the often-overlooked Keturah
(Gen. 25:1) he became the father of other tribes and nations. Throughout the
Middle East, many diverse people claim to be the children of Abraham. If they're
right, it seems that God kept his promise. If they're wrong, we are left with no
explanation for the fact that the children of Abraham have never occupied
anything but a narrow slice of the land between the Nile and Euphrates, and are
outnumbered by many larger tribes.
But if the Bible was talking about all the children of Abraham, how did so many
Christians end up acting as if only Jews matter, and as if everyone else should
turn their land over to them without compensation, meaning that they and their
children would be left homeless, destitute, and unable to feed themselves? Like
many "things political," this is largely a matter of "spin."
When the Jews began returning to Israel/Palestine, they faced a number of
formidable obstacles. First, they were small in number, compared to the
people who already lived in the region. Second, the Jews had been the
victims of terrible anti-Semitism in Europe and Russia, and understandably wanted as much
security as possible in their new homeland. In the minds of the more radical
Zionists, the best way for Jews to be secure was to take over and either subdue
or evict the non-Jewish population. Third, most of the Jewish immigrants were poor,
and they didn’t have nearly enough money to buy all the land they wanted to possess.
It would be much less expensive to buy weapons, create an army, and take the
land by force. Unfortunately, some of the more warlike Zionists hatched such a plan
and put it into action. Basically, the Zionists decided to do to the Palestinians what the Nazis had done to
the Jews in the early stages of the Holocaust:
(1) Blame their victims for every problem known to man.
(2) After dehumanizing and demonizing them, take their land and property by force and theft.
(3) Once they were homeless and destitute, banish them to
refugee/concentration camps (like those in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria) and walled
ghettos (like Gaza).
(4) Create a huge propaganda machine designed to portray the abusers as
heroes of truth, democracy and justice, and their victims as dirty, dangerous vermin.
(5) Maintain an apartheidist infrastructure designed to keep the "inferior"
race from coming into contact with the "superior" race. And yet Palestinians are
Semites, being children of Abraham, just as the Jews are. So quite ironically,
Israel has become the most anti-Semitic nation on earth.
(6) At birth, treat each "superior" baby like God's gift to the earth, and every
"inferior" baby like a pariah.
Unfortunately, millions of gullible Christians have become accomplices in
Israel’s crimes against humanity and peace. What would Jesus do? Would he
welcome Jewish babies with open arms, but reject Palestinian babies like a
bigot? Would he applaud apartheid, ethnic cleansing and slow genocide, or would he oppose such
things? Would he demand that the children of Gaza be herded into a giant walled
corral, to have the doors slammed shut in their faces, or would he say that the
children of Gaza are also the children of Abraham, and of God?
Now here, without further ado, is an important letter that all Christians
should read and consider, asking themselves, "What would Jesus do?" ...
"An Open Letter to America’s Christian Zionists"
by David P. Gushee and Glen H. Stassen
September 19, 2011
Dear Christian Brothers and Sisters,
Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We write to you about an
urgent matter of common concern.
In a week or so, unless their plans change dramatically, Palestinian leaders
will make a unilateral declaration of a State of Palestine based on the pre-1967
borders and will turn to the United Nations for a vote to recognize their new
state.
The present Netanyahu government of Israel is, of course, totally opposed to
this course of action on the part of the Palestinians. The United States
government (predictably) shares this opposition. Both nations tell the
Palestinians that the proper path to a state is through negotiations leading to
an agreement that can settle all outstanding territorial and political issues.
Palestinian leaders respond that they continue to support negotiations but that
they can no longer pin all of their hopes on them.
This is because progress on that elusive peace agreement has been nonexistent
for years. Of course, both sides blame each other for that lack of progress. But
meanwhile, on a visit to the Occupied Territories this summer along with 50
students from Fuller Seminary who were studying just peacemaking (see
http://justpeacemaking.blogspot.com/p/just-peacemaking.html), we
were shown repeatedly how Israeli settlements (actually, planned cities and
towns on occupied Palestinian land) are eating away at the territory that would
belong to any viable Palestinian state. The Palestinians are convinced that the
Netanyahu government in Israel is pursuing a strategy of delaying negotiations
while creating facts on the ground that will make a Palestinian state
impossible. A visitor to the increasingly encircled and truncated Palestinian
territories can see these facts on the ground with his own eyes if he is willing
to look. The Palestinian leadership believes that they had better declare
statehood now before the territory for such a state completely disappears. It
could be a high stakes showdown at the UN, with uncertain consequences in the
aftermath.
Officially, Israel long ago entered into negotiations with Palestinian
leaders toward a two-state solution. Unofficially, it appears that the current
government in Israel is renouncing this path. Ideological rather than pragmatic
factors are clearly contributing to this unofficial but visible renunciation.
The most important ideological factor is the belief that Israel deserves the
entirety of the land and that Palestinians have no legitimate claim on any part
of it.
As you know, this belief is one form of what goes by the name "Zionism." When
it is religiously motivated, it is an especially powerful belief, because
Israel’s "title" to every square inch of the land is believed to be granted by
God in the Bible. We were told in Israel that the number of religious Jewish
Zionists in Israel is today growing appreciably, and that many are to be found
in the settlements on Palestinian land (which they do not accept is Palestinian
land). It is hard to see how they will ever voluntarily leave their homes, even
if Israel signs a peace agreement. In short: Israel has created the conditions
for a civil war if they try to dismantle settlements, and for a Palestinian
revolt or a wider Middle East war if they never end their occupation.
This letter, though, is not about religious Jewish Zionism and its
destructive effects on Israeli policy. It is about the Christian version of the
same belief. This Christian version of Zionism matters deeply, not just because
theology intrinsically matters, but because it is overwhelmingly clear that
American evangelical-fundamentalist Christian Zionism affects US policy toward
Israel and the Palestinians in distressing ways. It is one reason why the United
States stands almost alone in the world community in supporting Israeli policies
which our international friends generally find intolerable if not immoral and
illegal.
Not to put too fine a point on it, we wish to claim here that the prevailing
version of American Christian Zionism—that is, your belief system—underwrites
theft of Palestinian land and oppression of Palestinian people, helps create the
conditions for an explosion of violence, and pushes US policy in a destructive
direction that violates our nation’s commitment to universal human rights. In
all of these, American Christian Zionism as it currently stands is sinful and
produces sin. We write as evangelical Christians committed lifelong to Israel's
security, and we are seriously worried about your support for policies that
violate biblical warnings about injustice and may lead to the outcome you most
fear—serious harm to or even destruction of Israel.
We write as evangelicals to you, our fellow evangelicals. On the shared basis
of biblical authority, we ask you to reconsider your interpretation of
Scripture, for the sake of God, humanity, the United States, and, yes, Israel
itself, the Land and People we both love.
I. A Question of (Whose) Holy Land
We acknowledge that your evangelical-fundamentalist American Christian
Zionism (henceforth simply "Christian Zionism") is a product of a Christian
community that loves and reads the Bible. This is on its face a good thing—for
there appear to be fewer and fewer American Christians whose love of the Bible
and whose devotion to reading it can be taken for granted. We commend your love
for the scriptures.
Both now and in the past, whenever Christian Zionism emerges its essential
origin is simply Christian reading of the Hebrew Bible, or what Christians call
the Old Testament. Our love of the Bible takes Christians into the pages of the
Old Testament; there we cannot help but discover the centrality of a Promised
Land for the Jewish people. The trajectory of the canonical Old Testament moves
inexorably toward and away from the Promised Land—the patriarchal narratives in
which a people and land are promised despite humble origins; enslavement in
Egypt; the miraculous Exodus and grim wilderness wanderings under Moses; the
conquest of the Promised Land; the establishment, split, and eventual conquest
of Israel as a political entity; the Babylonian exile and dispersion of the
Jewish people; and a partial return to the land, at which point the OT
historical narrative ends.
Our Christian love for and identification with "the Holy Land" can and often
does deepen through reading of the New Testament as well. The four Gospels, in
particular, detail the journeys of Jesus through (Roman-subjugated) Israel, and
many millions of Christians have cut their spiritual teeth on those stories. We
have come to know and love Nazareth and Bethlehem, Capernaum and Cana and of
course Jerusalem, because those are the places that Jesus walked. Having just
visited Israel this summer, we can attest to the continuing power of these
places to connect spiritually with Christians in surprisingly profound ways.
Both of us found ourselves deeply affected, for example, by standing on the
shore of the Sea of Galilee where tradition holds that Jesus reinstated Peter
after his denials. The intense spiritual impact of "walking where Jesus walked"
continues to draw millions of Christians to Holy Land tours. Even in our jaded
age, there is still power in spiritual pilgrimage to Holy Land—the Holy Land.
As devoted Christians, we share this love of the sacred lands of the biblical
tradition with all who hold such love. We think that love of the Holy Land is
far better than indifference to it. And both of us, as students of the long and
terrible history of Christian anti-Semitism, which culminated in the horrors of
the Holocaust, far prefer a strong sense of Christian kinship with the Jewish
people and their historic homeland than the centuries-long Christian pattern of
theological disdain and even hatred that so long predominated. The question then
becomes not whether to love "Israel"—understood as the People and the Land—but
how best to do so. We think this is a question that you will understand and want
to answer properly, as we do.
We suggest to you that contemporary Christian Zionism is well-intentioned but
needs correction at some very important points. This requires some careful
biblical and theological work—from within the basic framework of evangelical
Christianity. This means that the relevant scriptural texts need to be studied
in detail, and that Christian theology needs to do its proper work with those
texts.
For example, we suggest that Christian Zionists who move from a generalized
love of Israel to a specific claim that the contemporary state of Israel has
divine title to the entire Holy Land, need to take more seriously the complexity
of what the Bible actually says about God’s promises to Abraham.
Genesis 15:18 reads: "On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram,
saying, ‘To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the
great river, the river Euphrates." The next verse goes on to name the various
peoples to whom the land belonged at the time.
The territory denoted by the space between these two rivers includes
modern-day Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, half of Iraq, half of Egypt, parts of Turkey
and Saudi Arabia, the modern state of Israel, as well as the occupied
Palestinian territories.
A literal reading of the text that assumes that the descendants of Abram are
only the Jewish people faces a problem here. Either God is not very good at
keeping his promises, or God’s plan is for contemporary Israel ultimately to
conquer all of these other countries and occupy their land. That would result in
an Israel ruled by its 90% majority Arabs, or an Israel attempting to subjugate
that 90% by force.
But the promise looks very different if we take seriously all of the
offspring of Abraham. Genesis 15:4-5 has God taking Abram outside and telling
him that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars of the heavens.
Genesis 17:4, probably the pivotal text, has God saying to Abraham: "This is my
covenant with you: You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations." Many
nations, a multitude of nations; many offspring, many kings—read Genesis 17
again and see the plural nouns here.
Close readers of Scripture will know that in fact Abraham did become the
father of many nations. With Sarah he became the father of Isaac and the
ancestor of all in his line, via Jacob and Esau. With Hagar he became the father
of Ishmael and all in his line. And with the long-forgotten Keturah (Gen. 25:1)
he became the father of Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. The
Old Testament clearly positions Abraham as the father/ancestor of not only the
Jewish people but of a vast number of other peoples, all scattered through the
territories promised in Genesis 15. Abraham becomes the father of dozens of
peoples, exactly as the Bible says! It is certainly true that the Old Testament
primarily tells the story of the line of Isaac and therefore of what became the
Jewish people, but that cannot cancel the significance of the promises to
Abraham and the many peoples credited to him in Genesis.
The New Testament makes an important move here as well. In Romans 4, Paul
says that by faith non-Jews become Abraham’s descendants too: "The purpose was
to make him the ancestor of all who believe" (Rom 4:11). Europeans and Asians,
Africans and Latin Americans, any who believe in Jesus enter the line of
Abraham. This is why it is correct to say that (at least) Jews, Christians, and
Muslims are all descendants of Abraham, all part of the Abrahamic family tree,
some by birth, some by lineage, some by faith.
Perhaps you will respond by saying that God promises the land of Canaan
specifically to the Jewish people. You might cite here Genesis 17:8: "I will
give to you, and to your offspring after you, the land where you are now an
alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding." This interpretation
would require restricting the "offspring" in question to Abraham’s offspring
through Sarah via Isaac and then on to Jacob and excluding Esau. But the promise
to possess the land includes the offspring of Isaac, and the offspring of Isaac
includes Esau, with his five Edomite sons and their offspring, as Genesis 36
states, and that includes multitudes of Canaanites, not only Jews. It would also
require the assumption that we know what Gen. 17 means territorially with the
term "Canaan" and that it corresponds with the Zionist’s version of the proper
boundaries of the modern state of Israel.
One other point from later in the Old Testament seems important to mention
here. Even when the narrative moves forward into the book of Joshua, and the
twelve tribes of Israel "conquer" the "Promised Land," it is striking that the
scriptures themselves acknowledge the ongoing presence of non-Hebrews in the
land. Texts like this recur: "But the people of Judah could not drive out the
Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; so the Jebusites live with the people
of Judah in Jerusalem to this day" (Josh 15:63; compare Josh 13:13, 16:10,
17:12-13, 19:47).
Christians, even those who know their Bibles well, tend to think of the book
of Joshua as containing the (bloody) fulfillment of the promise of the whole
Land to Israel—the entire land is conquered by war, and then divided up among
the tribes. A close reading shows that the Hebrew tribes shared the land for
centuries with other groups, and that even when tribes were assigned certain
portions of land, they didn’t necessarily control every square inch of it. The
point is obvious later when it comes to the challenge posed by the Philistines.
It is not an overstatement to say that the Israelite/Hebrew/Jewish people never
had exclusive possession of the Holy Land, regardless of whatever divine
promises they or we believe that they received.
II. Those Who Do Justice Keep Their Land
Let us now assume that God indeed promised the offspring of Abraham and Sarah
via Isaac and Jacob a portion of the land between the Nile and the Euphrates.
Let us even assume that this promise was intended by God to extend even to our
own day and beyond. And let us further assume that in the dark shadow of the
Holocaust it was an act of divine grace for a substantial portion of the
surviving remnant of the Jewish people to have a modern-day homeland in the
contemporary state of Israel. These are substantial assumptions that could be
challenged for many reasons, but we are prepared to accept them, along with you.
But we do so while keeping in front of us another strand of relevant biblical
teaching. The prophets, writing much later in Israel’s history, long after
Israel had established substantial political kingdoms, warned repeatedly that
God’s covenant with Israel has a dimension of conditionality to it. Whether
preaching in the northern kingdom of Israel prior to the Assyrian conquest, or
the southern kingdom of Judah prior to the Babylonian conquest and exile,
Israel’s prophets repeatedly warned that God’s covenant promise of the land was
conditional on her moral performance. In particular, the prophets warned that,
in keeping with the stipulations of the Law, Israel would be judged by her
treatment of the aliens in the land, of the poor, the widows, and the orphans.
The 7th/6th century BC prophet Jeremiah sounded such themes consistently. We
see it in Jeremiah 6:6-8: "This city must be punished; it is filled with
oppression…Violence and destruction resound in her…Take warning, O Jerusalem, or
I will turn away from you and make your land desolate so no one can live in it."
Jeremiah 7 is a hugely important passage, in which the prophet warns the
complacent worshippers at the seemingly impregnable Temple that it and they
would be ruined if they did not "amend your ways and your doings, and let me
dwell with you in this place" (Jer 7:3). Jeremiah warned: "Will you steal,
murder, commit adultery, swear falsely…then come and stand before me in this
house, which is called by my name, and say, "We are safe!"—only to go on doing
all these abominations?" (7:9-10). And the climax: "I will cast you out of my
sight, just as I cast out all your kinfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim"
(7:15).
Old Testament scholars have long recognized that a powerful, important, and
dynamic tension exists in the OT between themes of a conditional and
unconditional covenant between God and Israel. God has chosen Israel and made
binding promises to her; and yet God has warned Israel that her persistent
violation of her part of that covenant could trigger God’s judgment, including
in war and in exile. And anyone who reads the Old Testament knows that war and
exile came to Israel, that it was prophesied in advance as divine judgment, and
described in retrospect in the same way.
At a theological level, we are claiming that even if one accepts a) a divine
promise of land to the Jewish people as recorded in scripture, b) a belief that
this promise extends even to this day, and c) the modern state of Israel as, in
part, God’s gracious fulfillment of this promise, one must also say d) the
Bible, in the prophetic writings, also teaches that persistent injustice on the
part of Israel has evoked, and still can bring, God’s judgment, which can extend
even to war and exile. Israel’s remaining in the land depends on Israel’s now
doing justice to Palestinians and making peace with its Arab neighbors that
surround Israel. Indeed, Jesus, as prophet and Savior, also prophesied that
Jerusalem would be destroyed because they did not know the practices that make
for peace (Lk 19:41-44). And Jerusalem was destroyed, 40 years later. Do you not
fear that it could happen again? Does not your love of Israel make you want to
do all you can to prevent that from happening? And yet your actions actually
make it more likely to happen!
III. The Holy Land on the Precipice
Any visitor to this tortured Holy Land who avoids a sanitized Christian tour
and actually visits with Palestinians, actually stands in the shadow of the
Separation Wall, actually sees what military occupation looks and feels like,
cannot but tremble at these biblical words of warning.
We are not Old Testament prophets, nor do we pretend to see the future. But
we have seen enough to claim that the occupation practices of the modern state
of Israel are a direct violation of the most basic biblical moral principles. It
is immoral to steal anything, including people’s land, homes, and vineyards. It
is immoral to dehumanize people, as occurs daily at Israeli checkpoints. It is
immoral to choke people’s freedom and deprive them of their dignity. And it is
foolish, a violation of every lesson of history, to think that through sheer
intimidation and superior military power a people can be subjugated indefinitely
without rising up in resistance or attracting more powerful allies who will do
so on their behalf. God gave humanity a recognition of justice and a nearly
endless capacity to resist injustice. It is wired into our nature, and the
Palestinian people and the neighboring countries have it just like everyone else
does.
We genuinely fear that someday someone or some nation inflamed with
resentment at the seemingly eternal Israeli subjugation of the Palestinian
people will "make your land desolate so no one can live in it" (Jer 6:8). That
sounds like a nuclear bomb. Have you heard of Mahmoud Ahmedinijad? While in the
Middle East we heard from Palestinian leaders a current commitment to pursue
their cause nonviolently. We applaud that commitment. We see it as an
extraordinary one under the circumstances. We fear that it cannot last forever,
for no people will allow itself to be ground into the dust indefinitely. What
are you doing to end their suffering and bring justice to them?
We will leave it to God to sort out with the Jewish people of the modern
state of Israel the very complex terms of his covenant with them. But we cannot
remain silent about the vast array of American Christians who support the most
repressive and unjust Israeli policies in the name of Holy Land and a Holy God.
We charge that you bear grave responsibility for aiding and abetting obvious
sin, and if Israel once again sees war, we suggest that you will bear part of
the responsibility. Christians are called to be peacemakers (Mt 5:9), but by
offering uncritical support of current Israeli policies you are actively
inflaming the Middle East toward war—in the name of God. This is appalling; it
is intolerable; it must stop!
We plead with you, our brothers and sisters, to find a better way, a more
biblical way, to love Israel. Love Israel enough to oppose rather than support
actions that violate God’s clearly revealed moral will. And while you are at it,
it might be good to work on loving the Palestinians, some of whom are also our
Christian sisters and brothers. When you visit Israel, we urge you to visit with
Palestinian Christians and ask them what they want us, their fellow Christians,
to support. For they surely need our love. And we are surely commanded to love
them, too.
In the name of Christ,
David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics,
Mercer University
Glen H. Stassen, Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological
Seminary
Drs. Gushee and Stassen are co-authors of "Kingdom Ethics" (InterVarsity
Press) and are members of the board of directors of the New Evangelical
Partnership for the Common Good.
The HyperTexts