When Hamas militants massacred 1200 people inside Israel and carried 240 hostages into Gaza on October 7, they succeeded in provoking the State of Israel to unleash its wrath on Palestinians living in Gaza. The Palestinian death toll of largely civilians and children is rising daily—now nearly twelve times more than the original 1200 victims. Weapons manufacturers, the oil industry and larger economy are profiting from this war.

How might followers of Jesus challenge these injustices and offer life-giving alternatives in the face of increasing death and destruction?

The Israeli Defense Forces are responsible for the death of over 15,000 Gaza residents, 40% of whom are children— now some 160 kids a day! See Chris Hedges recent report here. In addition, Israeli bombs are destroying residences, hospitals, businesses, and the entire infrastructure, displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, with no end in sight.

The United States is backing Israel 100%, providing billions of dollars in military assistance. President Joe Biden got Congress to approve $14 billion for weapons for Israel, and another $61 billion for Ukraine. This is enriching the American defense industry, adding to their already gluttonous profits from the war in Ukraine. The fact that American taxpayers are directly subsidizing US companies like Lockheed Martin, Northrup Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Elbit Systems make ordinary citizens direct participants in and beneficiaries of the killing and destruction.

These companies produce implements of death, such as tanks, artillery ammunition, precision-guided munitions, small diameter bombs, ammunition, Iron Dome interceptors, Hellfire missiles, drones…

Looking at the websites of RTX, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics you see nice faces, official commitments to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and human rights. But it’s all a façade as what these companies produce brings horrific suffering and death.

The death toll in Gaza is rapidly rising, provoking reactions from other militant groups in solidarity with Palestinians, causing Arab nations to rally together against Israel, increasing the likelihood of a regional war.

Isaiah’s prophets foretell the coming of God himself and the Messiah, who will destroy weapons of war directly.

“And he will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war” (Is 2:4).

“For you [God] shall break the yoke of their burden and the staff on their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor, as at the battle of Midian. For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult, and cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire” (Is 9:4-5).

Isaiah continues to clarify God’s movement in history, describing the one Christians and Messianic Jews identify as Jesus of Nazareth.

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on his shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore” (Is 9:6-7).

When Jesus’ disciples, James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven in retributive violence against Samaritans for refusing entry to Jesus and his band as they made their way towards Jerusalem, Jesus rebuked them, saying:

“You do not know of what spirit you are of” (Luke 9:54).

Of what spirit are defense industry weapons manufacturers, their politician advocates, and religious legitimators?

Many Scriptures comes to mind, such as Jesus’ description of the “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10).

Clearly Israel’s current bombing campaign, financed by the USA, the UK and Western European governments is accomplishing killing and destruction on a massive scale, as well as the ongoing war between Russia and the Ukraine. Theft of land through illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are direct causes of these conflicts.

Jesus himself identifies Mammon as the major power active in the world that commands human allegiance over and against God.

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon” (Mt 6:24).

Jesus’ words here alone state clearly to his disciples his “either-or” view towards wealth, providing Christians with a non-negotiable point of departure from the world’s way of viewing war profits, which must not be justified.

The stock prices for major weapons manufacturers in the defense sector have increased significantly since Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel on October 7, and Israel’s subsequent bombing campaign and invasion of Gaza, as stated by Bryan Quinn in the special report on October 26, “The business of war: How arms industry profits from violent conflicts.”

“Morgan Stanley and TD Bank hope for aerospace and weapons boon after a 7% value increase from start of Israel-Hamas conflict,” writes Eli Clifton in his article “Hamas has created additional demand’: Wall Street eyes big profits from war.”

“As the US Government approves military aid to Israel, public monies directly enrich weapons manufacturers,” Kate Aronoff writes in her October 17, 2023 New Republic article “The People Who Profit When It Rains Bombs.”

“Citi analyst Jason Gursky told Barrons, “we do expect industry revenue to accelerate in 2024 and 2025 as higher spending bills passed over the past several years begin to make their way through the income statements of our coverage companies.”

“Members of Congress are free to benefit from these international conflicts through stock trades or campaign contributions,” writes Aronoff, who then gives disturbing details that show how people in power who stand to directly benefit financially from drawing Iran into this war are pushing for this.

When stockholders, pension plan beneficiaries and the entire US economy benefit financially from killing human beings and destroying infrastructures that sustain life, we also can be assured that we will reap what we are sowing.

Violence begets violence is visible in our current pandemic of mass shootings in the USA, arguably the fruit of our military-industrial complex, defined by Wikipedia as describing “the relationship between a country’s military and the defense industry that supplies it, seen together as a vested interest which influences public policy.”

Another possible “spirit” behind the desire of Jesus’ disciples to destroy the Samaritans who oppose him is “murder,” and “deception,” visible in Jesus’ prophetic critique of the religious leaders of his time.

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

Recent allegations denied by Israel that the IDF used white phosphorous munitions in Gaza directly implicate the USA and specifically Arkansas’ Pine Bluff Arsenal in killing through tortuous burning from chemicals, described here in detail, denounced by Amnesty International here.

Prophetic exposure of atrocities and cover-ups is an essential task of Jesus followers now, as well as calls for an end to the killing and destruction. Followers of Jesus should recognize that supplying weapons to kill and destroy is in alignment with the ruler of this world, whose works Jesus came to destroy.

“The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8).

Jesus disarms his disciples when they try to defend him, and warns them clearly that the way of his kingdom excludes violence:

“Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).

Jesus clearly states his anti-rob-kill-and-destroy agenda in John 10:10.

“I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

Jesus tells his vindictive disciples James and John and us now today: “for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them” (Lk 9:56).

May we repent of our alignment with and justification of the powers of death and even prayerfully pursue ways to protest and actively divest from systems that profit from killing and destruction. May we actively seek to re-orient ourselves afresh to the life-giving way of Jesus, visible in his teaching and witness in the Gospels. May we find ways to become peacemakers,  seeking to be informed from a place of active solidarity with victims. There are concrete actions we can take, such as:

Protesting where weapons are manufactured, getting rid of stocks in these companies and pressuring pension plans and other institutions to divest from the defense industry. In these ways and more we can offer a positive witness in these dark and increasingly polarized times.

Check out my podcast, Disciple: Word, Spirit, Justice, Witness on Apple or Spotify.

Also check out “A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians” here.

The original “Old St. Nick” who inspired the tradition of Santa Claus… was a bishop of Myra in fourth-century Turkey (Christians around the world remember him on December 6). We know that he entrusted himself to Jesus early in his life, and when his folks died, he gave away all the inheritance to the poor.

Oh, and a neat little legend about the stockings we see everywhere. The origin of the big red stockings was from a story of St. Nicholas. Nicholas learned of three girls who were going to be sold into slavery by their father. He was so moved by their pain that he tossed three bags of gold through the window of the little girls’ home, to ransom their lives. The legend is that the money fell into their socks, which were drying by the fireplace.

So let us celebrate St. Nick today — the real St. Nick — as a lover of Jesus and of the poor. And as we see stockings hanging up this Christmas, let us remember those who still hang their clothes out to dry… and may we remember the 1.2 million children who are trafficked each year in the global sex trade. May we remember the children of Gaza, where over 6600 kids have been killed by the United States and the State of Israel over the past 60 days. Over a million people are now displaced, homeless, refugees in Gaza.

May their suffering move us to act, as Nicholas did. As we look at the faces of the suffering, we can see Jesus. In the words of Rev. Munther Isaac, “God is under the rubble.” Jesus is among the displaced, the grieving, those traumatized by war and poverty. God is with us, with them. What we do to the least of these we do unto Christ.

This Christmas, our hearts are broken by the fact that “peace on earth, good will toward men” isn’t a reality for millions of God’s children. We need only look at Gaza. But we don’t despair. We are part of a great tradition of radicals like St. Nicholas and Francis of Assisi, Fannie Lou Hamer and Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero and Daniel Berrigan who have prayed and worked for God’s dream to come fully on earth.

We remember that Christ came as a homeless refugee, a brown-skinned Palestinian refugee baby… born in a barn because there was no room in the inn. He was born in the midst of a genocide, as Herod ordered all the baby boys killed throughout the land.

And we recall how Christ has come again and again to us in the distressing disguise of the poor — immigrants and refugees fleeing poverty, persecution and war in our world.

This week we celebrate because we know that this King who is laid in a manger brings a kingdom that can take root anywhere — and we know that it will grow to fill the whole earth. The kingdoms of this world are indeed becoming the kingdom of our God.

It’s Advent and Christmas is just around the corner. Here in the U.S. the stores have been full of Christmas regalia for months and many of us are already sick of Christmas carols and the glare of Christmas lights. At church we are getting ready for our pageants and our Christmas parties. The nativity scenes are being assembled and our images of Jesus and his family alone and abandoned in a dirty stable are forming. But is that the way it really was?

According to New Testament theologian Kenneth Bailey in his wonderful book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes, Middle Eastern cultures are known for their hospitality and Joseph was coming home with a new wife and an expected first child. The whole family was gathering, aunts and uncles, cousins and brothers and sisters. All of them coming home. Yes there was a census that brought them together but in a fun loving culture like this it would not have diminished the welcome or the excitement of a homecoming gathering. The expectation of a baby to be born in their midst would only have increased the excitement.

As Kenneth Bailey explains, the Greek word (katalyma or kataluma) translated as ‘inn’ in Luke 2:7 does not mean a commercial building with rooms for travelers. It’s a guest space, typically the upper room of a common village home.

“A simple village home in the time of King David, up until the Second World War, in the Holy Land, had two rooms—one for guests, one for the family. The family room had an area, usually about four feet lower, for the family donkey, the family cow, and two or three sheep. They are brought in last thing at night and taken out and tied up in the courtyard first thing in the morning.

“Out of the stone floor of the living room, close to family animals, you dig mangers or make a small one out of wood for sheep. Jesus is clearly welcomed into a family home,” (54)

It was to this simple village home that the shepherds and wise men came. Shepherds despised and regarded as unclean by their society, are visited by angels and invited to join the great home coming celebration that marks the coming of the child who will become the Messiah. For them to be invited into a family home is far more remarkable than an invitation to a stable. This is good news indeed for the outcast and the despised.

Then the wise men come, according to Bailey, rich men on camels, probably from Arabia. And they come not to the city of Jerusalem where the Jews thought God’s glory would shine, but to the child born in a manager around whom there is already a great light. The wise men come to find a new home, a new place of belonging that has beckoned to them across the world. This too is remarkable and good news for people of all nations who long for a place to call home.

Bailey tells us that the birth stories of Jesus “de-Zionize” the Messianic traditions. Hopes and expectations for the city of Jerusalem are fulfilled in the birth of the child Jesus. (p54) The new family, the community that will be formed around this child, does not look to the earthly Jerusalem as its home, but to the heavenly Jerusalem which will come down from heaven as a gift of God at the end of history. (Revelation 21:1-4). And it is to this home, a place with no more tears, or oppression or starvation that all of us are beckoned by the birth of Christ.

I love this imagery. Even in the birth of Jesus we are called towards a new family and a new home. There are family and friends and animals. And special invitations by angels for the despised and rejected, and a star to guide the strangers and those who seem far off. The new family and the home envisioned in the birth of Jesus is inclusive of all who accept God’s invitation.

In A Journey Toward Home: Soul Travel for Advent to Lent,one of the reflections in it is on the French custom of santons:

Santons are, literally, “little saints.” Part of a typical French Nöel crèche, santons come in work clothes to visit the Holy Family. They bring the Christ Child presents they have made or grown, hunted or sold. They perform or offer simple gestures of thoughtfulness…..

The shepherds summon all Provençal villagers. They bring their unique gifts to honor the newborn child: the baker (or his son) with typical Provençal breads like la banette and le pain Calendal (a round country loaf marked with a cross and baked only at Christmastime), the vegetable merchant, the cheese vendor, the basket maker, the wine grower, the humble woman or man who brings only a bundle of sticks for a fire to keep the baby warm.

A poor old man, who thinks he has nothing to give the Baby, holds his lantern and offers to light the way for others. His gift of thoughtfulness and courtesy earns him a place in the scene.

I love this custom that invites all the people of our community to stand around the manger with us, whether they are rich, or poor black or white, heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transexual. The question for all of us during Advent is, “To where will we welcome Jesus and who will we welcome with him?” Do we really want him moving into our homes or is it easier to relegate him to the stable, to see him as an outsider, not really part of the family? Seeing Jesus in an out-of-the-way place where disreputable people like shepherds can come to worship without us having to worry about them messing up our homes makes life easy for us. We get that glow that tells us Jesus is here, but there is very little commitment required of us.

Do we really want to make room for the excluded and the ignored – the prostitutes, the drug traffickers, the illegal immigrants, the disabled and the socially unacceptable – at the manger in our homes? Will we gather with friends and strangers around the manger in church, in homeless shelters, in refugee camps, on the borders that keep out the unwanted? How will we extend an invitation through our churches or faith communities so that everyone feels welcome together at the birth of Christ?

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was clawing away at a fading memory of something so insignificant: my high school boyfriend’s youngest brother’s name. I finally got it at about 4am- Mark- I proudly proclaim as if holding up a big freshly caught fish on my line! 

My pride is quickly eclipsed by the guttural acknowledgement that my high school boyfriend’s youngest brother’s name is not really the thing that is shaking me awake this night. It’s Susanne. 

If I’m honest, I am not sure how to talk about Susanne with you, Dear Reader. And I wonder if this is because my fists are clenched and it’s hard to open them and be soft towards any of you sometimes because I have witnessed the ways in which so many of us hold on tight like a new religion to our ideologies around human beings like Susanne. And yet, here I am-yet again writing to make sense of all of this. Writing like my life, Susanne’s life and the others like her-like all our lives-depend on it. 

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I am so important that I can resuscitate a whole city’s heart. But I do know that I have been impacted enough by the lives of some beautiful individuals, like Susanne, whose deaths I think are on our hands, so I must at least try and press down a bit and lower my ear to our heart to listen for a slight beat, because I do believe it’s there. 

Yes, Susanne was one of the many in a now rather large and growing chorus of individuals that have their own way of animating a lived-out decompensation in public. For Susanne, that meant, no shoes even in the coldest of weather. It meant an almost ritualistic meandering out into the highway, stopping traffic and causing a cacophony of beeps. In the hardest of times, it meant handing her plate after plate of food, only to have her throw them in the air. The plate throwing went on for months, winnowing her already slight frame down to the bone. 

On these days, what almost always worked was to say her name, to touch her face, or put your arms out wide for a hug and say, “Susanne”. She’d stop and look and for a moment in time there she was. With you. 

But there were plenty of times over the 14 years of sharing life with Susanne when it didn’t work; like that long month when we couldn’t get her to eat. And in those moments, it felt like we were standing on the shoreline, watching her slowly be swept out to sea, when all we wanted was to reach her and bring her back with us. 

Through the years, as I stood on this proverbial shoreline, with food from her plate on my clothes, or the chattering of horns in my ear, I would think about the way Susanne’s eyes sparkled as she danced at our Holiday party. I would recall the way she covered her mouth with her hands when she smiled and giggle a bit as I remember the mess she made in the kitchen when she cooked a steak on the stovetop. I’d then look at her perfectly tanned skin and beautiful brown eyes, in whatever form she was in, and call to mind her magical ability to make whatever clothes we helped put her in look effortless. 

During these times when Susanne was far out at sea-do you know what we did, reader? We called for an involuntary commitment. And do you know why we did this? 

Because we know her eyes sparkle when she dances. 

With every holy and heartbreaking attempt to have Susanne involuntarily committed, it never worked. She would look up just long enough to tell the Crisis Team that she didn’t want help. And despite our best efforts to provide historical knowledge, stories and data to any emergency crew that ever came, Susanne never met the standards of “harm to self or others”. 

And now she is gone. And my god, we miss her. 

Here’s what I beg of us moving forward: be open to a nuanced conversation on involuntary commitment. And be open to reimagining and investing in what care could and should look like for precious people like Susanne. Just be open. Or, Dear Reader, tell me what to do. Tell me what we should have done- those of us who loved Susanne.

Praised by Faint Damnation
Why American Evangelical Responses to October 7 are Dangerous
Bruce N. Fisk
November 28, 2023

In the aftermath of October 7, many American evangelicals are displaying unwavering support for the state of Israel. Pro-Israel zeal finds expression in statements of outrage over Hamas’ slaughter and abduction of Jewish civilians and in declarations of solidarity affirming Israel’s right and duty to eliminate Hamas.

I see three troubling patterns in pro-Israel statements posted by influential Evangelicals. Let’s call them maneuvers. All three are dangerous. Let me explain.

The first maneuver is binary reductionism.

That’s fancy talk for me making you pick a side. The side you pick reveals whether your moral compass is defective or points True North. No recognition of complexity (legal, historical, political, theological). No patience with contrary voices. One actor bears all moral culpability.

Russell Moore, editor and chief at Christianity Today, declares the need for “moral clarity about this war.” Likewise for Ivan Mesa, editorial director of The Gospel Coalition, and Bernard Howard, the moral fog has lifted. Richard Land, President Emeritus of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission and executive editor of The Christian Post, doubles down on Samuel Huntingdon’s provocative thesis: “We’ve heard people talking about the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christianity. This is not a clash of civilizations. This is a clash between civilization and barbarism.” San Antonio pastor John Hagee, as we’ve come to expect, is likewise Manichean: “Choose Israel or Hamas. There is no middle ground in this conflict. You’re either for the Jewish people or you’re not.”

“Moral clarity” was strong with George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11 when he announced “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” In Bushspeak, you were on the side of freedom or you were governed by fear. In the same spirit, William Bennett titled his 2002 hymn to patriotism Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism. Bennett reminisced about a time when “the doubts and questions . . . seemed to fade into insignificance. Good was distinguished from evil, truth from falsehood. We were firm, dedicated, unified. It was, in short, a moment of moral clarity.”

Apparently, thanks to Hamas, those days of reductionistic, binary moral clarity have returned. Thus, when Franklin Graham met recently with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister framed his nation’s predicament as “the battle of civilization against barbarism.” Graham’s reply upped the ante: “It’s good versus evil.”

My first visits to the Holy Land, two decades ago, were blessed by such binary clarity. Today, I know too much. I’ve seen too much. Yes, Hamas is committing war crimes. But they do not commit them in a vacuum. Nor is Hamas the only guilty party. We do not diminish Hamas’ moral culpability when we talk about context.

Uncritical pro-Israel binary reductionism over recent decades has provided international cover, financial backing and biblical justification for legalized discrimination, settlement expansion, extra-judicial killings, and the systematic subjugation of Palestinians in daily life. Christian Zionists’ moral opposition to partitioning the Promised Land has excused expropriation of land, demolition of homes and schools, and other forms of legal discrimination.

For many Evangelicals, including John Hagee (but not Russell Moore), binary reductionism pairs nicely with apocalypticism. It turns out that the real battle isn’t between Israel and Hamas. It’s between Light and Darkness. Jews miraculously defeated Arabs in 1948 and captured Jerusalem in 1967 because: Last Days. The Palestinians will never establish a state of their own in the Promised Land because: End Times.

When we reduce a protracted, complex and asymmetric conflict to a tidy moral binary, those who disagree with us become allies of the enemy. In Christians United for Israel’s statement, John Hagee warns us that “anyone who would seek to undermine Israel’s response to this horrific attack is making common cause with terrorists.” Read that again. Hagee is pledging support for whatever Israel does in Gaza, a textbook case of the absolutist worldview and its dangers that Glenn Greenwald warns about:

“Those who have become convinced that they are waging an epic and all-consuming existential war against Evil cannot, by the very premises of their belief system, accept any limitations—moral, pragmatic, or otherwise—on the methods adopted to triumph in this battle. . . . Efforts to impose limits on waging war against Evil will themselves be seen as impediments to Good, if not as an attempt to aid and abet Evil. . . Hence, there are no valid reasons for declaring off-limits any weapons that can be deployed in service of the war against Evil.”

For those blessed with binary certitude and moral clarity, there are two types of victims: worthy (“those we are allowed to pity”) and unworthy (“those whose suffering is minimized, dismissed, or ignored”), as Chris Hedges, following Noam Chomsky, observes. One side’s intentional, low-tech, mass killing is barbaric terrorism; the other side’s intentional, high-tech, mass killing is collateral damage. Reports from Israel about beheaded babies are repeated notwithstanding serious challenges of verification. Reports from Gaza about the killing of thousands of children and the targeting of aid workers and journalists are unserious propaganda, perhaps the work of crisis actors. Certainly not evidence of war crimes. As Bob Dylan taught us: “you don’t count the dead when God’s on your side.” 

Let’s call the second maneuver selective ambiguity.

This is where we obscure or evade hard truths by deploying euphemisms and convoluted diction.

Ronald Reagan, describing the Iran-Contra scandal, famously told Congress in 1987 that “mistakes were made.” When we want to tip-toe past wartime carnage, when we want to avoid ascribing agency, the passive voice serves us well, as it does for Russell Moore who says that Israel faced existential threats “after . . . the state of Israel was established.” Similarly opaque is the Southern Baptist reference to “the inception of the modern state of Israel.”

In the months before and after Israel “was established,” three-quarters of a million Palestinians fled or were forced out of their homes, and were subsequently blocked from returning. A lesser exodus of a quarter million followed when Israel defeated its neighbors in June, 1967. What animates resistance for most residents of Gaza today is this dispossession—of parents and grandparents—not just from Jaffa and Ramla but also from villages within easy walking distance from the Strip. Gazans want to go home.

Selective ambiguity obscures important details of historical context, context we desperately need in order to understand what is happening around us.

Ambiguity and underspecification are also in play when the World Evangelical Alliance says Hamas’ attack on Israel “has resulted in escalating violence and loss of innocent civilian lives in Israel and in Palestine.” Violence escalates. Lives are lost. No human agency in sight. The WEA rightly singles out Hamas for killing Israeli civilians, but mysteriously leaves unspecified the agents responsible for killing innocents in Palestine. Violence is simply a result, an unintended outcome that “will further spread” and needs “de-escalation.” Obscurity through ambiguity.

Another example: the National Association of Evangelicals worries about “actions by Israel that go beyond self-defense by taking revenge on those living in Gaza.” These actions “risk inflicting further suffering on innocent civilians while undermining the long-term security of the Israeli people.” Stripped of clutter, the NAE is claiming that “actions . . . beyond self-defense . . . risk inflicting suffering.” George Orwell would file such convoluted diction under cloudy vagueness. Clarity compels us to say that Israeli forces are killing Gazan civilians, and at a rate unprecedented in modern warfare. It’s a calculated rage playing out in real time.

Gaza Civilians, Under Israeli Barrage, Killed at Historic Pace – The New York Times

Then there is Franklin Graham, whose affection for Israel, like his father’s, is evident. Graham’s Samaritan’s Purse is among the largest U.S. faith-based non-profits. A recent press release laments that “innocent families are suffering in Israel and Gaza as a result of the war, and many lives have been lost because they haven’t been able to reach medical care fast enough.” 

Setting aside those ambiguous passives (have been lost, haven’t been able), context makes clear that the folks Graham thinks need urgent medical care are Israelis, which explains SP’s plan to replace the Magen David Adom ambulances that Hamas destroyed. Elsewhere Graham explains his inaction on the other side of the fence, using ambiguity and, yup, a passive verb: “humanitarian access to Gaza is not possible, and the border is sealed.” I’m pretty sure the border didn’t seal itself.

For still more selective ambiguity, consider Chosen People Ministries’ Affirmation of Israel: A Response to the War Between Israel and Hamas.

“We pray steps will be taken to eliminate the lethal presence of Hamas terrorists, the hostages be freed, Israel’s borders be secured and noncombatant Palestinians in Gaza and other parts of Israel be spared from the evils of these and other Islamic terrorists.”

The writers have impressively deployed four passive verbs (be taken, be freed, be secured, be spared), and the antiseptic “eliminate the lethal presence of” in place of, say, “kill” or “destroy.” 

CPM’s prayer also seeks protection for Palestinians “in Gaza and other parts of Israel. . . from the evils of these and other Islamic terrorists.” Quite apart from implying that the West Bank lies within Israel, CPM suggests that the principal threat Palestinians face is “these and other Islamic terrorists.” Israeli forces in the first seven weeks since October 7 have killed 239 West Bank Palestinians. Perhaps we should pray about that too.

I’m calling the third maneuver praise by faint damnation.

This is when we gesture at Israel’s imperfections but never follow up with substantive critique. When we nod at unspecified misdeeds so as to appear neutral and fair-minded, our “faint damnation” of Israel can actually function as praise.

Two recent examples. On the day of Hamas’ attacks, Russell Moore, who himself paid a price for criticizing Donald Trump, aligned with those prepared to criticize Israel: “Many of us are quite willing to call out Israel when we believe it is acting wrongly. We don’t believe the Israeli Knesset is somehow inerrant or infallible.” One wonders what unnamed wrongdoings Moore has in mind, and whether some of them might provide relevant context for what is unfolding in and around Gaza.

Three days later, Ivan Mesa and Bernard Howard of The Gospel Coalition defined what they mean by being “pro-Israel”:

“We accept that the state of Israel hasn’t always acted blamelessly in its conduct toward the Palestinian people. To be pro-Israel in this situation, as we the authors are, isn’t to whitewash every action Israel’s government or military have taken, from its founding to today.” 

What Mesa and Howard “accept” is an obvious truism—that “the state of Israel hasn’t always acted blamelessly.” Which actions of Israel should we not “whitewash”? Might some of this misbehavior merit specific mention during the present crisis?

Mesa and Howard do go on to acknowledge “the frustration, pain, and grief experienced by Palestinians” and affirm the impulse to weep with those who weep, which for them includes “Palestinians mourning their dead, both past and present.” But note again the passive voice and non-ascription of moral agency. Pain is “experienced,” not caused. They mourn Palestinian deaths but don’t name the killer.

Praise by faint damnation is popular among Christian Zionists. Malcolm Hedding of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem rejects “blind support of Israel.” Barry Horner in Future Israel does not recommend justifying “every military initiative of the State of Israel” (pp.102-03). Craig Blaising of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a recent defense of Christian Zionism, likewise says Gentile nations are not obliged to “extend to Israel blind moral approval” (p. 102). But in each case the corollary—specific offenses that merit critique—is ever elusive. 

Gerald McDermott of Beeson Divinity School seems poised to go further: 

“We do not mean that the state of Israel is a perfect country. Or that it should not be criticized for its failures.” “We . . . disagree with dispensationalism at the popular level . . . that the present state of Israel is never to be criticized . . .” “It certainly does not mean that Israel is always right or that it has never been unjust in its dealings with other nations” (pp.12, 14, 328). 

Darrell Bock of Dallas Theological Seminary, concluding the same volume, likewise claims not to give Israel a pass:

“To endorse Israel and a national place for the nation is not to give her carte blanche for everything she does. Christian Zionism is not a blind endorsement of Israel. It does not give the nation a pass on issues of justice or moral obligations” (p.309).

But again, McDermott and Bock are silent about concrete acts of injustice. Until Israel’s Evangelical partisans name specific laws, policies and practices to which they object, their vague declarations of Israel’s imperfection, their faint damnations, will continue to ring hollow.

To be sure, Palestinian sympathizers are likewise reluctant to criticize the Palestinian Authority and even Hamas for specific human rights abuses, torture, hostility toward internal criticism, infringements on journalistic freedom, militant ideology, fiscal corruption, monetary payments to families of fallen fighters, and intentional targetting of non-combatants. Let’s talk about it.

But let’s also talk about the impact on Palestinians families of the separation barrier and expanding Israeli settlements, Israel’s de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley, the 16-year blockade of Gaza; about the indiscriminate use of tear gas, imprisoning minors, snipers shooting journalists, settlers rampaging through villages with the tacit blessing of the IDF; about Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wingers bent on demolishing homes, raiding camps, and stoking violence on the Temple Mount. Inside Israel, such topics are hotly debated. From American Evangelicals we hear mostly silence.

So, three bleats. Binary reductionism blinds us to moral complexity. Selective ambiguity distorts history. Faint damnation is feigned neutrality. We may disagree sharply over how to respond to the present crisis, but let’s not weaponize language. Innocent people are dying. Partisans of Israel, conservative Evangelicals, Christian Zionists—you can do better. We all can. 

__________

Bruce N. Fisk, Ph.D., is Senior Research Fellow with the Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East, and co-founder of Curiously Global.

It was the end of a balmy San Diego Christmas day. My family had just left, and as my kids were winding down from all the excitement, I tackled the clutter: finding places to put away the new toys, storing used gift bags for next year, creating shelf space in the pantry for stocking goodies.

My husband had his feet up, resting from all the cooking he had done for us, but I—like many women, I imagine— couldn’t seem to relax when I was surrounded by such a mess. Grabbing an armful of discarded toy boxes, I left my house and headed around the corner to the dumpster. We live in a gated condo community, and I worried the recycling dumpster would already be filled to overflowing.

As I walked down the sidewalk, I heard a man singing. I didn’t recognize the tune, but the man had talent and it seemed a lovely song. I looked around my tower of empty boxes and spotted someone sitting on a bench just beyond the gate: a homeless man with a shopping cart full of his belongings.

This is a common sight in San Diego; we are a city surrounded by palm trees and tent encampments. There are over 1,500 unhoused people living downtown alone, with many more in residential neighborhoods. It’s not unusual to see half a dozen folks sleeping on sidewalks in the mile it takes me to drive to Target. 

That Christmas day, I had in my hands the remnants of my own personal privilege: a mountain of discarded boxes from toys we were adding to our already-full toy area. This was the thought I was chewing on when the man interrupted his song to say “Merry Christmas” to me. In my own discomfort, I hurried past him, and turned the corner toward the dumpster before I whispered “Merry Christmas” back to him—a useless reply he never heard.

When I laid in bed that night, thinking about the events of the day, the looks of glee on my children’s faces, the happy chatter of my parents in the kitchen, the table we gathered around to feast on cheese fondue, it was the memory of the unhoused man that kept replaying in my mind. 

Why couldn’t I have simply returned his greeting? Was it my rush, my discomfort, my shame? The man could have been Jesus himself, and I didn’t slow my stride long enough to find out.

In his book Grace Can Lead Us Home, Kevin Nye writes: 

“…unhoused people are ready for, and in need of, connection and friendship. They are our neighbors; the very same that Jesus calls us to love in the same way we love God and ourselves (…) If we went against our impulses and made eye contact, perhaps even smiled or nodded at one another, acknowledging our shared existence and humanity, we all might just become a little more human in the process.”

At times, we are confronted by deep inequities, and situations arise that reflect our own advantages in life back to us. I know well the default reactions, the ones that preserve both our comfort and the status quo: to rush on by, to look the other way, to avoid certain parts of town. But the arrival of God in the flesh can’t be good news just for me and for those on the “right” side of a gated community. Jesus must be good news for everyone. 

God didn’t avoid us in our neediness, didn’t rush by or look the other way. Jesus moved right in to the midst of it all, and I have a feeling that here in San Diego, he’d be among the makeshift tents downtown, walking alongside overflowing shopping carts, or holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee and waiting in line at the social services building. Love is risky like that, scandalous even. 

I don’t need to go as far as downtown for an opportunity to show God’s love to a person experiencing homelessness; such encounters are readily available on the paths I walk daily. What I do need are the heart and eyes of Christ, to see beyond the issue to the actual person, and to respond with love.

Editor’s Note: Previously published on The Watershed Discipleship blog on November 21, 2017. Reprinted with permission. 

As we head into the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the United States, it’s great to think about all the things we can be grateful for. It is good to have a time to pause and reflect, to participate in the seasonality of gratitude for the year’s bountiful harvest, and to gather with family and friends. (We’ll ignore the über-consumerism of the day following Thanksgiving…)

Many of us probably know by now, however, that the story many of us learned in school about the first Thanksgiving is rather inaccurate at best, and racist and paternalistic in many ways, with a focus on the Manifest Destiny idea of the divine mandate for Europeans to conquer the “New World” in the name of Christ and country.

A few questions come to mind (at least my mind), for those of us with European-American roots, such as:

1. Should we even celebrate Thanksgiving, since it’s so tainted with colonialism?
2. What might it look like to “decolonize” our own understandings and our culture?
3. How can we do this work in a way that encourages our own folks to partner, rather than making them (our White brethren) feel further ostracized, but while also speaking real truth?
4. What can we do this Thanksgiving to begin to reconcile relationships damaged in the colonial era, both human to human and human to this land?

First, perhaps you would like to know what “decolonize” even means. Colours of Resistance has an excellent definition:

Decolonization is as much a process as a goal. It requires a profound re-centering of Indigenous worldviews in our movements for political liberation, social transformation, renewed cultural kinships, and the development of an economic system that serves rather than threatens our collective life on this planet. As stated by Toronto-based activist Syed Hussan “Decolonization is a dramatic re-imagining of relationships with land, people and the state. Much of this requires study, it requires conversation, it is a practice, it is an unlearning.”

Part of the work of decolonizing, therefore, is becoming conscious of and then unlearning our cultural myths, such as that of Thanksgiving. What does it mean about our cultural values and identity that we tell the story in this way? What might this story look like from other perspectives?

My friend and colleague Dr. Randy Woodley has taught me much about this topic, and I’d like to highlight a few articles and other online resources where he shares his perspective on this and related topics. Woodley is Keetowah Cherokee and a Christian, and he teaches at Portland Seminary in the Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies program.

In a 2012 Huffington Post article, “The Thanksgiving Myth: Not a Bad Start,” Woodley gives background and detail to the story of the first Thanksgiving, reminding that the pilgrims would have died had they not learned the local planting and harvesting methods from the Wampanoag, and that the tribe showed up to the meal because they thought the pilgrims were in danger. He discusses several of the reasons that Native Americans find it difficult to “celebrate” Thanksgiving. Woodley himself suggests:

In spite of our ugly history, no…actually, because of these atrocities, I want to suggest that we all continue to celebrate Thanksgiving, but with a caveat.

Settler folks must be educated to realize that Thanksgiving in America didn’t begin with the Pilgrims. For thousands of years many feasts of thanksgiving have been characteristic of all our Indian tribes. This phenomenon continues today. Settler-immigrants should reorient their thinking to view that First Thanksgiving as the first opportunity for them to join millennial old traditions among America’s Indigenous peoples to thank God, who was already present before they arrived, and thank the land upon which they were living.

What if those of us with European ancestry enter into this holiday not as something that “we” created, but as something in which we are learning to participate as people newer to this land?

In an article in Sojourners, “Celebrating True Thanksgiving: One Native American View,” Woodley speaks on similar themes, and emphasizes the importance of true gratitude to God, since everything we have comes from the Creator. He adds:

We can also celebrate new possibilities of true reconciliation with Native Americans, Muslims, and all the “other” people who have been the recipients of the devastation brought on by the dominant myth.

If the myth of the first Thanksgiving alludes to a connectedness between people of different cultures and a sense of gratitude and unity on shared land, might we bring this myth into actuality in our current practice, intentionally focusing on reconciliation between our own culture and those we think of as enemies?

And finally, what can we do to begin this work? Bartimaeus Cooperative Ministry’s September webinar, “The Columbus Quincentenary as Turning Point in the Decolonization Struggle,” featured Woodley, and he spoke about his own story, as well as addressing the question of what we can do. He recently spearheaded the Theological Declaration on Christian Faith and White Supremacy, sparked by the White Nationalist gatherings in Charlottesville, VA this summer, and in that declaration, four suggestions are made for practical ways we can begin healing these broken relationships (learn more):

• Listen: create and/or attend conferences (national, local, regional) or have conversations with people, listening actively, attentively, and vulnerably to those with different experiences of Christianity than our own.
• Lament: we all have much to be grateful for, but pain and hardship is not equally shared. True lament requires really seeing the pain of others, and being close enough to them to truly lament together as parts of the family of God.
• Repent (turn around): recognizing we have lived by an interpretation of Christianity that does not reflect the heart of Christ, apologizing, and beginning to live our faith with humility and courage to be radical disciples.
• Re-imagine: opening up to visions for a future expression of Christianity that truly leads to reconciliation between people groups, God, and creation. This includes a new understanding of Whiteness, a way for those of us of European descent to feel dignity and belovedness in ways that don’t have to be based on power-over, but instead living out love and care for and alongside all those in the community of creation.

As we head into Thanksgiving weekend, what might it look like to not only focus on gratitude, but also lament? What would your family do if you acknowledged the bounty of the land, and also the difficulties of European-Americans’ complicity in genocide and ecological degradation of the land? What would it look like to practice gratitude in real, rather than symbolic ways, dreaming and planning for ways to reconcile with people and land in the coming year?

May God bring forth visions of that reconciled future in you this week, and courage and community to enable you to live it out.

I am in the midst of what I call my gratitude season. Ever since the year I celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada at the beginning of October, and American Thanksgiving at the end of November, I have designated October and November as my gratitude months. Maybe its because I grew up in Australia where we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, and I feel I need to make up for lost time. Maybe its because the joy and delight that gratitude brings is addictive and I realize I need more of it in my life. Or perhaps it is because I am horrified by the research that suggests we suffer from a gratitude gap.

This year I feel I need the season more than ever yet like many in our churches I struggle to find much to be grateful for. The ongoing challenge of COVID, the turmoil caused by racism, economic inequality, political turmoil and our anxieties about climate change weigh heavily on all of us. Talk about a gratitude gap. The escalating war in Israel/Palestine and the heart wrenching images of death and destruction pull at our heart strings. Yet in the midst of these horrors we need to express gratitude. In fact, the practice of gratitude is one of the tools we all need to cope with the exhaustion and looming burnout that besets us.

In preparation for the season, I reread Diana Butler Bass’s book Grateful: The Subversive Practice of Giving Thanks. She helped me realize that one reason we struggle to establish gratitude as a way of life is because we do not fully understand what gratitude is. She explains that gratitude involves both emotion and ethics (moral principles). We feel grateful when we see something beautiful or receive unexpected gifts from someone – that is definitely emotion. Writing a thank you note to show we appreciate the gift is a choice, an ethical decision that comes from our belief that thank you notes matter.

Bass points out, that most of us have a distorted view of gratitude, usually relegating it to feel good emotions that come and go in our lives. It is this confusion that makes it so difficult to choose to practice gratitude whether we “feel” grateful or not. Depression, anxiety and stress strip away the gratitude emotions.

“Gratitude is not only the emotional response to random experiences, but even in the darkest times of life, gratitude waits to be seen, recognized and acted upon more thoughtfully and with a sense of purpose. Gratitude is a feeling, but it is also more than that. And it is much more than a spiritual technique to achieve peace of mind or prosperity. Gratitude is a habit of awareness that reshapes our self-understanding and the moral choices we make in the world.” (Grateful 60)

Don’t you love that? Gratitude is a habit of awareness that reshapes our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. In other words, we can choose to be grateful people and establish practices that develop it into a lifelong habit. In the process we become happier, healthier and less stressed people. Teaching gratitude as a way of life to our families and our congregations, is, I think, essential to help us overcome burn-out.

As I read Bass’s words, I was reminded of the words of 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “Give thanks in every situation because this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” Not give thanks FOR every situation as some interpret it but IN. Not give thanks for disasters but for the first responders who put their lives at risk to help others. Not give thanks for the destruction of God’s beautiful creation but for the many activists who work tirelessly to see nature restored. Not give thanks for the wars in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine but for the people that work in the midst of these horrors to bring peace and reconciliation.

One aspect of gratitude I have not considered until recently is its relationship to grief. We cannot talk about gratitude without also talking about grief. We cannot develop effective rituals for expressing gratitude without creating equally powerful rituals for processing grief.

In The Geography of Sorrow – Francis Weller on Navigating Our Losses, Tim McKee points out that most of us hold huge wells of unexpressed grief inside us because we live in a culture where grief is unwelcome, something we need to get over quickly. We are ashamed to grieve.  As a consequence, we are prone to addiction, depression, violence, suicide, possibly cancer, heart disease and I would add PTSD.

The work of the mature person is to carry grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and to be stretched large by them. How much sorrow can I hold? That’s how much gratitude I can give. If I carry only grief, I’ll bend towards cynicism and despair. If I have only gratitude, I’ll become saccharine and won’t develop much compassion for other people’s suffering. Grief keeps the heart fluid and soft, which helps make compassion possible. (The Geography of Sorrow) 

We need rituals that help us grieve, and these rituals should be communal. This doesn’t mean we don’t go off and weep in solitude, but after we do we should be welcomed back into a group where we can pour out and empty our sorrows together in an environment of comfort and mutual support.  I love the ritual that Lilly Lewin introduced us to in her recent Freerange Friday: “God Holds Our Tears” where she used a pitcher of water to represent our tears. It was very profound. These are the types of practices we all need to help us maintain the grief/gratitude balance.

In healthy cultures one person’s wound is an opportunity for another to bring medicine. But if you are silent about your suffering, then your friends stay spiritually unemployed. In Navajo culture, for example, illness and loss are seen as communal concerns, not as the responsibility of the individual. Healing is a matter of restoring hozho – beauty/harmony in the community. (The Geography of Sorrow)

We should approach grief with reverence, engaging it, sitting with it, mulling it over and recognizing it is worthy of our time.  This is particularly important at the moment. We all came out of the pandemic with a load of grief weighing us down. Since them we confronted not just the horrors of war in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine, but also earthquakes in Turkey and Afghanistan and the climate crisis that overwhelms us. We are encouraged to feel we should get over our grief quickly, or pretend there is no grief weighing us down. We are encouraged get back to normal, maybe go on a shopping spree and enjoy life again. Grief is seen as something to be ashamed of, not something to embrace. It is easy to dismiss the need for rituals of grief especially as the consumer culture hypes up for the Christmas season. After all isn’t Christmas meant to be “the happiest season of all?”

Here are a few of my suggestions on rituals that can help us process our grief and move towards gratitude in the coming months:

• Sit around the table with your family or a few close friends and talk about those things from the past that still need to be grieved over. I have sat around tables with a cup of tea in the most unlikely circumstances grieving together with friends and family. I still vividly remember when I was in medical practice in Christchurch New Zealand and a teenager died of cancer. I sat, with his family as we created a circle around his body and they shared stories about his life. Just talking about these together can bring a measure of healing. Discuss other ways that you could support each other as you process your grief.
• Plan a celebration for All Saints’ Day at the beginning of November. Celebrating, grieving and giving thanks for those who have gone before are all interwoven in these important days on the church calendar. I love the ribbons of remembrance that our church creates every year. We all have an opportunity to write the names of our loved ones on ribbons that later are woven around the altar rail or hung around the church.
• Plan a Blue Christmas celebration. At Godspace we provide a growing set of resources to help with this celebration. During the COVID lockdown, I participated in a powerful and extremely meaningful online Blue Christmas service where we interwove liturgy, creativity, scripture and music together.
• Plan regular retreat days over the next few months to help you slow down, grieve and find that much needed balance between grief and gratitude. Part of the wonder of the Advent and Christmas story which we are quickly moving towards is the recounting of both joy and tragedy. If you follow the liturgical calendar, you know that December 28th is Holy Innocents Day when we commemorate the execution of the innocent, male children in Bethlehem as told in Matthew 2:16. It is an uncomfortable day that I always want to skip over, but this year I know it is worthy of remembering. So many innocents have died in the last year from hunger, disease, violence and natural disasters. This story gives us the foundations for grieving our own losses. It is just as easy for us to skip over the tragedy because of our desire to focus on the joy. This year we need to make space for both.
• Write or read poetry, create a piece of artwork, take a photo that juxtaposes grief and gratitude. This was one of my responses to the horrors going on in Israel/Palestine. This poem flowed out of my heart as I look at what is happening and was overcome by grief. It was inspired by Matt 5:43-47 and Colossians 1:18-20 in The Message. As I wrote it, I found myself giving thanks for the many places in scripture where grief and gratitude come together Is our world broken beyond repair?

Will we always meet violence
With more violence?
Death with death?
Hate with hate?
What happened to love?
What have we done with Jesus,
With the One who holds all things together
And promises to fix,
All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe.
The One who told us:
Love your enemies
Let them bring out the best in you
Not the worst
Live out your God-created identity,
Live generously and graciously towards others.
Be loving in all circumstances.
God is love.

• Listen to Leonard Cohen’s incredible song Hallelujah which I listen to regularly to help me process some of my grief burden and help me find the silver linings of gratitude often hidden in its midst.
• Journal about your grief feelings. Read Psalm 130. Allow the words to resonate in your heart. It begins with grief and ends in praise and often it is easier to pray with someone else’s words then trying to form our own. Sit in the presence of your feelings and allow God to bring healing. As I did that this week, this simple poem grew in my mind. Perhaps you would like to use it to express your own grief.

Is our world broken beyond repair?
Will we always meet violence
With more violence?
Death with death?
Hate with hate?
What happened to love?
What have we done with Jesus,
With the One who holds all things together
And promises to fix,
All the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe.
The One who told us:
Love your enemies
Let them bring out the best in you
Not the worst
Live out your God-created identity,
Live generously and graciously towards others.
Be loving in all circumstances.
God is love.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. — Lev. 19:18

As evangelical Christians in America, we are grieved by the violence that has consumed Israel and Gaza and we are troubled by the ways our faith tradition has been used to justify it. Yet even as we witness gross distortions of faith by Christian nationalists in public life, we also celebrate how people from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions around the world are coming together to cry for peace. So say cease-fire, some say a “cessation of hostilities,” some say humanitarian pause. Some just say, “Stop for the babies!” But the world is experiencing a kind of Pentecost as people cry out in different tongues with a unified call to end the violence.

Judaism teaches through the prophet Amos that God hears a united remnant against injustice. Islam teaches that “God is with the group.” And Jesus prayed that we all might be One, even as he and his Father are One. There is power in the unified cry of faithful people.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share moral convictions that ground our response to this moment.

We believe that every human being is created in the image of God. Both the Talmud and Islamic teaching say that to save a single life is to save all humanity, and Jesus extends the law of love for kin and neighbors even to those who are our enemies. Together we believe that every Israeli life is precious; every Palestinian life is precious; every single life is precious.

We also share the conviction that vengeance belongs to God. While governments have a right and duty to ensure security, our traditions insist on restraint and limits when the state exercises its power. No government knows enough to become the ultimate arbiter of justice.

Finally, our traditions share a commitment to justice, especially for those who are weak and vulnerable in this world. Whenever there is an imbalance of power, God hears the cries of those who are suffering and calls us to join their cry for justice.

Because of these shared convictions and our knowledge that a “three-fold chord is not easily broken,” we join our voices with Jews, Christians, and Muslims around the world who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the safe return of all hostages and civilian prisoners taken in the present conflict.

While “cease-fire” is a technical term of international law, our faith demands that we outline a basic moral call to CEASE-FIRE.

Confront and stop immediately indiscriminate violence against any civilian, especially women, children, and the sick.

End the denial of basic necessities to any population, including food, water, electricity, fuel, internet, and medical supplies.

Affirm the image of God in every human being.

Stop the practice of holding hostages and ensure the safe return of all hostages and prisoners home.

Exercise nonviolent power to build a just peace for all people.

Faithfully work as Jews, Christians, and Muslims to support a viable alternative to the brutality of Hamas and to challenge the Netanyahu administration’s practices of occupation and apartheid.

Insist that human rights for all people are nonnegotiable.

Raise a moral cry against murder, indiscriminate violence, war, and public policies rooted in vengeance, no matter which faith is used to justify violence.

Engage nonviolently to interrupt the violence that is being carried out against fellow human beings.

As people who are committed to manifesting beloved community and overcoming violence of any kind against any person or people, we steadfastly demand that justice be done and seek to protect the dignity of all human life regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or national identity.

We need a cease-fire for God’s sake, for the future’s sake, for the sake of the babies who are dying, and for the sake of our own humanity.

Jesus said, “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword,” and, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made clear, in an era of nuclear weapons that can destroy the whole world, our ultimate choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. Killing our future is worse than wrong; it is an act of despair that denies God’s hope.

Our faith compels us to lift up this moral call for a cease-fire. We invite any who share this conviction to join people of faith around the world who are praying and taking action for peace.

Bishop William J. Barber, II
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School
Repairers of the Breach

Shane Claiborne
Red Letter Christians

Mae Elise Cannon
Churches for Middle East Peace

Rodney Sadler
Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. — Lev. 19:18

As evangelical Christians in America, we are grieved by the violence that has consumed Israel and Gaza and we are troubled by the ways our faith tradition has been used to justify it. Yet even as we witness gross distortions of faith by Christian nationalists in public life, we also celebrate how people from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions around the world are coming together to cry for peace. So say cease-fire, some say a “cessation of hostilities,” some say humanitarian pause. Some just say, “Stop for the babies!” But the world is experiencing a kind of Pentecost as people cry out in different tongues with a unified call to end the violence.

Judaism teaches through the prophet Amos that God hears a united remnant against injustice. Islam teaches that “God is with the group.” And Jesus prayed that we all might be One, even as he and his Father are One. There is power in the unified cry of faithful people.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share moral convictions that ground our response to this moment.

We believe that every human being is created in the image of God. Both the Talmud and Islamic teaching say that to save a single life is to save all humanity, and Jesus extends the law of love for kin and neighbors even to those who are our enemies. Together we believe that every Israeli life is precious; every Palestinian life is precious; every single life is precious.

We also share the conviction that vengeance belongs to God. While governments have a right and duty to ensure security, our traditions insist on restraint and limits when the state exercises its power. No government knows enough to become the ultimate arbiter of justice.

Finally, our traditions share a commitment to justice, especially for those who are weak and vulnerable in this world. Whenever there is an imbalance of power, God hears the cries of those who are suffering and calls us to join their cry for justice.

Because of these shared convictions and our knowledge that a “three-fold chord is not easily broken,” we join our voices with Jews, Christians, and Muslims around the world who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the safe return of all hostages and civilian prisoners taken in the present conflict.

While “cease-fire” is a technical term of international law, our faith demands that we outline a basic moral call to CEASE-FIRE.

Confront and stop immediately indiscriminate violence against any civilian, especially women, children, and the sick.

End the denial of basic necessities to any population, including food, water, electricity, fuel, internet, and medical supplies.

Affirm the image of God in every human being.

Stop the practice of holding hostages and ensure the safe return of all hostages and prisoners home.

Exercise nonviolent power to build a just peace for all people.

Faithfully work as Jews, Christians, and Muslims to support a viable alternative to the brutality of Hamas and to challenge the Netanyahu administration’s practices of occupation and apartheid.

Insist that human rights for all people are nonnegotiable.

Raise a moral cry against murder, indiscriminate violence, war, and public policies rooted in vengeance, no matter which faith is used to justify violence.

Engage nonviolently to interrupt the violence that is being carried out against fellow human beings.

As people who are committed to manifesting beloved community and overcoming violence of any kind against any person or people, we steadfastly demand that justice be done and seek to protect the dignity of all human life regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or national identity.

We need a cease-fire for God’s sake, for the future’s sake, for the sake of the babies who are dying, and for the sake of our own humanity.

Jesus said, “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword,” and, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made clear, in an era of nuclear weapons that can destroy the whole world, our ultimate choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. Killing our future is worse than wrong; it is an act of despair that denies God’s hope.

Our faith compels us to lift up this moral call for a cease-fire. We invite any who share this conviction to join people of faith around the world who are praying and taking action for peace.

Bishop William J. Barber, II
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School
Repairers of the Breach

Shane Claiborne
Red Letter Christians

Mae Elise Cannon
Churches for Middle East Peace

Rodney Sadler
Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School

My heart grieves deeply with…

Palestinians and Israelis who are being devastated by violence — Jewish, Muslim, Christian…beloved, human.

Haitians living in a gang-controlled capital, victims of murder, abduction, extortion, and sexual violence.

Venezuelans who have been experiencing a humanitarian crisis in the form of utter privation, severe food and medicine shortages, the spread of infectious disease, and the world’s largest international displacement crisis.

The people of the Sahel region in western and central Africa who have experienced violent extremism since the 1960s as a result of political and economic hardship, as well as the worsening effects of climate change.

The 9,000+ people killed and nearly 6 million displaced in Sudan over the past 6 months, and their loved ones, as a result of a bitter power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, amidst a cholera outbreak.

The people of the rebel controlled Central African Republic where coalitions of militant Muslim groups fight coalitions of militant Christians (Christians who have primarily attacked Muslim civilians — not unlike the Hamas attack in Gaza…yea). Nearly 6 percent of the entire population died in 2022; over 1 million have been displaced by violence.

The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo. 6 million of them have died since 1996 as a result of war. Many of their children labor in Congolese mines owned and operated by Chinese companies who make the products Americans consume…yea, possibly the one you’re using right now.

The lovely people of South Sudan facing political instability and chaos where armed groups have targeted civilians based on ethnicity, have violently raped women, have destroyed and looted villages, and have recruited and used child soldiers.

Ethiopians who endure a civil war and Tigrayans who are experiencing ethnic cleansing there; as well as powerless women and children of other Ethiopian ethnic groups who have been victims of violence and war there.

Somalis who have been victimized by al-Shabaab militants (US violence/airstrikes have contributed to the death toll)

Victims of war in Yemen, 11 million of whom are children.

Lebanese people reeling from political disarray born of unresolved civil conflict between Maronite Christians, Shiite Muslims, and Sunni Muslims.

Unfortunately, the list goes on for quite a while: violence in Mexico, Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, India, Myanmar, Taiwan, North Korea, and in neighborhoods across the United States.

If you feel like there’s just too much to bear, you’re not alone. What should we do? What can we do? Lament…. wait there; keep lamenting…

Now, create healthy boundaries so you’re not constantly consuming all the brokenness in the world. Remember that not all of us have the privilege to make healthy boundaries because we are currently experiencing what others are only reading about. Some of us can’t hit pause when the content becomes too graphic. Get factual information about a select few issues that you find yourself being drawn to at a heart level, not simply because of the media attention it’s being given at the time. Contemplate — “mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies” (Rohr, 2023). Discern ways to oppose violence and advocate for peace (peace – shalom – is much more than the opposite of war). Identify ways you and/or your group are complicit (i.e. Christianity’s historic role in the Israel-Palestine conflict). Be about love and justice, starting with your neighborhood.

Adaptation from Rethinking the Police by Daniel Reinhardt

(Adapted from the Introduction)

I am a white male and was a police officer for twenty-four years in a racially diverse urban community. I was born and raised in the same community and lived most of my life in the city where I served. As a teenager, my high school had a dense population of African Americans. My wrestling team was coached by an African American man and most of the athletes were African Americans. Although only a few Caucasians earned spots on the team, I was fully welcomed and even loved. I developed friendships with my teammates, some of which have endured to the present day. After high school, I married an African American woman, and we have now been married for over twenty- eight years and have six children.

I am acquainted and even immersed to some extent in a diverse cultural context. I also have deep and meaningful relationships with African Americans. Yet sadly, neither my experiences nor my context freed me from the blindness and moral enslavement of police culture. For decades, I refused to accept what was painfully obvious for so many—police brutality against minorities is not an issue of a few isolated and disconnected incidents but a systemic condition of a compromised institution.

My Journey to the Light 

I began my law enforcement career at twenty-two years of age. I spent four months in the police academy, learning laws and standards of conduct as well as training in defensive tactics, driving, and firearms. The academy also indoctrinated me into a particular culture. For the most part, police academies are managed by police officers, and the training is shaped by the stories and experiences that the instructors tell. As a cadet, you’re not just learning the curriculum, you’re absorbing the officers’ attitudes, vocabulary, and mannerisms, and the instructors are seasoned cops, which is the future every cadet hopes to achieve. I remember one instructor whose extensive experience in street crimes captivated me. As a young man, I admired him and hoped to be just like him. Looking back, I can see how my experience in the academy began to reshape my thinking, speech, and even who I perceived myself to be.

After the academy, I spent four months with training officers. Approximately eight months after I first walked in the door of the police department, I was on my own in a police cruiser. My grasp of the power I possessed did not run much deeper than a single, superficial thought: I cannot believe they are letting me do this. Within my first year of experience, I found myself involved in car chases and fights with suspects who resisted arrest. I was on the scene at bar brawls and arrived in the aftermath of rapes and murders. On one occasion, I witnessed an officer shot and later stood less than fifty feet away as two other officers killed the suspect. This was my new normal, yet I still had not meaningfully reflected on the implications. But then something happened during one of my night shifts that forced me to reckon with the power I possessed.

Domestic violence calls are common at night, but this one would turn out to be anything but. The female victim was screaming so loudly that the dispatchers could hear her as the neighbor across the street reported the incident from their front lawn. I was only a block away when I received the call, but my backup officer was blocked by a train. When I arrived at the residence, I could hear the visceral screaming, and I was alone.

I walked up the broken steps that led to the front door, which was open but obstructed by a screen. I pulled it open and stepped inside the residence. Ten feet away, I saw a couch facing the door where a woman crouched as an African American male loomed over here. They were involved in a struggle, and she was screaming. The motion of the man’s arms and the intensity of the woman’s screams made it clear to me that she was being stabbed. I unholstered my gun and pointed it at the man, yelling for him to stop and to get on the ground. Instead, he turned toward me. In less than a second, he had closed the space between the couch and the doorway, leaving me no time to retreat.

My academy training had taught me that deadly force was the appropriate response to a knife attack. I knew that I could not stop him with my left hand alone, but I had no time to holster my weapon to free my right for self-defense. So I took the slack out of the trigger, preparing to fire.

But I never pulled the trigger.

For reasons that I could not explain at the time, I chose instead to grab the young man’s right hand with my left hand, knowing full well it wouldn’t be enough to stop the knife. To my surprise, he didn’t resist. I turned him toward the wall and handcuffed him. Still, there was no resistance. Finally, I turned him around to secure his knife.

It wasn’t there.

Despite my certainty seconds earlier, there was no knife, and there never had been.

Once I realized he was weaponless, I asked him, “Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you get on the ground?”

With anger and utter sincerity, he yelled, “I’m tired of her! I came out so you could take me to jail.”

I walked the man down the front steps I had crossed only a few moments earlier and placed him in the rear of my police cruiser. When I sat down in the driver’s seat, my hands began to tremble, but not because of stress or concern that my life had been in danger. I was used to those feelings by that point. Instead, I trembled at the realization that I nearly killed a man who had no intention to harm me.

For many years, I couldn’t explain why I never pulled the trigger and ended that young man’s life. My choice was completely inconsistent with my training. I was fully convinced that he was about to stab me and knew I couldn’t stop him by grabbing his hand. More than twenty years later, I now see that my faith was a key part of my response. Because I believed that young man was intrinsically valuable and created in God’s image, I valued his life. My values countered my training, tipping the scales in that encounter, and I am forever thankful they did.

Here’s what I’ve learned from that call and other experiences over two decades of law enforcement:

Police culture matters. Police officers are shaped by police culture, and that internal culture is present in every experience and every encounter they have as officers.

Internal culture shapes the ways police officers use force. If the culture does not promote valuing people and relationships within the community, the exercise of power—and specifically the use of force—can have catastrophic consequences.

Change is not impossible. Influences both within officers and in the culture of their department can reshape police officers and reorient the choices that they make.

The police will continue to use force, and officers will be in in situations like the one I described where their choice is literally a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of living in a fallen world. We cannot change that reality; however, we can take meaningful steps to ensure officers are shaped in a way that truly promotes valuing the lives of people—particularly people of color.

Adapted from Rethinking the Police by Daniel Reinhardt. © 2023 by Daniel Reinhardt. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.

What do you think of when you hear the word language? I know what I think of: the funny story my friend Sharon shared with me about her introduction to the French language as a college freshman. As a native English speaker majoring in Spanish because she hoped to enter the world of elementary education in California in the late ’70s, for some reason, the university required her to enroll in classes of yet another language. 

Each day, Sharon moved from her 10 a.m. Conversational Spanish 300 class to her 11 a.m. Introduction to French 102. To make matters worse, the professor did not allow anyone to speak anything but French in class. Sharon thought oui would be pronounced “oo-we” instead of simply “we,” and she was completely thrown off by the silent letters. For example, Bordeaux is pronounced bore-doh instead of “bore-dee-aux.” And she had thought English was weird. 

Nevertheless, she managed to get an A in that class because the teacher was just that good at using hand signals, a pointer, and repetition. Sharon eventually changed her major to liberal studies, and taught successfully for thirty-five years in California—as an English teacher. The moral of the story for her: Language and mastery take time, and we are all in different places in our journey. We should be patient with each other and with ourselves. 

I tend to agree. Language is more than the different tongues spoken by varying cultures around the world. Language is a tool for effective communication. And with so many languages, one would think we’d be able to get our ideas across to each other. But unfortunately, in our current social environment, and especially amongst the body of Christ, when it comes to effectively communicating the unity we should be displaying to the world, we are running around like the folks at the Tower of Babel who had just had their language changed. As long as their language was the same, they were of one purpose—building a tower to reach to heaven to make a name for themselves. The problem was, in their case, they weren’t supposed to be making a name for themselves. They were supposed to be living in a way to honor God’s name, so God put a stop to their efforts by confusing their language. When they discovered they could no longer connect verbally, they found others who talked like they did—who spoke the same language—and headed off to establish their own communities, leaving the tower as an unfinished reminder of their folly.

The society of Babel was fractured because of the people’s inability to communicate. 

The church is fractured today because of people’s inability to communicate. But thanks to the unifying blood of Jesus, this fact does not have to remain true. God has given us a tower to build—His kingdom. The completion of the building on earth is our responsibility and can only be done as we learn to communicate effectively as one body, the church. The family. 

But we have problems. Strained racial and ethnic relations, deceptions of various sorts of “privilege,” low esteem, and the like have driven a wedge between segments of the church—between the “black church” and the “white church” specifically—that has effectively separated us for so long that decidedly different languages have developed. And unfortunately, we seem to be just fine with this reality. However, I don’t think God is.

Romans 12:4–5 says, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (NIV1984). 

Diversity, you see, is God’s idea. He obviously enjoys it, or He wouldn’t have created it in the first place. But when our differences (e.g., ethnic, denominational, political) take precedence over God’s Word, and we bow at the altar of those man-made distinctions instead of at the foot of the Cross, we have a big problem. This is where we are today. We cannot work together as a body until we are able to communicate effectively. Until the fracture is fixed. 

For the last two decades I’ve helped implement diversity and inclusion measures for companies and organizations in the secular world; I know the deep impact and real change that comes from people speaking the same language in the workplace or boardroom. 

I challenge my faith family, the church, to rethink the way they talk about race and ethnicity; we need a new language for a new church era.  With effective communication, we can reverse the trend of separation so the body of Christ can function as an unfractured whole, bringing glory to our God, who can then operate on our planet through the unity of His family. 

Let’s enroll in class and learn a new language, shall we?

# # # 

Adapted from Unfractured: A Christ-Centered Action Plan for Cultural Change  by Skot Welch. Copyright 2023, provided by Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group. Used with permission. Welch is the founder of Global Bridgebuilders, an internationally respected diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting firm; he is also an ordained pastor and teaching Elder for Christian Life Center/Stones Church. 

This is a poem that I wrote regarding the violence in Gaza.  I feel helpless to do anything meaningful from so far away, yet am horrified by the footage I am seeing from the ground.  One of my professors in college always said that, “under anger, there is always sadness.”  I find myself very angry as I see new stories every day about children dying in refugee camps and underneath that anger is heart break that we—humanity—have allowed the world to become this way.  I think of the Sermon on the Mount.  Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.  The ER doctors and first responders on the ground in Gaza City are certainly children of God.  The children who pray from hospital beds for their parents who have already died are children of God.  May we do whatever is in our power, from near or far, to be peacemakers.  May we also be children of God.

Another Way
Meagan Ruby Wagner

Right now

There are children in Gaza writing their names on their arms

In shaky print with permanent markers

In the hope that if their bodies are unidentifiable

At least one of their arms will make it and 

And their families will have a piece of them to bury

And it does not have to be this way

There are dead mothers and dead children

Piled in sheet-shrouded rows

On the refugee camp roads

While sons and brothers and fathers

Wail and weep and gnash their teeth

And it does not have to be this way

There is blood in the ground

Blood in the rubble

Blood on the streets

Blood everywhere but in the bodies 

Where it belongs 

And it does not have to be this way

There are generation upon generation

Of sons and daughters who

Grow to be grandfathers and grandmothers

If they are the lucky ones

Who have never known peace for a day in their lives

And it does not have to be this way

Retribution after retribution after retribution

Revenge on revenge on revenge on revenge

Death that leads to death and graves that beget graves

And it will never end

Until someone decides

That it does not have to be this way

As I follow the daily news from Gaza, I find myself needing to actively resist feelings of anger, helplessness, and despair. I feel pressured to not only understand but justify Israel’s retaliatory and indiscriminate killing and destruction, based on its right to rescue its hostages, punish offenders, and defend its national security, or to justify Hamas’ killing, hostage-taking and escalating war based on historic and current injustices. What does it mean to actively pursue the way of Jesus as a viable alternative? How do we practice the Apostle Paul’s admonition:

“Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

I was horrified by Hamas’ attack on October 7. As I’ve traveled through that region and spent three months living on a Kibbutz I was able to envision it. I have deep sympathy for the families of the 1,400 killed, and for the hostages and their families. I recognize Hamas’ strategy of deliberately attracting Israel’s retaliatory violence against its own people, the Palestinians, to turn the Arab world and global public opinion against Israel. And I can also understand but how Israel reacted as they have.

Yet I can understand Palestinian rage as I’ve studied the history, visited and seen from a distance illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, witnessed Israeli soldiers firing rubber bullets on Palestinian youth, and heard first-hand accounts of atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestinians.

I am outraged by daily death tolls, and sickened by today’s update on the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza, 9,061– 3,760 of whom are children! Israel’s bombing of a refugee camp, a church, residential apartments, and possibly a hospital, show there is no safe place where human life is respected. The situation is dire and worsening, with ongoing killing, destruction of buildings, infrastructure, and much more death to come.

Lines are being drawn everywhere as people jump to defend Palestinians or Israel. Antisemitism is escalating in Europe and divisions between people are increasing as we all take sides. Sadly, Christians are caught up in the division, right when we have an opportunity to more fully embody and articulate Jesus’ refusal of violence, and alternate way of retaliatory love articulated clearly in Luke 6:27-28.

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

Though Jesus lived his life under the brutality of Roman imperial occupation, he never called for or justified retaliatory violence, and neither must we his followers today! Jesus called for and embodied active enemy love (Lk 6:27-36), practicing indiscriminate healing, deliverance and acts of compassion, including Jews and non-Jews alike.

Jesus raised a Jewish synagogue official’s daughter from the dead, healed a Roman centurion’s slave, delivered a Syrophoenician woman’s daughter from evil spirits and drew crowds from Syria and beyond (Mt 4:24-25). He refused retaliatory strikes against hostile Samaritans (Lk 9:55-56), and the use of violence for self-defense against those who came to arrest him (Mt 26:52). Jesus did this from a place of extreme realism regarding human nature, his own distinct mission, and the world around him, telling his followers:

“For nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will also be famines. These things are the beginning of birth pangs.” (Mk 13:8)

He prophesied that lawlessness would increase as history unfolded, which we are certainly experiencing today. Jesus didn’t speak about the coming turmoil to justify or endorse it. Rather he warned his disciples of the dangers of their love growing cold, a warning we must urgently heed now:

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved.” (Mt 24:12-13)

In the face of state violence and oppression, Jesus consistently embodied and openly stated his (and our) priorities:

“This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Mt 24:14)

For Jesus the kingdom of heaven was not about establishing an earthly kingdom. Nor was Jesus about defending or expanding the State of Israel. Jesus prophesied and lamented the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem, calling his followers to flee to the mountains in the face of an invasion rather than take up arms (Lk 21:20-21). His lament came out of deep love for his Jewish brothers and sisters, who he and the Apostle Paul never gave up on– but never liberated or defended with the use of violence.

Jesus actively lived out his humble, non-violent, retaliatory love to the extreme, allowing himself to be condemned to death by his own people, and brutally executed by the Roman Empire. Jesus died on the cross to forever “break down the walls of division,” “abolishing in his flesh the enmity” (Eph 2:15), “putting to death the hostility” (Eph 2:16), “preaching peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who are near” (Eph 2:17).

Now is the time for followers of Jesus to make a clear and consistent break with normal human reasoning and justifications regarding violence and war. Otherwise, we present the world with a counter-witness to Jesus’ way of saving and announcing the kingdom of God!

In these polarizing times we must be careful to not bear witness from a place of judgment or condescension, but from a humble posture of seeking understanding, and informed solidarity with victims. Jesus leads the way in identifying with the victim by himself becoming a victim. He models extreme intercession, asking his Father to forgive the worst perpetrators of injustice and violence- those torturing and killing God himself!

In these times of war may our intercession and lamentation include Israelis and Palestinians, civilians and soldiers, Hamas and Hezbollah combatants, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Israeli Defense Force, children and adults, Muslims, Jews, and Christians. And while we’re at it let us include Russians and Ukrainians, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, believers and non-believers, and anyone else who’s on the other side of whatever lines we’ve drawn.

Our intercession will also lead us to denounce injustices, pursue concrete peace-building activities, advocacy for the vulnerable, and other prophetic actions. May these actions be deliberately informed by indiscriminate love that refuses evil and drives away all fear. In this way we will offer the world an alternative that looks more and more like overcoming evil with good, rather than being ourselves overcome by evil.

It is true that “the word of the cross is foolishness”—or looks like it! However please remember it looks that way “to those who are perishing.” In contrast, “to us who are being saved [those actively drawn to Jesus and his way] it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18). May we knowingly embrace by faith the fragile-looking realism of the cross as God’s only weapon to defeat evil, and refuse all retaliatory violence.

Check out today’s podcast on this topic, “Engaging in Jesus’ activism in the face of war” on my weekly podcast “Disciple: Word, Spirit, Justice, Witness” via apple or spotify.

Also check out “A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians” here.

Christ at the Checkpoint Conference

Full Webinar from Saturday November 4, 2023
Webinar: A Call for Repentance: An Evangelical Response to the Israeli War on Gaza

I love Shabbat (the Jewish day of rest). I end my workweek in the early afternoon on Friday and bake the challah bread that I will bless. My daughter, who is away at college, sends me pictures of her challah. Hers usually comes out better than mine, and I am proud. But since October 7th, when Hamas militants massacred 1,400 Israelis, young people at an outdoor rave, entire families, and then Israel, drunk with revenge started carpet bombing, I haven’t felt able to light the Shabbat candles that usually warm my heart. The death toll keeps climbing – 2,000 killed, 5,000 killed, as I write this, over 9,000 lives, one-third of them children, are gone. Tomorrow the number will be higher. How can I enjoy the smell of bread baking while Israel’s siege is preventing food, water, and medicine from entering?

I traveled this past weekend to Alex Haley Farm in Tennessee for a retreat convened by Red Letter Christians, a movement whose motto is Jesus and Justice. I had been looking forward to the retreat for months, but given the depths to which my heart was aching and how unconnected I was feeling to my faith, I found myself trepidacious about being the only Jew at a Christian gathering.

Upon arrival though, surrounded by people who literally melt down guns and turn them into garden tools, a former soldier, now committed to militant nonviolence, and a woman who runs a Christian abortion rights organization, I knew that I was home among my people. 

During the Sunday morning service and communion, led by Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, who spearheads Episcopal efforts of racial reconciliation, I rediscovered my connection to G-d. Amid songs of worship, I whispered She’ma Yisraeli, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai E’chad (Hear O Israel, the Eternal is G-d. The Eternal is one). Graciously welcomed to join from my own religion, I took a piece of the bread they were passing around for communion and said motzi (Jewish blessings before eating a meal). I cried and for the first time in weeks felt hope for the future of humanity.

Amid ongoing bombing with no end in sight, and an announced intention by Israel to bomb Al Quds hospital in Gaza City, other horrors are occurring as well. In the Russian province of Makhachkala, a pogrom took place as a mob, chanting antisemitic slogans surrounded an airplane, aiming to attack Jews on board. At American University in Washington, D.C. a Palestinian-American professor had a death threat slipped under the door of his office. At
Cornell University, my alma mater, threats to kill and rape Jews caused a kosher dining hall to be placed on lockdown.

I don’t know how high the death toll in Gaza will climb or if the U.S. will be dragged into an all-out Middle East war. But after my experience this past weekend with the Red Letter Christians, and given the huge numbers of Evangelical Christians who support Israel’s actions, I am more convinced than ever of the need to embrace the interfaith aspect of our Beloved Community as we deepen and expand our calls for a ceasefire. 

The families of the Israeli hostages being held in Gaza have adopted the chant “Everyone for Everyone,” pleading for their government to agree to release all Palestinian political prisoners in exchange for their loved ones. Their cry has meaning far beyond the situation they are speaking to. Everyone for Everyone must be adopted by all of us. It is only through solidarity, a collective commitment to nonviolence and a struggle against all forms of hatred and oppression, that we can help the world to recognize that all people, no matter their religion, race, or nationality, are created in the image of G-d.

*Writing “G-d” instead of God is a custom of some Jews as a symbol of respect.

Ariel Gold is the Executive Director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest interfaith peace and justice organization in the world.

On September 17, I joined several of my sisters with United Women in Faith at the March to End Fossil Fuels. We hailed from Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and all over New York, where our organization is headquartered. Together, we took faithful action to urge President Joe Biden to end our nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

We have no more time to wait, and no more excuses to offer. The United States must end its reliance on fossil energy that is killing us slowly but surely through air pollution, toxic by-products, and further exacerbating the climate crisis.

The march was a precursor to the United Nations’ Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit, which was held on September 20. The historic turnout at the march was a demonstration of growing impatience around inaction on climate change. We are no longer willing to wait.

In total, more than 75,000 people participated in the march including national environmental and faith groups, people of all ages, and even international allies. For our part, United Women in Faith marched faithfully following the lead of frontline communities and joining voices of all faiths in demanding justice for people and creation.

As I thought of the significance of the gathering and the growing frustration over the lack of action to ensure clean energy, I realized that my work has cultural and spiritual significance. As a Latina mestiza, I recognize the legacy of resilience and resistance in my Latinix community, our practices to conserve paired with trust in providence to always welcome more at the table. Many of these practices are rooted in the wisdom of our Indigenous ancestors and Indigenous communities that have long resisted and maintained a relationship with creation based in mutuality and interdependence.

Mark Magana, founder of Green Latinos calls these practices – passed down from our parents and grandparents to conserve food, energy, water – ‘cultural environmentalism.’ And while you won’t see los abuelos y abuelas; our grandparents in a ‘Who’s Who’ of climate activists, for our Latinix community they were the first teachers of environmental stewardship we had, teaching us to love all what God has created. Spiritually, I get to not only answer to my Christian call to stewardship but to see God’s love and creativity manifested in creation. I’m often in awe by the many forms it takes and how God’s love lives in relationship to complex systems which I get to witness and be part of. This is both a humbling and dignifying experience.

As a Christian woman I strive to honor the sheer act of love it took to create the world that we enjoy today. Creation is a manifestation of God’s love for humanity. And as a Christian, I should be embodying the love that God has shown. Our faith calls us to love one another and creation and to take the streets and march for justice in times like these.

Participating in the march was meaningful as it was an opportunity to see grassroots organizers of all races, ethnicities, and religious affiliation. It was a chance to see myself as part of something so much bigger than myself. But it was also a chance to be a faithful witness in the fight to end the reliance on fossil fuels. It was a chance to say to people – including Black, People of Color, Indigenous and frontline communities like mine – who are living next to oil and gas facilities and infrastructure, I see and honor you. For people impacted by fossil fuels and climate disasters across the country, this was a moment to remind ourselves that our fight is global and that we are all impacted.

I marched with the intention of carrying on the work of people like Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta, one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century, and Ceasar Chavez, a staunch advocate for environmental justice. I marched understanding that as a Christian, I am mandated by God to care for creation, and nothing is more caring that advocating for the elimination of fossil fuels through a prompt and just transition that leaves no one behind.

We know that our work is much broader than marches, but we cannot forget the beauty of uniting in solidarity with people who are similarly fighting as we are. We also know that important work happens between mass mobilizations such as the Sept. 17 march. We have been supporting partners’ direct action, engaging our members, sending letters to legislators, and otherwise making our voices heard. For instance, we united in solidarity with the Green Climate Fund’s appeal to the White House to for the second replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF). The GCF is the world’s largest multilateral fund dedicated to investing in developing countries to address the climate crisis. This will ensure that transitioning to just energy is broader than an intention, but an embodied commitment. We cannot achieve just energy if we are unwilling to fund it. As Christians and peacemakers, we are being called to the peripheries of this ecological crisis and respond to its many challenges, but we must see this as an opportunity to re-build our relationships with human and non-human creation centering justice, equity, and love.

IIka Vega is the executive for economic and environmental justice at United Women in Faith. 

INTRODUCTION

It’s Easter week and I am re-reading well-thumbed events from the Gospels. Jesus passes the Mount of Olives as he approaches Jerusalem. The crowds are ecstatic, welcoming the Messiah to their holy city, daring to believe their days of Roman oppression are over at last. There is an expectant buzz. This is something the Jewish nation has been anticipating for centuries. The religious elite is less impressed. For all sorts of reasons – a mix of indignation, envy and fear – they tell Jesus to rebuke the over-exuberant mob. Jesus turns to them and says: I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.

This stops me in my tracks. What a weird statement! I imagine Jesus looking down at the ground, and perhaps shielding his eyes as the dazzling glow of the city wall comes into view. He is warning the Pharisees not to miss the uniqueness of this moment. If they do, he declares that the inert pebbles beneath their feet and the inanimate blocks of stone ahead will not be able to contain themselves. They will surely break into song at the coming of their longed-for Saviour. I feel included in that warning. Have I become blasé by skimming over these events? Am I in danger of missing the wonder of the living God disrupting routine, of the heavenly Father ushering his Son into the limelight? 

Taken for granted, downtrodden, without a voice. Yet it is surprising what you see from the ground level up. Time and again in the scriptural narrative, stones offer a fresh perspective on familiar events, imparting insights not imposed by us. We enter a Holy-Spirit-world where we are no longer central.

In the Old Testament, with minimum fuss, stones witness angelic dreams, carry commands, solemnise oaths, mark miracles, define boundaries, and signify integrity for God’s people. In the time of Jesus and his followers, they cry out, they release the dead, they become precious, they condemn crowds, they come alive, and then, at the end of time, they convey our unique name and form the jewel-like foundation of a new kingdom. It is not their crystal resonances and supposed chakra properties that grip me. More their acquired wisdom as overlooked but observant bystanders. A stone perspective is wonderfully non-egocentric, classless, gender-free, culturally inclusive, politically neutral and planet-attentive. It encourages me not to colonise biblical stories with my favoured assumptions.

The alcohol-ink illustrations produced by Sundy Lin Mabey, echo this, allowing the colours to wander and fuse, to find their spontaneous patterns and to somehow speak back.

Each chapter closes with an invitation to reflect on what God is saying through the Stones. The next time you are walking in a garden, a park, a field…ask the Holy Spirit to guide you towards a stone. Allow the stone to choose you, imagine the stone crying out to you. Once you have discovered the right stone, bring this to your private place where you regularly connect with God.

The Reflections also lend themselves to a small group where you can share what God has been saying to you in your private meditations with Him. A journal may be a good way of catching the insights and revelations that arise. Draw, doodle, write…be creative! Below is a sample chapter, the last of 27 meditations from the book.

Ch 27: WHITE STONE

To him who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give him a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it. (Revelation 2:17)

He first picked up the stone when he was sixteen. It was a revelation moment. It was like he had been running. From what and to what he wasn’t sure. But he finally stopped and he made his peace with God. To seal the pact as it were, God gave the young man a white stone.

It had some special markings which meant something special to him. Like a unique heavenly identity, a secret name, signifying a fresh start. Ever since the stone has always been close by.

There were times when he strayed away. On some occasions, it was almost as though he’d forgotten the stone, but he always returned, turning it over in his hand with a wistful look.

Now, he is holding the stone tightly in his palm. He is on his way to some kind of wedding. As he draws closer, he joins many others, each one with their hands tightly clenched. Maybe they are holding stones too. Now there are hundreds, a countless throng of people converging to the sound of beautiful music.

Finally, they assemble in a stunning building, more vast than a celestial city yet more intimate than a moonlit beach. Then into view comes this person in awesome attire – resplendent like a Bridegroom – moving amongst his guests. With a broad smile he checks their stones, and each time there is a jolt of joy as the giver and receiver fully recognise each other. Tears flow as the Bridegroom voices their unique name. A name he had bestowed on each guest so long ago, even before the beginning of time and sealed with a stone.

Then the turn of the man comes. His hand which had been clutching the stone so tightly like a precious entrance ticket, slowly opens. How proud he feels at that moment as the Bridegroom gazes lovingly at him and their eyes meet. Tears of joy well up as his secret name is whispered.

He has failed on many occasions, but he has also withstood trials, resisted many temptations, stayed true through thick and thin, and remained faithful to the end. Now – still holding the white stone – the man is affirmed as an overcomer.

Reflection
Recall the time you first became aware of God in your life. You may want to hold your stone…perhaps find a white one for this exercise. Spend some unhurried time thanking Him that he had you in his heart before the beginning of the world, that he came looking for you, and that he had a unique name already prepared for you. Bless him for the people who helped you discover Jesus and grow in him, for the miracles of grace along the way. Now look forward to the time you meet him face to face and for the special moment when he embraces you as an overcomer!

Excerpted from The Stones Cry Out by Chris Mabey. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2022 by Chris Mabey.