The Christian Faith in the Context of Gaza

By: Yohanna Katanacho – used with permission

Rev Dr YOHANNA KATANACHO is a professor of Biblical Studies and Academic Dean at Nazareth Evangelical College. He is a Palestinian Israeli evangelical who studied at Bethlehem University (BSc), Wheaton College (MA), and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (MDiv; PhD). He has authored many books in English and Arabic including The Land of Christ: A Palestinian Cry

The reason why I used the title “The Christian Faith in the Context of Gaza” is a deep personal conviction.  I do not want to live out my faith in isolation from my political reality, nor do I want to face my political reality in isolation from my Christian faith.

As an Israeli Palestinian I am personally connected to the Israeli wars. In 1967, I was born in an Israeli war and I encountered pain and trauma even as a child as Israel occupied Gaza. I was six years old on Yom Kippur war in 1973. I was 15 years old on the 1982 war with Lebanon; I was 18 years old when Israel faced Hezbollah in Lebanon in 1985. This is the same year that I graduated from high school and joined Bethlehem University. Then I encountered the First Intifada in 1987 and was arrested for going to a chemistry class. My university was closed for almost 3 years. I lost the right to study and suffered from unemployment.

No doubt, wars polarized our societies, dehumanized our nations, and spread hate in the name of political justice. The ethical standards of nations were compromised; human rights were violated; war crimes became common. Palestine had been suffering from the Zionist project. Yet, as believers, we are called to be light and salt in midst of wars.

As followers of Christ, what is our responsibility during such conditions and wars?

FIRST, we need to affirm the biblical mandate to preserve human lives. We are not only commanded to avoid killing but we are also expected to protect human lives. The midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and protected the lives of the innocent children (Exodus 1: 15-21). Moses’ mother and sister sought to preserve the life of Moses (Exodus 2). Jonathan warned David to preserve his life from Saul, the royal dictator (1 Samuel 19-20). Obadiah hides one hundred prophets from Jezebel’s and Ehab (1 Kings 18: 3-4). He saves their lives breaking the laws of the king and Queen providing them with water and food. Jesus challenged the Pharisees claiming that rescuing the life of a person is more important than keeping the Sabbath (Mark 3: 1-6).

Ignoring a dying human being on the side of the road is not an option for the followers of Christ, even if the injured person is a Samaritan or an enemy (Luke 10: 25-37). The church sought to rescue the life of Paul by lowering him in a basket (Acts 9: 23-25). All crimes against life are sins against God and human beings.

We must protect the lives of both Jews and Palestinians fighting against the culture of death and replacing it with the culture of life. We can embody this principle by celebrating the life of every human being. Every Palestinian or Jewish child is a gift from God.

SECOND, we must affirm the centrality of love during wars. Love is the greatest commandment in scriptures. We cannot be followers of Christ without love. Love must include loving God, neighbour, and the enemy. It is difficult to talk about love during a season of war. There is so much hate in the media, in our streets, and even in our worship centers. To hate your neighbour and to act selfishly is embedded in political ideologies. It is becoming part of influential religious ideologies. We struggle with hate every day when we encounter checkpoints, violence, discriminatory laws, religious extremism, powerful empires, and systemic oppression. Yet we are called to love. Love is such a mysterious word in the context of hate. What does it mean? How can we pursue a politics of love and a civilization of love?

I will speak about three areas of love:

• covenantal,
• Christological,
• and missional love.

Covenantal love is the only celebrated kind of love in the Old Testament. The Bible says, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6: 4-5). Loving God empowers us to love all people. Thus, covenantal love is important in a country that is marked with diverse denominations, religions, and communities that seek to destroy each other.

Covenantal love leads us to Christological love. Christ is the telos of the law (Rom 10: 4).[12]

You cannot love God and hate Christ. Christ embodies Covenantal love.

The love of Christ for his enemies is one of the most striking revelations in the New Testament. Christological love prompts us to pursue the love and salvation of our crucifiers. It even perceives the cross as the medium of their salvation and liberation from sin.

Through our unity with the sufferings of Christ, that is orthopathos, our crucifiers encounter Christ, his love, and his Kingdom. This transforms our embodiment of the Christological love into a missional Kairos or missional liberating love. Palestinian Christians are called to not only love all Palestinians but also all Jews. Such love liberates our country from hate. Any Christian who does not approach our region with such love will be part of the problem not part of the solution.

THIRD, love is not an excuse to abandon justice. It is an opportunity to pursue justice with the right heart. But what kind of justice are we pursuing? We need an adjective that can describe God’s understanding of justice. I propose Christological Justice. Christ embodies justice in the mission of God to redeem humanity. Christ is the justice of God. Moreover, we might label such justice missional justice. This justice is an embodiment of both God’s love for humanity and for truth.

When Christ wanted to summarize all the justice of the Old Testament, he summarized it with love. Love is the other side of the coin of divine justice. Love is the womb that produces justice. The cross is the best embodiment not only of love but also of justice. God addresses sin in love. Through the suffering of Christ love paved the way for the dawn of justice. This leads me to unpack orthopathos in the famous example that Christ provided. If someone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other cheek. Between the first strike and the possibility of the second strike. The person who is under attack can choose to revenge or to accept oppression by apathy or to choose the way of the cross. In such a way a person asks himself or herself: am I willing to suffer for the sake of bringing the Kingdom of God to this situation?

By accepting the cross our identities are transformed from a victim to a missionary, a messenger for the Kingdom of Christ. Palestinians can transform their suffering into kingdom energy that produces God’s love by God’s grace. This can be done through humanizing our struggle and our enemy. By giving the other cheek, we not only declare our humanity we also give a second chance to the oppressor by allowing them to rediscover their own humanity. Demonizing people is common in wars but we need to continually rehumanize people who are created in the image of God. We must do this in our media, theology, preaching, and all our discourses.

FOURTH, affirming our commitment to biblical love and justice is the only way for us to become Christian peacemakers. In our calling as peacemaker we must confront and resist evil in love. We also must resist evil in all its forms whether it is personal, political, or ecclesiastical. Evil can be individualistic but it also can be systemic. It can be in our culture and even in our theology. Evil can appear in lies and propaganda, in stereotyping and demonizing nations. Evil can justify revenge and promote hate. Several Israeli politicians are saying: we will never forget or forgive. Such statements lead to a life imprisoned in hate and fear.

FIFTH, practical steps are needed in our pursuit of peacemaking. No doubt, we need to address the huge humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. But we also need to deconstruct many theologies that lack mercy and promote eschatological wars. Our theological systems must be tested with biblical ethics. Any theology that lacks love is not compatible with God’s vision which became visible in Jesus Christ. Theology without love or mercy or equity is a dangerous ideology.

Furthermore, we need to seek long term solutions in which Palestinians and Jews are equally appreciated and loved. The global church is responsible before God to promote Christ in every circle in which God located us. Many churches advocated Israel instead of Christ. Some promoted war instead of peace. Some overlooked the needs of the Palestinian church and supported a Jewish State instead. Perhaps, the time is ripe to experience a paradigm shift in which we seek to honour Christ, empower his church, and advocate justice for Palestinians as well a life of dignity and equity for both Palestinians and Jews. Palestinian citizens of Israel are a great asset in advocating this reality. They are bilingual speaking Hebrew and Arabic. They are bicultural. Their churches and institutions are a great asset for peacemaking.

The global church should invest in promoting God’s work in the Holy Land. This land has a unique calling in illustrating the words of Christ; its stones are crying out pointing humanity to God. May the Lord establish the needed partnerships for advocating the Kingdom of Christ, a kingdom of love, peace, justice, and equality.