Fellow believers at risk

Two recent incidents of violence against Palestinian Christian churches raise some big questions, even among strong supporters of Israel. Earlier in July, the Christian community in Taybeh in the West Bank was attacked. Then on Thursday, July 17, the Holy Family Catholic church in Gaza was hit by Israeli shelling, killing three Christians inside. This has elicited widespread outrage from a diverse group of Christian voices, and it highlights a major area of conflict between politics and religion. All-too easy to ignore or forget, Palestinian Christians are our spiritual brothers, members of the one body of Christ. They deserve our true love and support.

Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza has been going on for nearly two years. It began with the heinous attack of Oct. 7, 2023, in which Hamas militants from Gaza killed more than 323 Jewish civilians and took 251 hostages. Many of those hostages were subsequently killed. At least 50 are still to this day being held captive. There was no moral ambiguity to the start of the Gaza War. Israel was the victim, and it has every right to defend itself against an aggressor who has shown extreme disregard for human life and all of the conventions of a just war.

But as the war has dragged on, and brought with it more and more collateral damage, other questions do arise. Initially opposition to Israel was mostly a left-wing phenomenon, with perhaps a sprinkling of exotic far-right or libertarian critics joining in. But the events of the past few weeks have changed the lay of the land noticeably. Pope Leo XIV denounced what he called “continuous military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza.” The Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem shared a statement from a broad coalition of Palestinian Christians calling out “systematic and targeted attacks” against Christians in the West Bank. Even U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee weighed in, calling the violence in Taybeh “an act of terror, and ... a crime.”

American Christians, and especially evangelical Protestants, have been some of the strongest supporters of Israel on the planet. This support is driven by of a sense of a shared religious heritage and a common “Western” political outlook, and Israeli Jews have been seen as obvious allies. Palestinian Christians, however, have tended to be overlooked or ignored.

As of 2022, there were about 185,000 Christians in Israel, with around 50,000 of those living in Palestinian areas (including Gaza). Those Palestinian numbers are now dramatically shrinking, and reliable figures are hard to come by. But they are not gone. The vast majority of these Christians are Arab, and they represent a range of different Christian traditions. Catholics (Roman and Eastern), Orthodox, and Protestant Christians all worship in Israel and even in some Palestinian-controlled areas. The various Orthodox churches claim to reach back to the earliest days of Christianity. The Catholic churches there go back to the Middle Ages. But even the Protestant congregations in Israel are older than many people might think. The first Anglican parish was built in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1849. The Anglican diocese of Jerusalem now claims 7,000 members. The Lutheran Church of the Redeemer was completed in Jerusalem in 1898.

It's all too easy to exclude Israeli and Palestinian Christians from consideration as our attention is dominated by the more high-profile political concerns. When we hear the names Israel and Palestine, we think of Jews and Muslims. But the Body of Christ resides in the Promised Land as well, and it is currently suffering.

It's hard to put ourselves in the headspace of a Christian living in Gaza or the West Bank. Their political goals must be quite different from America's. Who are their spokesmen? Indeed, some American Christians have minimized or dismissed them as terrorist sympathizers. And yet they have the same “one faith, one Lord, one Baptism” (Ephesians 4:5) as all true Christians everywhere. They are our brothers and sisters. Will American Christians choose to suffer with them?

Support for Israel is usually cast in terms of supporting freedom and democracy. At other times it is framed as a way to combat anti-Semitism and defend the very existence of Jewish persons. Insofar as these ways of framing the matter are correct, then such support is indeed noble and virtuous. But there is an even more basic virtue and good that Christians must not lose sight of: “as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). On a spiritual level, Christians are intimately united to the Christians of Israel and Palestine. In terms of the “order of love,” they enjoy a greater priority than do non-Christians in the same region. They are members of the same body, the Body of Christ.

This observation doesn't answer any of the tricky political questions. It doesn't negate Israel's right to destroy Hamas. It doesn't tell us how much funding to approve or what sort of aid packages to send. But it does mean that American Christians must recognize, love, and pray for Christians in Israel. We should seek after their good. And if we don't know how best to help them, we should at least start asking those hard questions.

Editor's note: This column has been updated to correct a statement about the Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem and the Global South Fellowship of Anglicans.