Paul Thabet’s Reviews > The Other Side of the Wall: A Palestinian Christian Narrative of Lament and Hope > Status Update

The hypocrisy of the Christian world is so telling when it comes to its silence and even opposition to the right of return of these refugees. On the one hand, they celebrate the "return" of Jews two thousand years later to "their land" while denying the right of return to Palestinians who were expelled from their homes seventy years ago, many of whom still hold the keys to their houses.

When I see human cruelty and war, the silence of God does not trouble me; it is the silence of the church that troubles me. We are too busy with ourselves, occupied with our "festivals," "assemblies," "offerings," "songs," and "melodies of harps." And God says, "I hate all of this!"The church is too noisy. When will it quiet down enough to hear the cries of those experiencing injustice in our world?

The church has mastered the art of covering the wounds!
Real justice challenges unjust structures. As Bonhoeffer once said, "We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself."

Would Jesus stay silent in the face of injustice? What kind of a message do we send to those who are suffering from injustice if our answer to them is: "Sorry, we do not engage in politics." The message we communicate when we say such things is simple: "God does not care!" or rather, "I have more important religious concerns than your suffering". In fact, our silence towards injustice is an approval of this injustice

The prevalence of Christian Zionism among white evangelicals in particular raises questions about the relationship between theology and those in positions of power and privilege and how the powerful and privileged tend to support the powerful and privileged.

We are talking about billions of dollars given (by white evangelicals) to the Israeli army and in support of illegal Israeli settlements, built on land confiscated by force from Palestinian families (including Palestinian Christians).

It is well documented how the Bible has been used over the centuries by Christians to justify slavery, apartheid, colonization, and the oppression of women in the church. Today, the Bible and Christian theology are being used against Palestinians, while also being utilized for those in power to legitimize and strengthen their positions of dominance and control.

It is infuriating to consistently deal with outside attempts to dictate to us what our situation is or impose certain perspectives that suit other/Western worldviews about our reality. When it comes to life, we know about this situation too well. We are living it. We are not inventing our suffering. The checkpoint is our reality. The question here is, Why are we being silenced and cancelled (by western Christians)?