World Council of Churches
Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches
Reformed Churches Bern-Jura-Solothurn
Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF)
INTERNATIONAL THEOLOGICAL CONFERENCE
“Promised Land”
Church Center Bürenpark, Bern, Switzerland
10 - 14 September 2008
The Commitment of the Church to the Quest of a Just Peace
A Palestinian Perspective
Rev. Fadi Diab
Anglican Church in Palestine
I bring you the greetings of your brothers and sisters in the Holy Land! Their greetings and love to you come from Jerusalem, the mother church of our faith. They greet you in the same words with which Christ greeted them after his resurrection: “Peace be with you”.
Our subject, the commitment of the church to the quest of a just peace, is both old and new. It is an old subject we have been talking and hearing about for years. It is new in that we need to keep ourselves alert that the business of the church is to call and work for a just peace all around the world and specifically, in our conference’s context, in the Holy Land. The church today is called more than ever to be involved in peacemaking and reconciliation. Theology today has to deal not only with external questions but to look deep inside to the questions related to human beings and their daily life with its difficulties. One of the definitions of theology is “faith seeking understanding”. I see “understanding” as related not only to God, his covenant, law, land, but also to human beings, their life, experience and situation, and especially their sufferings. Our people look to the church, its theologies, liturgies, and practices, and expect to see, hear, and find what the church says to them in their situation related to their faith journey.
I want to make two points. First, unless one lives in the middle of the conflict, one cannot understand it completely. Talking about the conflict is informative, being inside it is transforming. Second, theological discussions, hermeneutical interpretations and philosophical implications are important in building our process, but what I care about is making these discussions, interpretations and implications relevant to the life of the people in the Holy Land. Otherwise we will be talking on a scholarly level, leaving the grassroots unaddressed. They are not interested in theological and philosophical approaches to their sufferings. In what way will this conference affect the life of the people who suffer in the Middle East? What is the next practical step that needs to emerge?
I am going to present our subject not through hermeneutical exegeses or systematic theology or other approaches but through a prophetic pastoral theology that has to do with daily life in the land made holy by God. Before we talk about the quest of a just peace, we first need to understand the Palestinians and their situation.
Sixty years after the nakba (catastrophe) and more than forty years after the occupation of the Palestinian territories, we hear everyone talking about peace and the “peace process” in the Middle East; but what Palestinians notice is a difference between the political discourse and the facts on the ground. Conferences and panels take place here and there, but they see no effect on their lives and situation. Palestinians are still humiliated from day to day. Our life conditions are getting worse and worse. Stealing Palestinian land, the Israeli colonies continue to expand. The apartheid wall imprisons 2.5 million Palestinians in small cantons in the West Bank, 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are under siege, and 5 million are refugees spread all over the globe. The complete disregard of UN resolutions, opinions of the International Court of Justice and declarations of the international community in favour of the Palestinian people add to our hopelessness and anger.
The consequences of the continuing denial of Palestinian individual human dignity and collective nationhood are extremely grave. The absence of any perspective for peace and freedom pushes young people, Muslims and Christians alike, to emigrate, depriving the Holy Land of its main resource: young educated people. The alarming decrease in the number of Christians in Palestine will deprive the Holy Land of its living stones, without whom the holy places will be museums and not places of worship.
What are we doing to meet the Palestinians’ inquiries and difficulties? This reminds me of the question of the Lord to Elijah “What are you doing here?” Elijah’s answer was “I have been very zealous for the Lord… for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword” (1 Kings 19:10). Elijah did not answer the question right. In difficult circumstances, a zealous prophet does not flee. If the church is zealous for the Lord and his ministry, then escape from the situation is not an option.
The true response of the church involves an authentic call for justice and peace in the Holy Land. The message is simple: the suffering of the Palestinians has to come to an end! Our people would love to live in peace and harmony like other peoples. They want a free life, uncontrolled by occupation and restrictions. They want to build their own state, connect with their neighbours, and have a hopeful future. This cannot happen without the direct and immediate commitment of the worldwide church.
First, the Palestinian understanding of the Bible is that we stand together in rejecting all interpretations of scripture that sanction and legitimize violence, domination, oppression, exclusion and injustice. We believe all humans are created in the image of God to live in freedom and dignity. A God who supports the state of Israel in its occupation and oppression of the Palestinians is not the God we encounter in Jesus Christ. Occupation means submission and slavery. When we understand God as known in Jesus Christ, we cannot but believe in a loving, merciful, just God whose will can never be to occupy, oppress, or exclude. Any occupation of any people is against God’s will.
We Palestinians are part of God’s kingdom, equal members of the people of God. In Jesus Christ, we have inherited the covenants, the promises, including the land, to be servants of the living Lord in the land made holy by him. Christ is our shepherd who reflects to us the love of God, and in him we have our faith, hope, and commitment to our mission. He is our hope: without his love that embraces all of us, we could not live a single day in the Holy Land. We cannot look at our suffering apart from our faith in Christ, and we cannot look at our presence apart from our mission in the land and our calling to be light to the whole world.
Second, we assert that the modern state of Israel is not a theological extension of biblical Israel. Like any modern state, the state of Israel can and should be held to the standards of international law.
Third, we see that the Palestinian Christian witness has a role in helping the state of Israel and all its peoples discover God’s will. Our witness entails deconstructing any theology (state theology) that supports expansionism, occupation, and apartheid. It also entails equality, because all human beings are created in God’s image and likeness and any assault on the dignity, integrity, or life of any person is an offence against God.
Fourth, any commitment to the quest of a just peace should challenge the “theology of balance” that uses the discourse of peace, reconciliation, and fairness to insist that there are two equally valid narratives to be considered. This approach masks the fact that the real situation is not a symmetrical conflict between two equal parties but one of structural injustice. This theology gives priority to reconciliation and love over justice and seeks to build relationships between people while effectively ignoring structural oppression and violence.
Fifth, in rejecting this “balanced theology”, which is in fact a state theology, the church should turn to a prophetic theology that presents biblical justice in the light of God’s love. Loving justice and righteousness lead to inner transformation and repentance as well as to loving our neighbour.
Sixth, there can be no peace without justice, no peace without dignity, no peace without recognizing the other, no peace without sharing the earth together equally. Only justice will create security for all inhabitants of the Holy Land. Meanwhile, the occupation continues; the apartheid wall and the confiscation of more and more land divide Palestinians from their brothers and sisters. There is no prospect of peace and security, because justice has never been a priority in any peace settlement and without justice no settlement is possible.
Palestinians are frustrated as they see all the restrictions and limitations paralyzing the church in calling directly and loudly for justice and peace. In response to the quest of a just peace today, we need prophets who not only speak but also act prophetically. We need prophets to stand and say “enough is enough: no more words without actions”. We need prophets to stand with the dehumanized and marginalized Palestinians, feeling with them, connecting with them, and being their advocates for the sake of justice.
The church should confess that it did not act prophetically towards Palestinian suffering in particular and the conflict in general. It did not stand with the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, and the marginalized. It did not act prophetically to end the illegal occupation of Palestine. Church passivity and “neutrality” in the face of the humiliation of the Palestinian people led to more oppression and misunderstanding of the church’s position on the conflict.
Today we are called to a new commitment in our covenant, where God has called us to a new life and a new ministry led by the Spirit of love and healing; where we will not be ashamed, for our God is the Lord of love, justice and peace; where our children will be taught by the Lord, and great shall be their peace; where in righteousness we shall be established, and oppression and terror shall not come near us.
The life of the Palestinians today is full of bad news; we are called to bring them good news. We see them stuck in poverty and frustration and are called to help them maintain a decent life. We see them imprisoned behind a giant wall and are called to proclaim release for them and work for it. We see them under occupation and are called to work with them for their freedom.
We are all invited to share in the prophetic commitment to healing, restoration, and a new peace, where the Spirit will be upon us and the words of the Lord will not depart from our mouth nor from the mouth of our children nor from the mouth of our children’s children. We are called to a prophetic pastoral ministry of justice and reconciliation where we seek the truth and work for it; where we bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and let the oppressed go free.
The time has come! To stop being diplomatic, stop compromising justice, and to be prophetic. The time has come to raise our voices for justice, peace, and reconciliation and an immediate end to the illegal occupation. The time has come to help the poor and support the weak, because our passivity leads to more destruction and suffering. The church is called today to be a voice of justice and mercy for the voiceless, protect the innocent, break its bread with the hungry, heal the sick, call for freedom for the captives, share its joy with the sad, and be a channel of justice, love, peace, and hope to its brothers and sisters in the Holy Land.
