(This message was sent to my sister in England. She and her family met the writer during a visit to Israel)
“Christians in the middle east are both worried and upset by the American declaration that Jerusalem should be the capital of Israel. They are particularly concerned about the uncritical support given by American Evangelical Christians to Trump. These Evangelicals are despised here. They assume that all Christians believe as they do. Their unequivocal support of Israel has blinded their eyes to the injustices that occur here. They believe that Trump’s support of Israel is a fulfilment of prophecy even if it leads to world war. They justify it by distorting scripture. ( Sara then discusses end time prophesy which, they believe, predicts the coming of Christ to Israel in the “last days”).
We Palestinian Christians are treated as guilty by association and are stigmatised as Zionists by our fellow Christians. This brings Christians into disrepute because Trump’s policy dismisses the right of people for self-determination at the expense of justice and stability in this region.
Leaders should make every effort to be true and impartial mediators. Evangelical Christians of the USA continue to show partiality in defence of their particular theology. They are ignoring the plight of Palestinian Christians and don’t want to listen to our advice,which is born of reality on the ground. Our opinions are dismissed as politically motivated. Instead of engaging in reconciliation,the American Evangelical christians are indirectly inciting violence through their statements. They infer that all the news about how we are being treated is just propaganda. Evangelicals talk about “ good news”, but there is no “ good news” for the Palestinians, ( by “good news” evangelicals are talking about the Gospel).
My comment
Would someone please educate me? Where in the Bible does it exhort followers of Jesus to behave as American evangelicals behave, morally and politically? I understand their attitudes are tribal – we all are to some extent, and I understand that evangelicals elsewhere are very different, but these Americans not only torment Palestinian Arabs but support practically everything the boy President of the USA does and says, however gross, racist, divisive and bullying. How does one square this with Christianity? I am truly perplexed.
To be fair to the international Evangelical movement, uncritical support for Israel seems to be a uniquely American phenomenon. I grew up going to an Evangelical church, which had people from all over the world. I don’t believe one person there was as pro-Israel as your typical American Evangelical. There were a range of views, but interestingly no one ever took an extreme position. Of course, the Bible was written thousands of years before the modern nation of Israel was founded, and before the modern notion of Palestinian statehood came into being. The Bible teaches timeless principles, but trying to justify any political view on a religious basis is dangerous territory in my view. Many Evangelicals I know are actually surprisingly secular; their views on complex geopolitical disputes exist independently of their religious views. So I would tell you and Dr Sara not to worry. As soon as a Democrat replaces Trump as President, international pressure for a peace deal will grow in the absence of a US veto on the Security Council.
Very balanced and fair comment! Actually, it appears that the evangelical rank and file are, not the
reachers, aregetting more fed up with Trump. During a four-week period in August, 62 percent of white evangelicals said they approved of Trump, while 33 percent disapproved of the president and 5 percent said they had “mixed feelings.”. That’s a significant drop from the first four weeks of Trump’s presidency, when 73 percent of white evangelicals approved of his performance while 23 percent disapproved and 5 percent had mixed feelings.