At Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, World Senior Pastor Bob Roberts heard from his congregation grappling with the Israel-Hamas war and the emotional uproar it has stirred across the United States. Some are calling for more aid for Israel. Some people want the same for Palestinians.
“Our answer is that war is bad,” said Roberts, who founded the Dallas-area church in 1985. It is to help them understand that God created everyone in His image and that they all have a spark of divinity and should be given opportunities in life. ”
Dissatisfaction with the cost of the conflict and the growing number of Palestinian civilian casualties has left Israel increasingly isolated, as the recent Israel-Hamas war threatens to spark broader global discord.
But while some of the country’s roughly 210 million Christians strongly support either side, the war has strained interfaith relations, particularly between Jewish and Muslim communities. With anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents on the rise, many find themselves caught in the middle.
“We’re more of a bystander,” Chris Hall, a missionary with the Houston Northwest Church in Texas, said at a recent interfaith meeting. As tensions between groups become increasingly fragile, Hall said, “My response to my neighbors has gone deeper than it has in years.”
Some Christian faith leaders say it’s more important than ever to move from being a bystander to a more active role as a mediator.
“Christians should be in the middle of it,” said Roberts, who is also co-founder of the Texas-based interfaith organization Multi-Faith Neighbors Network. “For Christians, this is an opportunity to be peacebuilders, build bridges and continue the dialogue.”
He noted that some of the most influential Christian voices during the conflict belong to evangelical Christians, who strongly support Israel’s war effort and the U.S. Republican leadership. For example, John Hagee, founder of the San Antonio, Texas-based Christian Zionist group Christians for Israel, opened the meeting in 2018 when President Donald Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. A ceremony was held. He also made this call when former presidential candidate Nikki Haley began her campaign early last year.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of First Baptist Dallas, a 14,000-member megachurch in Texas, was one of the speakers at the Jerusalem embassy ceremony, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Southern Baptist and former member of the denomination, was among the speakers at the Jerusalem embassy ceremony. He was a senior executive.
Despite this, Roberts said, “Many Christians are working quietly behind the scenes, doing everything they can to promote peace.”
Todd Deseraj, a Christian and executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based peace organization Telos Group, said peacebuilding is central to what it means to be a Christian, but “it’s probably the most neglected aspect of Christian discipleship.” I think that’s the aspect of it.” Christians have a central and compelling theology of being peacemakers and healers, but we often don’t talk about that theology as much as we can and should be. Not known. ”
Today’s atmosphere provides not only an opportunity but also an obligation to fulfill that mission, he said. The situation is complicated by the fact that the conflict is occurring in an area known as a sacred site, which has overlapping importance to multiple religions.
“We really need to think outside of the dualistic mindset that for one person to win, the other has to lose,” Deseraj said. “That’s the activist framework, and it’s been around for a long time, and we’ve brought this conflict into our culture and now, as we’ve seen, onto college campuses. Reducing it to binary oppositions misses the fundamental truth that there is no good future for anyone in it unless there is a good future for everyone in it.”
Christians have different views on conflict
Conservative evangelical Christians are among Israel’s most ardent supporters.
“Christians who understand the Bible recognize that there are two sides to the war in Gaza,” said Jeffress, of First Baptist Church in Dallas. “To stand on Israel’s side to protect it from those who seek to destroy it is to stand on the right side of history and, more importantly, to stand on the right side of God.”
Nearly one in five evangelical Christians (18%) have heard a pastor discuss the war during a church service, according to a survey conducted last month by researchers at Boston University and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. That compares with 13% of Catholics and 10% of mainstream Catholics. Christian.
Nearly 3 in 10 respondents, including 36% of evangelicals, said their church prayed for Israel, but only 17% said their church prayed for Palestinians. Ta.
“The loudest organized Christian voice is that of the Christian Zionist movement, and they see this as a classic battle between good and evil,” Deseraj said. “That’s the mainstream voice, but there are also dissident voices within mainstream evangelicalism who are questioning and confronting violence on both sides, saying it’s wrong and leading us to an increasingly dark place.” I’m struggling with that.”
Author and journalist Sarah Posner said the most popular form of Christian Zionism is promoted by groups like the United Christians for Israel.
“Other countries, especially the United States, have a Biblical obligation to love and support Israel, and the idea is that God blesses those who bless Israel and curses those who curse Israel.” Posner, author of “Nationalists.” He gave power to President Trump’s administration and the devastating legacy they left behind. ”
“They say they support Israel, but what that means is they support the far right in Israel, the Netanyahu government, the settlements and the occupation. It does not represent any political ideology.”
Its conservative evangelical position is driven by the belief that Israel is at the center of the Bible prophecy of Jesus’ return to wage the final battle at Armageddon to defeat the Antichrist. she stated. As recently as last month, Mr. Hagee, founder and president of Christians United for Israel, delivered a sermon linking today’s conflicts to such prophecies.
“Theological views drive political views,” Posner said. “They consider any view of Israel that does not align with theirs to be anti-Semitic.”
That position is now being used to denounce demonstrations on university campuses against Israel’s response to the Gaza war, she said.
Conversely, more progressive Christian voices condemn both Hamas’ October 7 attack and Israel’s response and call for a mutually agreed solution to the conflict. Another important voice belongs to the black church, Deseraj said. In January, more than 1,000 Black pastors banded together to pressure President Joe Biden to call for a ceasefire in the war.
“They have their own experiences of silence in the face of injustice and are troubled by what’s going on,” he says.
Most Christians say peace requires mutual cooperation
A national survey of 1,252 American Christians conducted in November, nearly two months after the war began, found that most understand the complexity of the conflict, even if they don’t necessarily agree. found.
“Christians recognize that there are many nuances here,” said LifeWay, which conducted the survey under the auspices of the Philos Project, a coalition of Christian leaders advocating for pluralism in the Middle East. Scott McConnell, Executive Director of Research, said:
McConnell said respondents acknowledged the suffering on both sides and the reasons for action, but there was broad agreement that military action was not the way to achieve lasting peace. Nearly nine in 10 said they were dependent on a mutually agreed solution between Israelis and Palestinians.
The Rev. Mae Elise Cannon, executive director of the Middle East Peace Church in Washington, D.C., says many church leaders are reluctant to talk about war, fearing such discussions will cause division among congregations. he said.
“They become paralyzed with fear,” she says.
Desrage agreed.
“This is a complex and divisive subject,” he said. “It’s really hard to talk about this, so they’re probably more silent than speaking out.”
At the same time, he said, some people are committed to the issue even if they don’t feel they need to understand the issues and history behind the decades-long conflict.
“As Christians, it is important to weep with those who cry and to recognize the humanity of all people, including Palestinians and Israelis,” Deseraj said. “Many are taking seriously the Gospel command to feed the hungry and are trying to find ways to get humanitarian aid to Gaza and lift the blockade. There are lines that connect in that way. It is.”
Some say Christian intervention is needed at home as well, given the deep polarization that has pushed many religious ties to breaking point.
Cannon said some church communities are afraid to voice their concerns about Israel for fear of severing ties with local synagogues and Jewish communities. She said a pastor recently told her that after a decades-long relationship, he felt Christian pastors had done a great disservice to the Jewish community.
“He said, ‘We didn’t want to offend our Jewish rabbis and friends, so we kept quiet about Palestine and didn’t tell them what we really thought,'” she said. . According to her, the pastor continued, “‘Come on,'” he said. What kind of friendship is that? ”
