As both Eastern and Western Christians prepare to celebrate Easter, the divide between Palestinian Christians and those in the West has never been larger. The core of this divide is the racist theology of Christian Zionism.
This weekend, in a rare occurrence, Christians of all denominations will be celebrating Easter at the same time as Eastern and Western Christian calendars coincide. Yet, as has become an undeniable reality for many Christian Palestinians, the only thing we share in common between our Easter and the Easter of many Christians in the West is the sheer coincidence that these celebrations are falling on the same date.
In fact, the gap between Christianity as Palestinians know it, and have known it for two thousand years, and how it is understood by many Christians in the West, has been widening since October 2023. It continues to grow with every day that passes without Western Christians speaking out against Israel’s genocide. This gap is even more striking in the United States with the presence of the Christian Zionist movement, and especially its influence in the Trump administration.
In January, Trump’s pick for the position of U.S. ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik, said in front of a congressional hearing that she shared the views of Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich that Israel “has a biblical right to all of the West Bank.”
Christian Zionism in the United States is mostly an evangelical phenomenon, but not exclusively. According to the Pew Research Center, 63% of white evangelicals in the U.S. believe that the state of Israel fulfilled a biblical prophecy. But Stefanik herself is Catholic. Pew shows that a quarter of white U.S. Catholics shared the same views. This indicates that Christian Zionism has its roots in an American, or probably a more widely Western, Christian narrative, rather than in a strictly evangelical tradition. (more...)
How Christian Zionism is helping to crucify the birthplace of Christ
No comments:
Post a Comment