The Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb is the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Palestine. During our study tour in Israel and Palestine we visited his church, worshiped with them on Sunday morning, and enjoyed a fabulous meal. Rev. Raheb only had a few minutes to greet our team before leaving on an international trip. But his new book has been compelling and powerful; it may be one of the most important books I have studied this year. This book, and especially his understanding of history, challenges me, and our church.
Mitri Raheb, Faith
in the Face of Empire: The Bible Through Palestinian Eyes , (2014).
Quoted from
Chapter 1: History and the Biblical Story
“As a Palestinian, the history of my
country can be traced from primeval times until the present. For Palestinians,
the Romans were not the last empire. Our history continued after the Romans
with the Byzantines (332), Arabs (637), Tartars (1040), Crusaders (1099),
Ayyubides (1187), Tartars (1244), Mamluks (1291), Mongols (1401), Ottomans
(1516), British (1914) and Israelis (1948/ 1967), to name just the main
occupiers. . .
. . . In looking at the myriad works on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, all start at some point in the late nineteenth century with the
beginning of the Zionist movement. Scholars have studied every conceivable
aspect of this conflict. And yet all of these studies are done in historic
isolation. They lack that historic depth of the centuries and, while they focus
on the uniqueness of the current conflict, they fail to see it as part of an
ongoing pattern. This historic disconnect leads to false political analyses,
for which the Palestinians are paying a high price. . . .
. . . Yet, I also see how the entire Bible, both Old and New
Testaments, struggles to find a faithful response to various and recurring
empires. I understand sacred history to be one response to the secular
histories of brutal empires. As powerful empires continue to be a recurrent
theme in the history of Palestine, the question of God remains crucial, and faith
is both challenged and engaged.”
My Question:
Mitri
Raheb offers a compelling understanding of history, and the study of history,
which takes into account the full chronological sweep of the generations.
But
this understanding of history is directly opposed to an understanding of
history which supposes a bold, theological connection between the Genesis
covenant with Abraham and modern Israel’s status as a nation-state, indeed, an
expanding nation-state which increasingly includes the Palestinian’s land. This
understanding of history jumps from the biblical narrative of Genesis to the
modern state of Israel. This conceptual jump, in Mitri Raheb’s opinion, makes
the Palestinians “theologically invisible.”
In
this example, a commitment to mutual forbearance
, a foundational Presbyterian doctrine, completely breaks down. Both of these
different views of history, and the consequences of these views, cannot be legitimate
and acceptable.
Yet,
these opposing views co-exist in our church. How should we respond?
