On Holy Saturday, we held a multi-faith vigil for Palestine in the Lower Gardens in Bournemouth. We walked in solemn procession to the pier, dug a grave in the sand and buried dolls representing the 15,000+ babies killed by Israel in Gaza. I spoke briefly about the Palestinian Christian community and their resilient faith contrasted by the silent complicity and cowardice of Western church leaders unwilling to hear and respond to their cry for justice.
“Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world”,[1] insisted the Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac in his now famous 2023 Christmas sermon, entitled, “Christ in the Rubble.”[2] It is sobering to realise that for the first time in history, genocide is being recorded live on social media by the victims themselves. No one can now say they did not know.
I am sure we would all agree that Al Qaida is no more representative of Islam than Zionism is of Judaism, or the Crusades are of Christianity. But the reality is, as we see in the close relationship between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Christian Zionists are the dominant supporters of Israel’s genocidal agenda in Palestine.
Following the tragedy of 9/11 and the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York, multi-bestselling author and Christian journalist Anne Coulter, wrote,
“We don’t need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific attack. We don’t need an “international coalition.” We don’t need a study on “terrorism.” … We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren’t punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That’s war. And this is war.”[1]
More recently, at the July 19th, 2006, inaugural event for Christians United for Israel, in Washington DC, after recorded greetings from the then President, George W. Bush, and in the presence of four US Senators as well as the Israeli ambassador to the US, Pastor John Hagee, stated :
“The sleeping giant of Christian Zionism has awakened. If a line has to be drawn, draw the line around Christians and Jews. We are united. We are indivisible. And together we can reshape history… Iran is a clear and present danger to the United States of America and Israel… therefore it is time for America to embrace the words of Senator Joseph Lieberman and consider a military preemptive strike against Iran to prevent a nuclear holocaust in Israel and a nuclear attack in America.”[2]
Thankfully, most Christians in the US as well as Europe repudiate Christian Zionism as a gross distortion of Christianity and grave insult to the teachings of Jesus the Christ.
This article was originally published in May 2024. Between October 2023 and February 2024, the Church of England Archbishops and Bishops issued five statements on the genocide in Gaza (carefully avoiding using the term). Since February 2024, they have been completely silent despite mounting and indisputable evidence of genocide and war crimes, reported by the United Nations, to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice, by human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and indeed even by Christian leaders in Palestine. It has indeed been a year of shameful silent complicity, not just by the Church of England but virtually every Western mainstream denomination.
“Gaza today has become the moral compass of the world”, insisted the Reverend Dr. Munther Isaac in his 2023 Christmas sermon, entitled, “Christ in the Rubble.” After his sermon went viral, his words were subsequently quoted by UN Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed.
A short video introduction to the article – viewed 18k times in the first week.
Lamentably, many Christian leaders in the USA and Europe have stood by, silent and complicit, unwilling to criticise Israel for what is increasingly recognised as a genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people.
This article will analyse the Church of England official statements about Gaza since 7th October 2023, together with criticisms, and provide an assessment of the Church’s moral integrity in its stance on Gaza.
The best of the photos taken at the Gaza Rally in London on Saturday 3rd August. It was heartening to see so many young activists.
Chris Nineham of Stop the War said this evening that 100,000 attended the protest in London today. It was the 17th demonstration since October last year and as large as the first. This is no longer a protest against Israeli genocide in Gaza, it is a protest against Israel’s agenda to lead the West into a war against Iran and Lebanon. We are now in uncharted waters.
In this short presentation, I will be reflecting on the life and teaching of Imam Ali al-Reza,[1] from a Christian perspective. This will not however, be an exhaustive or comprehensive analysis of Islamic and Christian ethical codes, but rather a comparison of some of the examples contained in the Rezavi Codes of Ethics and Selected Sayings of Imam Reza, with similar statements found in the teaching of Jesus.
Given that you will likely already be familiar with the example and teaching of Imam Reza, I will elaborate more on the teaching of Jesus to illustrate similarities and differences, recognising that Imam Reza, living many centuries after the New Testament was written, may well have been influenced by it, consciously or otherwise.
However, I am not a specialist in Islamic studies, or indeed of comparative religion. Nevertheless, I have helped organise, or have contributed to, several international conferences on Christian-Muslim dialogue, for example, with the World Islamic Call Society, Libya (2009), Fuller Theological Seminary, USA (2009); the League of Arab States in Qatar (2012) and Iraq (2013), the New Horizons conference, Iran (2014), and the Institute for Advanced Islamic Studies, Malaysia (2023).
In my own engagement with Muslims, I am deeply indebted to the Syrian Christian scholar, Chawkat Moucarry. In his life and teaching, he promotes Christian-Muslim dialogue, as well as challenges many popular stereotypes held by Christians of Muslims. In a paper entitled, “A Plea for Dialogue Between Muslims and Christians”[2], Moucarry defines dialogue in these terms:
“I take dialogue to mean a deliberate effort to engage genuinely and respectfully with each other; willingness to listen and understand; a readiness to learn and be challenged; a desire to relate to, communicate with, and be understood by one another. In Christian-Muslim dialogue, the focus is the Christian and Muslim faiths and their implications for individuals and communities in this life and the next.
For many centuries Western Christians have ignored or confronted the Muslim world. Ignoring Muslims is no longer an option in our “global village” where Muslims and Christians live next to each other. Some Christians seek to reach out to Muslims in confrontation, attacking Islam in a war of words. This approach is counterproductive as it usually inspires Muslims to become more radical in their beliefs, and often provokes an offensive reaction, too—Muslims attacking Christianity even more vehemently. A polemical engagement with Islam is also incompatible with “the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:15), which is about love, reconciliation, and forgiveness… Even in a heated debate the Christian apologist must refrain from polemics, personal attacks, and derisive arguments about Muslims and their religion.”
Dialogue should be understood more broadly than verbal engagement. It is a way of life: an open attitude toward others, seeking to reach out and to welcome people, including those who are different or even antagonistic.”[3]
With that objective in mind, let us now compare the example and teachings of Imam Reza and Jesus Christ.
Prepared for the Fifth Global Congress on Imam Reza, held in Mashhad, Iran, 13-14 May, 2023
[1] Rezavi Codes of Ethics: A Glance at Imam Reza’s Personal and Social Behavior (The Islamic Relations Office and Foreign Pilgrim’s Affairs of the Astan Quds Rezavi); Selected Sayings of Imam Reza by Mohammad Hakimi (Behnashr Co, Astan Quds Rezavi Publications)
I wonder if you can remember the comedy film Miss Congeniality staring Sandra Bullock. There’s a scene in which she appears in the Miss USA beauty pageant. Each contestant steps up to the microphone to answer the question, “What’s the most important thing our society needs?” They each smile and give the same cliched answer – “world peace”. All except Sandra Bullock who replies, “Harsher punishment for parole violators”. When the crowd goes silent and Sandra Bullock realises they don’t share her enthusiasm for justice, she adds, “And world peace” and then the crowd goes wild.
Although the humorous scene makes light of ‘world peace’, implicitly, it raises the question, “If we all believe in ‘world peace’, if we all want ‘world peace’ why, oh why, is it so elusive? I suggest the clue lies in Sandra Bullock’s unpopular reply, but lets leave that for now and come back to it later.
When we turn our attention from fiction to reality, and in particular to Gaza, we recognise peace is a serious, urgent, vital, not just need, but demand. There are people living and breathing in Gaza today who will be dead by tonight, or who will die tomorrow or on Thursday and on Friday.. In a very real sense, Palestine is the litmus test, or as Revd Dr Munther Isaac said this week, “Gaza is the moral compass” of the world order. If the international community cannot, or will not, apply international law and binding UN resolutions, and stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, if the highest court in the world, the ICJ will not hold Israel accountable for genocide, then there is no hope for peace anywhere else in the world. All we have is anarchy, the law of the jungle, the survival of the strongest. Ironically Sandra Bullock was right in Miss Congeniality. World peace begins by holding parole violators accountable because there will be no peace without justice.
It was a delight too share a platform with Baha Hiro at the Duck Cafe, in Kuala Lumpur to discuss Palestine and how to challenge Israeli Apartheid and achieve a just and lasting peace.
The term “genocide” was formulated by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin against the backdrop of the Holocaust. It was codified as a crime under international law in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The definition of genocide, as set out in Article 2 of the Convention, is simple and straightforward, its first three elements clearly reflecting Israeli policies and actions towards the Palestinian people since initiating its process of systematic genocide in 1947:
Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
My favorite hotel in all the world is the Walled Off in Bethlehem. Designed by Banksy, the anonymous British artist, it overlooks the Separation Wall. In bricks and mortar Banksy demonstrates how art can become an act of defiance against Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid. Tuesday this week, 29th August, was the anniversary of the assassination of Naji Al-Ali, the Palestinian political cartoonist and writer who drew the iconic image of the 10-year-old child Handala, which you often find drawn on the Apartheid Wall dividing the illegal Israeli colonies from the Palestinian ghettos. Appropriately therefore this week’s Kumi Now reflection, is entitled, ‘Art as Resistance’.
“Too often the Palestinian tragedy is portrayed as a humanitarian crisis rather than one that has to do with identity and self-determination. They believe art is a luxury that Palestinians cannot afford. That, instead, what they need is bread to eat, to fill their stomach, so they can think and live another day. But people “shall not live by bread alone” (Matthew 4:4). Art and culture instead feed the soul and allow it to thrive. It gives people the strength to refuse being on the receiving end, perceived as victims. It allows people to become actors instead of spectators. It gives them the long breath necessary to resist. For wherever there is occupation, there will be resistance. The question therefore is not whether to resist, but how to resist.”
