The Christians We Forget:  Palestine and The West.

There is something deeply strange about the way we in the West talk about the Holy Land.

We talk about Bethlehem.

We talk about Nazareth.

We talk about Jerusalem.

We talk about places where Jesus walked, preached, suffered, died, and rose again.

We put pictures of these places on Christmas cards.  We sing about them in our churches.  And yet, somehow, we can forget the Christians who actually live there.  Palestinian Christians are one of the great forgotten communities of Christianity.  And perhaps that should trouble us.

Christianity Didn’t Begin in The West.  It is easy, particularly if you are in Britain or Europe, to unconsciously think of Christianity as a Western religion.  Our churches are historic, and our cathedrals dominate our cities.  Christian traditions shaped European history for centuries.  But Christianity did not begin in Europe.

It Began in The Middle East.

Jesus was not European.  The apostles were not European.  The first Christians were not European. Christianity emerged in the Eastern Mediterranean in the very landscape we now call the Holy Land.

This means that Palestinian Christians are not simply people who happen to practice Christianity in a predominantly Muslim part of the world.  They are descendants of communities that have maintained a Christian presence for an extraordinarily long time.  Their story is part of our story.

Imagine Being a Christian in Bethlehem.

Imagine growing up in Bethlehem.  For millions of Christians around the world, Bethlehem is almost impossibly familiar.  It is the place of Christmas carols, nativity scenes, and candlelit services.  But for a Palestinian Christian, Bethlehem isn’t simply somewhere you visit on a pilgrimage; it’s home.

Your family may have lived there for generations.  You may walk past churches that existed before many of the great cathedrals of Western Europe.  You may hear Christmas hymns about your own town being sung thousands of miles away.  And then you watch members of your own community leave because they no longer have a future there.  There is something profoundly sad about that.

We Shouldn’t Turn Palestinian Christians into Political Symbols.

There is another danger, though.  We shouldn’t talk about Palestinian Christians merely as victims or political symbols.  Some have families, disagreements, political opinions, hopes, frustrations, ambitions, and ordinary lives.  Some are Catholics, Some are Orthodox, and some are Anglican or Lutheran.  Others belong to different Christian traditions. They do not all share the same political views either.  That matters because the Middle East, or Western Asia as it is sometimes called, gets reduced to simplistic categories:  Jews versus Muslims, Israel versus Palestine, East versus West.  Reality is much more complicated.  Palestinian Christians live with that complexity every day.

The Uncomfortable Relationship with Western Christianity.

This is where I think Western Christians need to ask ourselves uncomfortable questions.  Why do we care so passionately about the Holy Land as a biblical location but sometimes seem less interested in the people who have inherited its Christian tradition?

Why can we become fascinated by ancient churches and archaeological sites while barely knowing anything about the modern Christians worshipping inside them?

These aren’t easy questions, and they shouldn’t be, because Christianity is supposed to be about people, not simply places.

Israel, Palestine and the Christian Conscience.

None of this requires hostility towards Jewish people or rejection of Israel.  Christianity has a profound relationship with Judaism.  Jewish history, scripture, and suffering cannot simply be brushed aside.  Nor should Palestinian suffering be brushed aside.

A Christian conscience should be large enough to hold both realities.  We can recognise the historic suffering of Jewish people while also caring deeply about Palestinian civilians.  We can oppose antisemitism while opposing injustice towards Palestinians.  We can love Israel without hating Palestinians, and we can love Palestinians without hating Israelis.  That is an extraordinarily difficult teaching.  But perhaps it is precisely what the Holy Land needs.

The Forgotten Palestinian Christian Voice.

I sometimes wonder whether Palestinian Christians could become an important bridge between the West and the Middle East.  They understand Christianity within an Arab cultural environment.  They understand the wider Middle Eastern World.  And they understand what it means to have the world’s most important Christian sites on their doorstep.  They are neither simply “Western Christians” nor simply outsiders looking in. They are part of an ancient Middle Eastern Christianity that has survived empires, wars, political upheavals, and centuries of change.

Their presence matters not because Christians need to claim the Holy Land but because Christianity should never forget where it came from.

Perhaps We Should Listen.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Frankly, I don’t think anyone does.  But I do think Western Christians could do something simple. Listen to Palestinian Christians, listen to Israeli Christians, listen to Jewish people, and listen to Muslims. Listen to people who have actually lived through the conflict rather than television screens and social media.

And perhaps, before we argue about who owns the Holy Land, we should remember something much more important. The Holy Land is not merely a piece of geographical territory. It is a place where human beings live, love, grieve, pray, and where people want their children to have a future.

And among them are Palestinian Christians who have been praying in the land of Jesus for generations.  They should not be forgotten.  If we call ourselves Christians in the West, perhaps we owe them more than a Christmas card. Perhaps we owe them our attention.

And perhaps, above all, we owe them our prayers.

God bless you.

Nick x.