Sadly, most of us remain silent, constrained perhaps by claims of Israel’s centrality in ‘End Times’ Bible Prophecy and a movement that lobbies us to ‘Stand with Israel’.
But a growing number now doubt that divine permission has been granted to ‘park’ Christ’s call to show love of both God and our neighbour as ourselves; to embrace justice, compassion, and mercy, even in times of conflict.
We do not believe a Genesis promise of land to Abraham absolves the modern state of Israel from all accountability for its actions. Interestingly, Jesus never once mentioned ‘The Land of Israel’ as a priority. Rather, he sets His sights on a higher vision, encompassing all peoples. He was not, and we must not be, trapped in the Old Testament.
Once it was God promising land, then in Luke’s Gospel, the land offer to Jesus – ‘All the kingdoms of the world’ is now framed as idolatrous temptation from Satan.
The contradiction couldn’t be clearer. The early Christian Church reconciled new revelation with the historic Hebrew Scriptures by focusing on John Ch:1’s statement that Christ, not the scriptures, was the true ‘Word of God.’ Direct from the source of all. The Greek term ‘Logos’ deployed to describe this divine logic personified: the ‘Word’, creator of all, ‘become flesh’, becoming the hinge, as has been said, on which history turned.
The New Testamental writers contended that in His words and deeds, we see the true face of God: merciful and compassionate, not violent, or vengeful. Those were our projections upon deity. Ancient Israel’s story of competing narratives was a work in progress, ever looking forward on a journey from dim light towards a day-dawning recognition of the true nature of the divine.
Therefore, their scriptures – resulting in our Bible – cannot be read as ‘flat’, with every page of equal authority. Christ takes precedence as our final authority, the one who clarifies the flawed image of God found in the Old Testament, often saying, ‘You have heard, but I say ….’ etc. He is the towering light in the darkness and the peak of revelation. His words and actions the lens that illuminates both past missteps and the way forward.
Luke records Jesus quoting from Isaiah Ch. 61’s Messianic Mission Statement – to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom for the prisoners, setting the oppressed free, and proclaiming the Lord’s favour. But he leaves out Isaiah’s last half-line: ‘and the day of vengeance of our God’ upon Israel’s enemies. Indicating His message is for all. He amends scripture, rejects a religion of revenge, and tells of God’s mercy to those outside of Israel. The synagogue fills with rage, and they try to murder him. He was not, and we must not be, trapped in the Old Testament.
Jesus goes on to model out a new and living portrait of divine requirements: mercy, forgiveness, love of enemies, and sublimely, saying, ’What you do to the least (the most vulnerable, the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and imprisoned) you do to me.’ (Matthew 25:40)
Becoming a God for all peoples. Created in His Image. Therefore, along with many early Celtic Christians, we may believe that we are sacred not because we belong to the right faith or church, believe the right things, or pray in the right way. All are sacred because they have been born.
There is no exemption from the law of love. Apostles and the early Church claimed all the ‘Old Testament’ promises made to Israel were fulfilled in the incarnation.
So, do we really think that the creator of a universe expanding every second at the speed of light is so obsessed with one particular people group owning a sliver of land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean that he permits a Genocide of the land’s Indigenous peoples? And that if enough of the ‘right’ group congregate there, an Armageddon will be triggered, returning a now Martial Christ to dispatch millions as a means to a Millennial reign of peace?
This is an incoherent, heretical, blood-drenched, and grotesque travesty of the true face of Jesus’ loving, compassionate and merciful Abba Father. Rather, it reveals our dark hearts, cloaked in the myth of divinely sanctioned violence. It weaponises the Bible to dehumanise and kill – especially the Book of Revelation, which has been captured by crystal ball polishers prophetically excited by extermination. Ignoring that this book is all sophisticated symbol and allegory deployed to critique the Roman and every empire.
Our Eschatology, our theory of the ‘End Times’, as one scholar has said, ‘has run away with us, and our ethics have been left far, far behind.’
Will the 44,000 Palestinian Christians (yes, they do exist) who were denied access to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, regrettably, have to be ethnically cleansed or killed, along with their beloved Muslim friends and neighbours, because it is ‘God’s Will’ to dehumanise and permit Genocide for the goal of a ‘Greater’ Israel?
I do wonder when a hypnotised church might shake itself awake from its stupor, and raise its voice in a prophetic cry midst this wilderness of destruction; a prophetic cry that will clearly call out our political actors to immediately cease arming and enabling the mass murderers of the innocents?
Roy Uprichard is a member of Christians4Palestine.
Roy Uprichard is a retired teacher who has published three ‘Camino type’ memoirs:
- On (and off) The Portuguese Way. Celtic Connections – Galicia, Ireland and Everywhere.(2021)
- Stone and Water – Walking the Variante route of the Camino Portugues.(2018)
- Restless Hearts – Walking the Camino de Santiago. (2016)
You can view his profile on Amazon.
He is also a member of Christians4Palestine.
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