Christian Palestinians in Palestine

Jesus was a Jew. He lived in Palestine. Christians believe he was human but also the incarnation of God, of the Word that was in the beginning and that was made flesh to dwell among us. The first church was the oriental church. It consisted of Arab Jews. The first centuries after Jesus lived his words were spread around the area. His followers came together and these first churches had their own local languages and traditions. Eventually the church was institutionalized and the common language became Greek.

The Christians that live in Palestine today, probably around 45.000 in total, less than 1% of the population of the Westbank and Gaza, see themselves as descendants of the first Christians.

Christianity traveled from Palestine to other parts of the world. Then Christians from the West came to the East with their own interpretations of the Bible and the religion and they established new churches in the holy land.

Christian Zionism

Some of the texts in the Bible are being interpreted by Christians in a way that supports the Zionist ideology. The myth of a land without people for a people without land, comes from Christian theology. This ideology was adopted by the Jewish Zionist movement and serves to justify the colonization of Palestine.

There are more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists. There are even Arab governments that use the Quran to justify their acts of normalization with the State of Israel. This is what Yousef calls Muslim Zionism in this podcast episode.

Attempts to counter Christian Zionism

Yousef Khoury is a Christian Palestinian Theologian who is actively involved in initiatives like Christ and the Checkpoint Conference and the organizations Sabeel and Kairos Palestine, to educate Christians about Zionism. “While the Christian religion is a religion of love, peace, justice and equality, Zionism is an ideology that results in the opposite”

Listen to the full podcast episode